Religion

Farewell to Hitchens. Also, it’s hard to be against the left

ArgusEyes — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 11:37:07 GMT

Farewell Christopher Hitchens, I barely knew ye.

People in the skeptical blogosphere have been writing posts on this. One that caught by eye for it’s sheer vilefulness is, naturally, one by P.Z. Myers. The dark side of Hitchens.

It’s only fair to balance the light — Hitchens was a glorious writer and rhetorician, an advocate for atheism, and a brave human being — with the dark, and point out that there were subjects on which he was infuriating.

…

Alex Pareene brings up his peculiar misogyny and his support for war.

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He promoted jingoistic violence as the solution to everything in the Middle East.

…

Hitchens was a complicated fellow: talented and intelligent, and on some subjects he was warm and humane and a true child of the Enlightenment. And on others, a bloodthirsty barbarian and a club-carrying primitive. At least in his final months it was the civilized and thoughtful humanist who emerged most.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/12/16/the-dark-side-of-hitchens/

A commenter, ikesolem, said:

Hitchens may have been a rhetorical genius, but when it came to the Middle East he was woefully ignorant, and acted as a swiller and regurgitator of neocon propaganda (as did the U.S. corporate media establishment).

A person with a dark side. A misogynist, a promoter of violence, a bloodthirsty barbarian and club carrying primitive. Ignorant, a shill for the neocons.

What all this noise really means, when you consider the ilk of the people who are saying it, is that Hitchens disagreed with the left on some things. The horror.

It’s hard to disagree with the left. I’d much prefer to disagree with almost any other group as you would simply have an easier life. That’s the way it is I guess. The reason why it’s hard to oppose the left is that their primary imputed motive to you, as a person who has different views, is that you do so because you are bad or have a defective character.

Hitch was always Hitch. Even when he was dying. He was, at no point, ever close to being characterisable as either a “bloodthirsty barbarian” or a “club-carrying primitive”. Primitives do not use words and rationale like he did. That’s kind of what makes them primitives. This is language that is so tortured and over-the-top that it could almost be called mendaciousness.

Hitch was Hitch. Sometimes he had opinions that differed from you. Deal.

RE: A short quiz on Intelligent Design for both advocates and opponents of ID

ArgusEyes — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:30:43 GMT

I’ll bite: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-short-quiz-on-intelligent-design-for-both-advocates-and-opponents-of-id/

1. On a scale of 0 (diehard disbeliever) to 10 (firm believer), how would you rate your level of belief in Intelligent Design? (Minimal Definition of Intelligent Design: The idea that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and not by an undirected process.)

Update: When I say “certain features”, I mean, “certain generic features of the universe-as-a-whole (e.g. constants of Nature) and of living things in general (e.g. the specified complexity of DNA”. When I say “an undirected process” I mean a process lacking long-range foresight.

2. What do you regard as the best argument for Intelligent Design?

First off. Get over yourself atheists. I’ve read a lot of people saying things like “non – haha”. ID is a stance. It has a set of arguments. Many people find those arguments persuasive. By necessity, some of those arguments will be more logically sound than the others. Pick the best one. Jesus..

I’d say the fine tuning argument is the best argument that ID proponents have on their side. I made a video once where I said that complexity made it hard to believe in evolution. I guess, that being more foolish made be think that a while ago but I don’t think that anymore.

3. What do you regard as the best argument against Intelligent Design?

The argument from history & human nature. When we don’t understand things, we ascribe it to magic. The problem is, that we’re always wrong. We were wrong about Ra. We were wrong about the scarab beetle. We are wrong about lightning coming from God, disease as divine punishment. When we don’t know something we don’t know it. To say that to not know where something came from is to know where it came from. That is a logical contradiction.

4. I’d like you to think about the arguments for Intelligent Design. Obviously they’re not perfect. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective?

ID proponents must do more than simply trying to bamboozle everyone with complexity. Evolution necessarily explains complexity otherwise it’d be useless so that is simply not enough. Also, enough with the design analogies. Yes, a computer is designed but we could not be.

5. Now I’d like you to think about the arguments against Intelligent Design. Obviously they could be improved. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective?

By putting more emphasis on the problems I highlighted above. However, those are flaws I find in ID. Other people obviously think differently.

6. (a) If you’re an ID advocate or supporter, what do you think is the least bad of the various alternatives that have been proposed to Intelligent Design, as explanations for the specified complexity found in living things and in the laws of the cosmos? (e.g. The multiverse [restricted or unrestricted?]; Platonism; the laws of the cosmos hold necessarily, and they necessarily favor life; pure chance; time is an illusion, so CSI doesn’t increase over time.)

(b) If you’re an ID opponent or skeptic, can you name some explanations for life and the cosmos that you would regard as even more irrational than Intelligent Design? (e.g. Everything popped into existence out of absolutely nothing; the future created the past; every logically possible world exists out there somewhere; I am the only being in the cosmos and the external world is an illusion requiring no explanation; only minds are real, so the physical universe is an illusion requiring no explanation.)

Something like solipsism maybe; or variants of it. I don’t really concern myself with such things. I’m only interested in reality.

Liberty askew

ArgusEyes — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:59:12 GMT

I spend a lot of time ripping into the left on this blog and in my videos. Many assume that makes me some sort of right winger. Well, not quite. By the original meanings of the terms “right” and “left”, colour me a lefty any day. However, the problem with those terms is they are so monumentally vague, that saying you’re on the left, whilst being statistically presumptive, is not enough to know the entirety of what a person things about any one issue.

I read all sites of the spectrum. I listen to podcasts, and read blogs, that come from all sorts of angles. Conservative talk radio, Right-leaning conservative, hard leftist, left leaning, atheist, skeptic, creationist, religious. From what I’ve experienced with many people, this is a rare thing indeed. Many blogs are echo chambers for one side of view and I hope I don’t do that here, one such blog is “Dispatches from the culture wars”, Ed Brayton’s blog. That said, he criticise democrats from time to time but it’s mostly a conservative bashing blog.

Either way, Brayton makes an excellent point that I’ve frequently felt myself:

Michele Bachmann was the first Republican candidate to sign a pledge by the Family Leader, an Iowa wingnut group.

by signing the pledge Bachmann "vows" to "uphold the institution of marriage as only between one man and one woman" by committing herself to 14 specifics steps. The ninth step calls for the banning of "all forms" of pornography. The pledge also states that homosexuality is both a choice and a health risk.

See, it's all about smaller government. Small enough to fit a camera in your bedroom to make sure you aren't looking at unapproved pictures or having sex in anything other than the missionary position with a member of the opposite sex. In Bachmann's delusions, aking a census destroys liberty; throwing gays in jail and banning books doesn't.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2011/07/bachmanns_version_of_smaller_g.php

I’ve frequently felt that when American Republicans go on about liberty so much, they mean only a very specific version of liberty. Sure, they want the liberty to earn money and be taxed less but they don’t value liberty as a principle. Not really. How about the liberty to grow and smoke a reasonably innocuous plant in the safety of your own home? Never! Both republicans and democrats are united in the tyranny of controlling what we do with our own bodies.

The Michele Bachmann situation quoted above is informative too. If it offends their religious sensibilities then they'll find rationalisations to explain why our liberty to interact as adults must be compromised. Remember. They don’t believe in liberty, they believe in liberty for certain things they want. Republicans want liberty from tax, democrats want liberty from worldly wants.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

ArgusEyes — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:55:34 GMT

Image Of Virgin Mary Appears In Bird Dropping On Area Family’s Truck

An image of the Virgin Mary that appeared in a bird dropping on the side mirror of a Central Texas family’s truck is causing a neighborhood stir.

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/50946582.html

I love the statement “Image Of Virgin Mary Appears In Bird Dropping”. Yes folks, it’s a fact. This is the virgin Mary, not some indiscriminate smear in some avian fecal matter. That’s A-grade reporting right there. I’m going to give some important life lessons for the reporter, Shannon Dillon.

This is an image of the virgin Mary.

This is birdshit.

Clear?

From the article:

"We just all feel protected. It's a blessing to our family and to everybody that comes to see it," says Cristal Pachuca.

So because it feels good to believe it, then that means it’s true. Can someone get me out of this human race please? I think I will make a good squirrel.

Someone put a good comment at the end

Pareidolia: a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant

The veil in France & the BBC is biased (shock)

ArgusEyes — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:04:16 GMT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13031397

At least two women have been briefly detained in France while wearing Islamic veils, after a law banning the garment in public came into force.

Police said they were held not because of their veils but for joining an unauthorised protest, and they were later released.

France is the first country in Europe to publicly ban a form of dress some Muslims regard as a religious duty.

Offenders face a fine of 150 euros (£133; $217) and a citizenship course.

People forcing women to wear the veil face a much larger fine and a prison sentence of up to two years.

I was all set to rant about this but then I read the news article for the second time and noticed the bias in it. Notice that the title is “Women in face veils detained as France enforces ban”, the article states that the police say they were charged on other things, not for wearing the veil. Yet the language of the piece subtly associates the fact that they were detained whilst wearing the veils. Most people will walk away with a distorted opinion of what the truth actually is. Let me be clear. I don’t know what the reason was, there is the police BS and then there is the real truth and the two are not necessarily one and the same.

That aside. Here’s my opinion on the veil ban in France. If you were to ask me for a list of countries that didn’t know the difference between personal freedom and their own arsehole, I would probably put France near the top of the list. It’s interesting to see their spasmodic attempts to fight back against the extremes of Islam resulting in draconian impositions on what perfectly fine pieces of clothing the citizenry can wear. Yes I look down on the veil, but I also look down on governments who intrude into the lives of the people and thing that the short-sighted “pass a law” approach is an appropriate reaction to a larger problem.

Ricky Gervais on Atheism

ArgusEyes — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:33:47 GMT

If you’ve seen Ricky Gervais’s stand up shows, then you’ll get a vibe for what his opinions are on atheism. He pens a piece in the Wall Street Journal blog entitled ‘A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais: Why I’m An Atheist’. It stands, not as a deep conversation on atheism, but as a good summary and introduction to the topic for a person who might not know much about it. Highlights.

Arrogance is another accusation. Which seems particularly unfair. Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know. It bases its conclusions and beliefs on hard evidence -- evidence that is constantly updated and upgraded. It doesn’t get offended when new facts come along. It embraces the body of knowledge. It doesn’t hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition. If it did, you wouldn’t get a shot of penicillin, you’d pop a leach down your trousers and pray. Whatever you “believe,” this is not as effective as medicine. Again you can say, “It works for me,” but so do placebos. My point being, I’m saying God doesn’t exist. I’m not saying faith doesn’t exist. I know faith exists. I see it all the time. But believing in something doesn’t make it true. Hoping that something is true doesn’t make it true. The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/19/a-holiday-message-from-ricky-gervais-why-im-an-atheist/

Christmas Wars: The battle of the fundamentalists

ArgusEyes — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:04:16 GMT

I hate this sign. First off, I don’t understand the need to spew your message over others in the form of advertising. I don’t watch TV mainly because of the advertising, I don’t accept the invitations to have advertising on my YouTube channel. That said, what I don’t like about it is the bold-faced assertion that people who are looking upon this somehow know that Christmas is a myth. This is as close to calling them a liar that you can get without actually saying it. No, they don’t know it’s a myth, they sincerely believe in it.

There is type of person, or maybe a type of thinking that we all go through but maybe grow out of. This mentality leads one to believe a set of things for various reasons and to assume that when someone disagrees with them, then it because that is like they are, and has also come to the same conclusions on life but acts against them due to personal flaws such as greed, envy, etc.

In essence, it is an example of projection. The person thinks that all people must think like they do, that they have identified right and must have taken active measures to move from it to wrong. The projection comes from the projection of the life steps that the projector has gone through onto the person they disagree with. However in reality, we all have had different life experiences that inform the decisions we have made, we also have differing levels of wisdom which is the most important of all. What is important to know, is that we generally all believe the things we say we believe. A person who denies this, or acts like he denies this, is so foolish in his understanding of the human animal that he can almost be written out of serious consideration altogether.

P.Z. Myers is one such person. My favourite smart fool on the entire web. In a post entitled “Get over yourselves, timid atheists”, he castigates an author of a Jezebel post who criticises the advert. So he is in favour of the advert, bowl me over. So when a direct mirror image of the advert appears, an advert which says “You Know It's Real: This Season Celebrate Jesus” appears. Then a consistent person, he has this to say:

The pro-superstition sign says, "You Know It's Real: This Season Celebrate Jesus". Isn't that sweet? It's just like the religious side to proclaim a falsehood. Anyway, they're welcome to buy the ad space. The real winners here are the commercial enterprises marketing billboards and selling, selling, selling…and when you get right down to it, isn't that what Christmas is really all about?

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/the_war_on_christmas_escalates.php

Everyone can see a hypocrite except the hypocrite himself. Everyone can see a fundamentalist except the fundamentalist himself. If it is a falsehood to say we know it is real then it is just as much of a falsehood to say we know it is false. Atheists like Myers scoff at the “fundamentalist atheist” claim but they don’t know what it means. It’s in reference to tactics and modes of thinking that one undertakes as a part of a group. As much as Myers may hate Bill Donohue, they are peas in a pod.

Michael Egnor moves the goalposts. Predictable

ArgusEyes — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 07:12:29 GMT

In my post “Michael Egnor has questions for atheists”, I detailed Michael Egnor’s 8 questions for atheists. He has responded.. To P.Z. Myers. Which is really what he wanted to do in the first place. There is only one part to his reply that I am interested in.

1) Why is there anything?
Myers: Nothing is unstable.
Me: "Nothing" is not unstable. Nothing is not stable. Nothing is not metastable, nor hypostable, nor quasi-stable. Nothing is nothing. Nothing has no properties. "Nothing is unstable" is gibberish. Hence its central place in New Atheist atheology.
If by "nothing" Myers is referring to the emergence of matter by quantum fluctuations (today's trendy New Atheist evasion of theism), I observe that a quantum field isn't "nothing." A quantum field is very much something, in need of explanation. A quantum field gives rise to particles, not to itself. You have to explain the existence of the quantum field. Nice try.
The question "why is there anything" is fundamental. The classical theist answer is that God's essence is His existence, and He is the ground of existence. Note that God (as understood classically) does not need explanation or cause. The uncaused nature of God is demonstrated, not stipulated, by classical theism (see Aristotle's Prime Mover argument and Aquinas' First, Second, and Third Ways). Furthermore, the Prime Mover argument (Aquinas' First Way) demonstrates that God's existence is necessary even if the universe was eternal and had no beginning; His existence is necessary for existence of the universe at every moment.
New Atheists don't understand the question, don't understand the terminology, and don't understand their own rudimentary logical contradictions. New Atheist ignorance doesn't mean that classical theism is true; it merely means that New Atheism has nothing to say. But I sort of suspected that.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/11/if_nature_abhorred_a_vacuum_ne039891.html

Michael Egnor wants us atheists to explain something that doesn’t exist. If the quantum field is not nothing then there is no place in the universe that contains nothing. In short, “nothing” does not exist.

This response also highlights why responding to dogmatists is a pointless task..

You have to explain the existence of the quantum field. Nice try.

If a theist asks you anything then you will immediately get this kind of reply. Also, note the iron-clad assurance that this answer cannot be found. All theism boils down to this:

Infinite recursion to an unknown source.
Cause is magic.
Substantive details about the magic is the culturally taught/assumed religion for the person making the argument.

All the waffling and ink of the sophisticated theists rest on these foundations, as someone who couldn’t be anything other than an atheist. I cannot relate nor understand this line of thinking. That we do not know everything is not a fear to me. It does not niggle me, and I cannot understand how a theist can rest back on his or her laurels and pretend like they have the answer to these questions. How can they do it?

They ask “why this” and “why that” as if they have the answer. They don’t. However, it is an impossibility for them to admit this and here’s why:

The concept of god is a natural cognitive outcome of the endless “why” line of thinking. The thinking, and by extension, human nature, comes first and the manmade construct of god comes out of it.

It is in the nature of man to believe in Gods, therefore Atheists are the abnormal ones in that they are okay with not knowing. Believers don’t really “know” anything but they have to believe that they do otherwise there is no dissonance relief to the burning desire to substitute an answer for every question.

Michael Egnor has questions for atheists

ArgusEyes — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:13:24 GMT

So Michael Egnor writes a piece over at Evolution News and Views entitled “What Do New Atheists Actually Believe?”. He has some questions to ask atheists and he wants us to answer. By the way, the website does not have commenting and I can find no email address for Michael Egnor after a few minutes of googling so one has to wonder just how much he wants our answers but I’ll give you my answers Michael.

1) Why is there anything?

Because “nothing” is inherently unstable. The universe doesn’t seem to like “nothing”. Even the most featureless spot of empty space is a bubbling cosmic cauldron of particles coming into existence and leaving existence. However, if I answered “gravity” to a question of “why do things fall”, then I would probably get a retort of “why is there gravity”. I am going to head this inevitable line of questioning off at the pass Dr. Egnor. I do not have the explanation for why nothing is unstable we are supremely ignorant of the workings of the universe. I recognise this ignorance for what it is and acknowledge it, you cling to the ignorance and use it to justify your magical explanation. The religious always like to pretend that they have the answer to the why. They don’t.

2) What caused the Universe?

Quantum fluctuations are the best current provisional explanation for the origin of matter, leading to the expansion of the universe. I have no doubt that we will laugh at this theory in a hundred years time but it is the only current example of matter coming from nothing. There are no other examples of matter coming from nothing.

3) Why is there regularity (Law) in nature?

No idea. See the answer to question one sans the scientific explanation at the beginning.

4) Of the Four Causes in nature proposed by Aristotle (material, formal, efficient, and final), which of them are real? Do final causes exist?

Pass. I do not have the time to study Aristotle at the moment.

5) Why do we have subjective experience, and not merely objective existence?

I don’t know where this is going. The question seems to be “why does each person have their own experience of the world”? Because our minds differ. No two minds are exactly the same and are also affected by our environment, this leads to differing interpretations of the world. Is this not obvious?

6) Why is the human mind intentional, in the technical philosophical sense of aboutness, which is the referral to something besides itself? How can mental states be about something?

Philosophical onanism. As a programmer and scientist I feel a special kind of loathing towards meaningless garbage like this. What the hell is he talking about? Am I the stupid one? Since I cannot answer the question, let me rant about philosophers and academics. Basically, philosophers should get honest jobs such as hamburger cook. I’ve always noticed trends in similar between theists and philosophers the urge to capitalise on not knowing, to spread doubt and confusion so that we cannot assuredly define terms and come to conclusions about things. The aim is the same; to satiate the desire in the human being philosophising to see wonder and mysticism in life. Name for me the essential difference between this definition of Metaphysical solipsism and religion:

Metaphysical solipsism is the "strongest" variety of solipsism. Based on a philosophy of idealism, the metaphysical solipsist maintains that he is the whole of reality and that the external world and other persons are representations of that self having no independent existence. Few, if any, have taken this position beyond hypothetical discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

Bollocks.

About academics. There is an irritating trend in many academics to use language which is as obtuse as possible, perhaps in the way that a programmer might obfuscate code in order to increase job security. Academics like I have descried like the sociologist drummer I knew at university, would inevitably be concatenating prepared phrases like “post-modern”, “hetero-normatively”, etc. I heard a great academic blurb on the Dennis Prager show from David Horowitz’s book “one party classroom”. I can’t find it on the web so I will instead point you all to George Orwell’s best essay “politics and the English language”

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don't have to hunt about for the words; you also don't have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry -- when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech -- it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash -- as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot -- it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking. Look again at the examples I gave at the beginning of this essay. Professor Laski (1) uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making nonsense of the whole passage, and in addition there is the slip -- alien for akin -- making further nonsense, and several avoidable pieces of clumsiness which increase the general vagueness. Professor Hogben (2) plays ducks and drakes with a battery which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving of the everyday phrase put up with, is unwilling to look egregious up in the dictionary and see what it means; (3), if one takes an uncharitable attitude towards it, is simply meaningless: probably one could work out its intended meaning by reading the whole of the article in which it occurs. In (4), the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink. In (5), words and meaning have almost parted company. People who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning -- they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another -- but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent -- and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Orwell states that good writing is like a window. Transparent.

7) Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is it an artifact of nature (natural selection, etc.)

Moral law is an artefact of nature. We observer many aspects of our moral behaviour in our animal cousins such as the great apes. They have many of the same social conventions as we do and they have moral behaviour. The verdict is in; that we evolved from apelike ancestors so we inherit the moral systems too. Religions come in and create rules that encapsulate the morality we already had as well as introducing some but wherever you look you will see morality dependent upon the context in which you are viewing it. Take the variety of customs of human society from cannibalism to sepuku. These are things that we would abhor in the context of western societies and yet they exist in other societies. Man and woman is a mixture of nature and nurture.

The religious like to state that the word of God is absolute. But that is a claim that is 180 degrees from reality. If the word of God is absolute then why do we have so many different denominations of Christianity? Why the differing degrees of liberality in a religious worshipper? When you look at the world you see differing moral systems all over the place. When you squint, and lower the resolution at which you look at the world, then you see broad similarities, but morality is a complex equation.

8) Why is there evil?

Evil, like religion, is an outcome of human psychology which in turn is an outcome of our physical brain structure from our physical development. The discussion of why humans are the way they are is so large that I don’t know if I can summarise it here. Hatred of the other, the lack of human understanding, the imposition of our views on others, the restriction of liberty. Let alone that what is evil differs from one person to the next. I think a major cause of human evil is the victim complex, when people think of themselves as victims then they can do tremendously evil things because they have convinced that they are entitled to do so. Take a situation in which evil has occurred and you can find psychological explanations for it. No magic is required.

Does truth matter?

ArgusEyes — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 16:08:00 GMT

In the ongoing tradition of replies that deserve their own blog post. This one is a follow-up to the “Ada Lovelace was not the first computer programmer” thread.

Emotion, to me, is my starting point; it is also an important element of the way I communicate.

..

I also think that truth is just about anything anybody else wants it to be. ‘Truth’ is a word that is available to me in sea of many other words.

This reminds me of when, discussing God with religious people, if a person says that god is a faith issue for them then there is no point arguing anymore because you have boiled it down the fundamental difference between that person’s view of the world and yours. This is similar to you and I.

Truth is subjective.. Your emotions are your guide.. That is a view I can neither understand nor condone.

Truth is not whatever we want it to be. I believe there is a standard of truth that transcends our emotions and perceptions. That is why I go through efforts to clarify what I am talking about, in this instance that the claims that Ada Lovelace was “the first programmer” are false. You don’t get to answer “yes” or “no” depending on whatever you feel you want to, there is only one answer. Whatever you want to define as a program, if you make the statement that Ada was the first to write it, then the fact that Babbage wrote it for her nullifies the idea that she was the first making the answer a “no”. Plain and simple. The question of whether Babbage was the first is separate, and “giving her the benefit of the doubt” is wishful delusion.

Living on emotions is a bad idea. Should the anti-Semite live on his or her hate? Does the racial lies they tell about Jews, which are truly believed by themselves, be the “starting point” for them? Do my protestations over the claim that that Jews slaughter non-Jews in order to use their blood for knead matzes for Passover [1] get legitimately pushed aside against claims that “emotions are my starting point” or does the truth matter?

The world is full of untruths; these are worse than lies because they are normally believed sincerely and thus are much more dangerous, the architect of untruth is emotion. Our societies are filled with victim ideologies like feminism and blackism which keep people in enshrined in a miasma of hateful emotion about how abused they are. This enables them to rationalise the evil their abuse of others. Emotional thinking is perhaps the cause of most of the evil in the world. Lesser versions of this effect cause people to raise other people like Ada Lovelace on a pedestal, the reason is to make themselves feel better, to satiate their own self worth by raising it for another person of the same group as they are, therefore raising themselves with it. It is not something that secure people do.

Your worldview is wrong. Truth is important and it is not whatever you want it to be.

Sources

[1] http://missingpeace.eu/en/articles/132-articles/11-salah-soltan-repeats-blood-libel-while-attending-a-conference-about-interfaith-and-coexistence

Carl Sagan: A Universe Not Made For Us

ArgusEyes — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:13:48 GMT

An amazing piece of writing.

How do feminist oppress men? Plus other questions

ArgusEyes — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:52:25 GMT

From my previous answering questions post comes yet more questions from “bob”. So here they are:

“How do feminist oppress men, or how do they take away men's rights?”

Two ways:

One way is by pushing ideas into the zeitgeist that are anti-male, a good example of this is the Norwegian board of women law (where 40% of the boards of companies must be female) and any quota based law. These laws are not necessarily passed by feminists but are the result of feminist/leftist memes that hold that equal outcomes are necessarily the product of systemic sexism against women and therefore laws must be passed to pass power from the privileged (men) to the underprivileged (women). That unequal outcomes point absolutely to sexism is a though based upon the meme that men and women are the same. After all, if they’re not the same then that difference might explain the differences in outcomes in certain professions – an idea that feminist do not entertain.

The second way is direct action my feminists be it male only university courses (May Daly) or by self-professed feminists who are usually in the government. A good example of this is Harriett Harman who would actually pack the board of a bank with women. Which is direct sexism.

“What rights don''t[sic] men have?”

I make videos for a reason. If I may quote a section from my “Men are more oppressed than women” video.

First unlike the example above this pension tale is genuine oppression. Men in the UK have to work until 65 to qualify for a full pension, women have to work until 60 and generally make less and have more paternity leave. Laws that impose different standards on us based on our sex. Sounds like oppression to me.

How about the fact that discrimination against men is governmentally mandated. Forget about the companies and the universities. The most solid example of this is the new leader of the conservative party in the UK proposed quotas to get the shortlist of political candidates to be half women [2]. Where you see quotas read discrimination.

How about the right to reproductive control. When a woman becomes pregnant then she can abort, give up for adoption and in America shortly after the birth she can abandon the baby and resolve herself of parentage of that baby, this is called safe haven abandonment. When a man gets a woman pregnant then he is screwed, his entire life now becomes a script that the woman will write. If he wants the baby and she doesn’t tough for him, if he doesn’t want the baby and she does then tough for him also.

How about the right to equal protection? Our fascist police state will oppressively arrest a man for a woman’s violence because only men can abuse. A message that is spread by our system and our politicians.

How about the denial of parentage for men? When a split happens the man is treated as sub-human, completely controlled by the government who tell him when he can see his children and when he can’t like he is some sort of criminal.

How about divorce? Where a woman is entitled to her husbands assets and men are made to pay out large sums of money to their wives from businesses that they made succeed. A recent case involved a large payout and continual payouts every year for the rest of the woman’s life!

A man is more likely to be convicted and convicted for longer periods of time than a woman for a similar crime, like murder. We need only look at the attitudes surrounding the Clara Harris case and we see the sympathy that is poured on a woman murderer.

Health spending, for every £1 spend on men’s health care, £8 is spent on women’s health care [3]. Government and charity spending for breast cancer is 37 millions, it’s 10 million for prostate cancer, both diseases kill as many. So the government is spending more to protect a certain segment of the population, how about that?

http://www.true-equality.net/archive/2008/05/10/men-are-more-oppressed-than-women.aspx

“What power do the feminist have to do so if their only power is their voice?”

Ideas are powerful things. The mass murderers of history got into power, in part, by appealing to the masses with ideas. Theories on repressed memory syndrome were used to implant memories of abuse into the minds of patients, by psychologists, and led to convictions of completely innocent day-care workers (many of whom were women) and fathers.

Feminists are an advocacy group who have the current position, of representing women and being equated with what is good for women. I don’t believe this is so but nonetheless, they can influence policy, craft laws and last but not least they can indoctrinate young women and men with their ideas through the apparatus of university.

Never. Ever. Underestimate the power of ideas.

“What's wrong with protesting,[sic] isn't being active part of activism?”

I believe they are protesting on behalf of bad values. That is what I object to in feminism. Are you talking about physical protests? I expect it. Any protest that gets to obnoxious and loud will irritate me, even if I support the cause (tea parties for example).

“Also, are you anti any other movements?”

I am anti any movement that stands against liberty or/and on the side of political correctness.

I am against antiquated and corrupted victimist movements such as feminist and “blackism” or minority racist movements such as the modern black movements or any that is based upon race.

I am against pure racist movements such as the black panthers, K.K.K or white supremacists in general.

I am against the general milieu of anti-freedom movements such as socialism, Nazism, communism, Maoism, Islamism, etc.

I am against radical animal rights movements which are based on the idea of equating humans and animals (like P.E.T.A.), not the ones which want decent treatment for animals.

I am against movements based upon magic, which want the consequences of that magic to be influenced upon others. Such as creationism pseudoscience and religious movements.

I am against anti-science movements such as creationism and anti-vaccination and feminism (yes, many victimist movements have strong anti-science components).

I think I covered most of the bases. In short, I am against most movements as well as the idea of movements. Because at heart, movements are made up of people who represent a certain mindset, the mindset that the world revolves around their particular issue and they tend to view it in the extreme. Movements inevitably tend towards degradation such as feminist fighting for genuine equal rights for women to become the twisted movement it is today. They get invested in perpetuating the movement, and do so, normally by shifting the goalposts of what they oppose and manufacturing new controversies to fight.

This one is catchy too

ArgusEyes — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:14:47 GMT

Oh and a warning. Language.

Hows about an Intelligent Design moron to pass the time?

ArgusEyes — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 07:54:18 GMT

From my video “Kirk Cameron disproves Pascal's wager”. Which, coincidentally, has 46,000 views – holy cow!

DNA: a digital, redundant, error-correcting, self-replicating CODE: exactly what SETI looks for as proof of intelligence. Codes are information. Information CAN'T evolve; it only comes from intelligence. The irreducable complexity of flagellar motors: capable of 100,000 rpms & can stop at a quarter turn. 40 parts, only 10 of which can be explained by evolution. They must be in a particular order. Lose a part & it doesn't work, thus it can't evolve. It's DESIGNED.

“DNA: a digital, redundant, error-correcting, self-replicating CODE: exactly what SETI looks for as proof of intelligence.”

Nope. S.E.T.I. looks for radio signals that are unlikely to have occurred by natural sources. Discrimination is the key. They don’t go “oh there’s a pattern – aliens!” these people are scientists.

“Codes are information. Information CAN'T evolve; it only comes from intelligence.”

You pulled that from your arse. You have genes. Those genes are “information”. Those genes copy themselves with modifications. Those modifications can result in novel traits. Congratulations, your “information” has evolved.

“The irreducible complexity of flagellar motors: capable of 100,000 rpms & can stop at a quarter turn. 40 parts, only 10 of which can be explained by evolution. They must be in a particular order. Lose a part & it doesn't work, thus it can't evolve. It's DESIGNED.”

Lose a section from the base of a tower and it will collapse.
Thus the tower couldn’t have been built bit-by-bit, HAIL JESUS!

Making a Monkey out of Darwin: A Rebuttal

ArgusEyes — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:21:52 GMT

Well, this one's going to be fun.

Patrick Buchanan has written a piece for RealClearPolitics.com called “Making a Monkey Out of Darwin”. It’s a knee-slapping rip-roaring fun ride down lame off-the-shelf creationist claims alley. In short, the claims are:

“Darwinism” inspired Karl Marx
“Darwinism” inspired Hitler
“Darwinism” inspired eugenics
“Darwinism” caused world war 1!? (That’s a new one to me)
The neck of the Giraffe
Nebraska Man
Piltdown Man
The fossil record is rubbish
Stephen J. Gould fossil quote
Darwinism doesn’t explain how life started
“Darwinism” is a religion

Well, isn't that original? Let’s get dug in.

"You have no notion of the intrigue that goes on in this blessed world of science," wrote Thomas Huxley. "Science is, I fear, no purer than any other region of human activity; though it should be."

Right, science as a procedure has created innovation that has completely changed the way we live. However, the people who do the work are humans and humans are flawed, a particular scientist will cling to his or her theory despite reasonable evidence that it is wrong because of his or her personal pride and cognitive dissonance. But, in the long term the theories are gradually refined or thrown out. The scientific method is backing a theory with evidence and submitting it to peer review, it is the best method that humans have derived for finding the truth. It’s a messy process but life is not as simple as wishing making and magical thinking. I don’t believe that a sustainable farce for an extended period of time is likely in the scientific community.

As "Darwin's bulldog," Huxley would himself engage in intrigue, deceit and intellectual property theft to make his master's theory gospel truth in Great Britain.

He is quoted above for two reasons.

First is House passage of a "cap-and-trade" climate-change bill. Depending on which scientists you believe, the dire consequences of global warming are inconvenient truths -- or a fearmongering scheme to siphon off the wealth of individuals and empower bureaucrats.

I am a very light global warming skeptic, I say “light” because as I mentioned above, I don’t think that a prolonged farce is possible in science so I make criticisms very very reservedly. However, I believe that in the global warming issue, there are two groups to the left and right who have emotional reasons for embracing or denying the theory based upon their own belief systems and how much it can advance or recede their agenda. It is a sure golden goose to those who believe in greater governmental control and environmentalists (many times the same people) and people who are the opposite – who believe in smaller government and who oppose the other side consider it to be a thorn in their side.

That Darwinism has proven "disastrous theory" is indisputable.

"Karl Marx loved Darwinism," writes Windchy. "To him, survival of the fittest as the source of progress justified violence in bringing about social and political change, in other words, the revolution."

"Darwin suits my purpose," Marx wrote.

Darwin suited Adolf Hitler's purposes, too.

I should address the endless reference to “Darwinism”. Some evolutionary biologists such as Richard Dawkins use this word often, others don’t like it. I am one of the latter. What does it mean? To put “ism” on the end of something is to make it a belief system of the first word, this no always accurate (I.E. “feminism” is not a belief system of the “feminine” – they often despise traditional femininity) but Darwinism would be a belief system of Darwin, which man or woman who accepts the theory of evolution would accept it as a reasonable term that they base their views on Darwin's? You might as well call me a “Newtonist” or a “Einsteinist”. We accept the body of work of these great people but we do not center our belief systems around them. A good example of a legitimate use of the term would be “Christian” or “Christianity”, the form is different but the idea is to base one’s life on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Darwinism is not an appropriate term in our modern times.

As for the substance of the above quote, I have a certain kind of distaste for such mud-slinging. To assume the superiority of one’s own race or group is a “Darwinist” inspired meme is it? I disagree, I would content that this is a fundamental facet of human nature. Does something like evolution or “Darwinism” lend a patina of scientific credibility to such ideas? Probably. Buchanan states in his article that a theory can be true and yet inspire evil ideas, true, then what is the point of his article? Because he seems to flit between stating that "Darwinism" is false to stating that it has caused evil (even if it may be true), I think he is trying to fling enough mud to make some of it stick.

I have decided to wrap this up as a "part 1" for now.

The Dogma of Feminism

ArgusEyes — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:20:07 GMT

Hi BoundlessEyes, thanks for the video response. For those who don’t know, I contacted BoundlessEyes in the first place to see if she wanted to make a response to my video “what is feminism”. I did so because she seemed to engage in discourse to a greater degree than many other YouTube feminists, which is not difficult seeing as no other group seems as reticent to explain and defend their views.

There is a talk show host I admire called Dennis Prager who has a saying that goes “I prefer clarity to agreement” and that is what I thought we could do here. Clarify where we differ as opposed to just battling it out to win. To do that effectively we I want to address the most important points where we differ. These topics will be on patriarchy, on gender differences and on Harriett Harman.

On patriarchy: I do feel that your video lacked clarity as it seemed like you were less interested in explaining your position and more interested merely reciting dogma.

[see video]

Answering questions in this way will get your fellow feminists nodding in agreement but I fear it has less effect on the rest of us who haven’t swallowed that blue pill. Far be it for me to get in the way of your intellectual masturbation but could you please define your terms more clearly. Patriarchy would be rule by males, at least according to the dictionary that I know you like to use. How can a democracy be a patriarchy? We have had a female prime minister and we have women in government. Iran and the Catholic Church are patriarchal systems. Western democracies are not.

Far from being a solid concept the term seems to encapsulate whatever feminists want it to, and yes I have read a number of opinions on the subject and in doing so I have encountered raises the bar for decedent writing quite a bit. Take one particular view

Feminist writer Marilyn French, in her seminal work Beyond Power, defines patriarchy as a system that values power over life, control over pleasure, and dominance over happiness.[1]

This is not a rational argument. It is an emotional and religious one. And, to be quite honest, it reeks of conspiracy theory.

On gender differences: I believe that we should all examine the things we believe to honestly assess whether they are true or not.

Take for example the common claim that women use more words per day then men do. The numbers you will hear cited differ in each case but they always cite that women use more words than men do.

As a man I am not insulted by this claim, it is either true or it is not.

If we take these studies and add on top our understanding from other research [3] that different areas of the male and female brain are used in sounding out words along with our plain and common sense observations of our sisters and mothers and female friends talking more on the phone and in the office.

Given thus fact it is not a huge leap to posit that the actions and careers that men and women take could be influenced by our differences. I see an obvious nurturing advantage in women, evolutionarily programmed to aid in the protection of young no doubt. Would this have any effect on more women wanting to be nurses for example? It might not but as us scientific sceptics like to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Could we have the evidence that this is societally constructed and by whom and to what ends?

What evidence you have presented would get you a failing grade in any science class for lack of proper isolation of variables. Yes a girl who was raised by dogs, as some sort of proof that humans are a tabula rasa to be scribbled upon by a conspiracy of white males intent upon god knows what. Are you familiar with the phrase “non sequitur”.

You can’t shame me with such dishonest tactics. I have always held that humans are the product of a mixture of nature and nurture as I specifically said in the original video. It surprises me not that being raised by dogs will be a profound effect on a developing child’s behaviour. The difference between the sexes is a fact and if humans can be manipulated so easily then the question of David Reimer still stands? Let’s see the intellectual honesty with which you approach this issue.

That. Was particularly loathsome. Let me read to you how David Reimer described his experience.

"It was like brainwashing. I'd give just about anything to go to a hypnotist to black out my whole past. Because it's torture. What they did to you in the body is sometimes not near as bad as what they did to you in the mind - with the psychological warfare in your head." [4]

David Reimer is now dead, he committed suicide.

I think your supercilious little dismissal about being teased on the playground is a sham. And you need to be honest with yourself about how easily you grasped onto any little scrap of information that you could use as a plausible deniability mechanism to not have to deal with the obvious black eye that the David Reimer case gives to feminism. If you ever want to know why people like myself get angry at feminists then just think about what you just did.

On Harriett Harman:

Remember at the beginning when I mentioned clarity instead of agreement? Well this is the perfect example of a clarifying moment. I don’t need you to explain how the things that Harriett Harman believes leads to her actions. I know how she thinks and why she is doing what she is doing. People who commit bigoted actions frequently do so on twisted belief systems and believe themselves to be in the right. If I may quote Mr. Prager again.

Victimhood. A lifelong study of good and evil has led to me conclude that the greatest single cause of evil is people perceiving of themselves or their group as victims. Nazism arose from Germans' sense of victimhood — as a result of the Versailles Treaty, of the "stab in the back" that led to Germany's loss in World War I and of a world Jewish conspiracy. Communism was predicated on workers regarding themselves as victims of the bourgeoisie. Much of Islamic evil today emanates from a belief that the Muslim world has been victimized by Christians and Jews. Many prisoners, including those imprisoned for horrible crimes, regard themselves as victims of society or of their upbringing. The list of those attributing their evil acts to their being victims is as long as the list of evildoers. [4]

And to that list we can add you and Harriett Harman.

A woman whose mind has become so twisted as to act like women are oppressed by some nebulous patriarchal force whilst occupying a position of immense power and using that power to actively give a governmentally mandated superior status to women.

You have no excuse, from now on, whenever you open that dictionary and say that feminism about equality know that you are participating in a massive lie. For what you actually come to support in reality is sexism and oppression by the very definition of those words that you’ll find in that same dictionary. For in Harriett Harman’s own words:

'It is about saying, "because you are a woman I'm going to put you in this promotion".' [6]

If you read that and like what it says then you can pat yourself on the back and join a very select club of totalitarians who use their grievances to push for tyranny over liberty. Who masquerade under the banners of changing for the better but who in turn bring more misery onto earth. Who push their small minded dogma onto all.

The “What is Feminism” video encapsulated all of what modern feminism means today and the Pièce de résistance is you, a young feminist coming along and proving everything that I’ve said:

Feminism is a movement with a gendered name that claims to stand for gender equality but really is an activist political movement and sexist belief system which, in its worse forms, denies reality, suppresses women’s choice, tramples liberty, hurts men, infantilises women and fosters animosity between the sexes.

Sources

[1] Patriarchy: Encyclopedia II - Patriarchy - Feminist view
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Patriarchy_-_Feminist_view/id/5367497

What is patriarchy?
http://www.essortment.com/all/whatispatriarc_rhsf.htm

[3] Men and Women Use Brain Differently, Study Discovers
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/16/us/men-and-women-use-brain-differently-study-discovers.html

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/09/24/sex_on_the_brain/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-419040/Women-talk-times-men-says-study.html

[4] The true story of John/Joan
by John Colapinto
Rolling Stone December 11, 1997
http://www.healthyplace.com/gender/inside-intersexuality/the-true-story-of-john-joan/menu-id-1427/

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, Glenn Sacks
http://www.hisside.com/6_6_04.htm

Death by Theory? Wendy McElroy
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120914,00.html

Told to Act Like a Girl, Carey Roberts
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2004/0519roberts.html

[5] Why Do People Do Evil?
http://www.creators.com/opinion/dennis-prager/why-do-people-do-evil.html

[6] I'll put women in charge of banks: Harriet Harman's plans to use equality laws to challenge macho City culture
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1178140/Ill-women-charge-banks-Harriet-Harmans-plans-use-equality-laws-challenge-macho-City-culture.html

Dennis Prager comes to YouTube

ArgusEyes — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:37:07 GMT

It’s about friggin’ time.

I get email: 'Real Injustices'???

ArgusEyes — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 11:26:36 GMT

Okay, for some reason I could not post this in the comment section even when breaking it down into little pieces. If you can, please do in the name of free speech:-)

Feministing.com could spend their time on more important things.

But your argument seems to be that one is a coward if one does not address the biggest and most challenging problem of ones cause first. If I was to follow this line of reasoning I too could say that YOU are a coward for taking on Feministing.com as an easy target in this respect surely there are bound to be more pressing issues out there for a stern liberal conservative than a feminist video blog, or?

Feministing.com often relies on very trivial information (which is why it is not exactly respected for its academic inquiry in feminist circles), but it DOES serve the purpose of making known the day-to-day women’s issues that we otherwise don’t hear about in the media. If you are really for women’s rights then lets appreciate Feminsiting.com for what it is.

While I’m at it, why is it that you blame Feministing.com for NOT dealing with bigger women’s issues while those of us who DO devote our time to fighting the evils of for example prostitution or pornography (under which millions of women are suffering world wide) still have to suffer your stigma of ignorance?

I might as well tell YOU that being against Islam because it is oppressing to women while simultaneously being against the work of radical feminists, who spend their lives fighting for women’s rights in different battlefields is a hypocritical self-contradictory load of crap. However, I am not going to.

It is as if you believe that the Islamic world is the only world in which oppression of women is taking place? Freest does not necessarily mean free and thus saying that the western world is the freest society for women in the world does not make inequality in the western world magically disappear.

Remember: Your cause to secularise the Islamic world (I’m on your side there!) is not the ONLY topic related to women’s issues out there. And since you have not experienced what inequality really is, being a white middle class male living in a western society, I would be very cautious using the phrase real injustices.

I am almost inclined to not answer this email as it ascribes imbecility to me, but since I have far better things to do I might as well give it a shot. First of all, your email makes many claims as to what I believe that are out and out lies since I did not make these points, you made them up and then assigned them to me, in many ways this is worst than a lie. Consider this a tip on how to write decently. Address the points of your opponents only, bunch of strawman logical fallacies does not a good argument make.

But your argument seems to be that one is a coward if one does not address the biggest and most challenging problem of ones cause first.

This is an accurate summary of my position. As pertaining to Feministing. However, I would not treat this as a rule to be applied to all people who meet the criteria. There are a few extra things about Feministing that makes me call them cowards. They censor opposing view, they are obtuse and fling obscenities at their opponents, they seem to deal only with trivial crap and they pretty much symbolise the modern feminist sandy vagina method of complaining about nothing legitimate. Given all this, I have no doubts about calling them cowards.

If I was to follow this line of reasoning I too could say that YOU are a coward for taking on Feministing.com as an easy target in this respect surely there are bound to be more pressing issues out there for a stern liberal conservative than a feminist video blog, or?

Only if I don’t take on any larger issues. I do. Also there is a marked difference between an individual person passing comments on youtube as compared to an organisation with the goal of (supposedly) helping women. Given this your comparison of my situation to Feministing’s doesn’t hold up. People can focus on trivialities, we cannot go at 120mph all day, but if triviality is all you do, then I look down on that. This is why I have a certain disdain for people who read trash magazines all the time and never pick up anything better.

Feministing.com often relies on very trivial information (which is why it is not exactly respected for its academic inquiry in feminist circles), but it DOES serve the purpose of making known the day-to-day women’s issues that we otherwise don’t hear about in the media. If you are really for women’s rights then lets appreciate Feminsiting.com for what it is.

We hear a lot about women in the media, if the superficial crap that Feministing peddles doesn’t appear then there is a reason for it. Perhaps you could elaborate on what these issues actually are? Anyway, I content that a lot of silly commentary like Feministing’s does appear out there all over the place.

While I’m at it, why is it that you blame Feministing.com for NOT dealing with bigger women’s issues while those of us who DO devote our time to fighting the evils of for example prostitution or pornography (under which millions of women are suffering world wide) still have to suffer your stigma of ignorance?

I cannot address reams of points of view in one video, that would make it long and unwatchable. The remit of the video was to make a point against Feministing so let it stand for what it attempts to do. I’ll make other videos on other days about some of what you said there.

Also to brand things such as pornography evil is an arrogant presumption that will not be left standing here. A man stamping on his daughter’s neck because of his religion and bigotry is inherently evil and thus I label it as such. Whereas a woman in a free society making her own decisions as to what to do with her own body and choosing to be filmed having sex and making quite a bit of money doing so.. Is not being oppressed. And to label a situation such as this “evil” is to display your real contempt for women’s choices. I, like many other MRA’s don’t want to “turn back the clock” and remove women’s rights like you apparently want to do.

I might as well tell YOU that being against Islam because it is oppressing to women while simultaneously being against the work of radical feminists, who spend their lives fighting for women’s rights in different battlefields is a hypocritical self-contradictory load of crap. However, I am not going to.

That was clever. Ooh, but I cannot complain because you didn’t tell me this apparently. I might as well tell you that you are a presumptuous unwise dishonest fool who has bought a pack of lies.. But I’m not going to. (beat that)

It is as if you believe that the Islamic world is the only world in which oppression of women is taking place? Freest does not necessarily mean free and thus saying that the western world is the freest society for women in the world does not make inequality in the western world magically disappear.

This is what I mean by ascribing imbecility to me. To believe this I would have to be an idiot, and I didn’t say this but you assume I am an idiot because I hold different beliefs to you. This is a character flaw of collectivists and you need to get it sorted.

Remember: Your cause to secularise the Islamic world (I’m on your side there!) is not the ONLY topic related to women’s issues out there. And since you have not experienced what inequality really is, being a white middle class male living in a western society, I would be very cautious using the phrase real injustices.

I wouldn’t say that I have such a cause, but more importantly your statement that “you have not experienced what inequality really is” is the most presumptuous thing you have said so far, you know nothing about me and whilst I have suffered no serious oppressions, men are certainly more oppressed than women in modern western societies. You need to watch my video “men are more oppressed than women” for this proof.

Sincerely,
Mark

God or pilot?

ArgusEyes — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:40:37 GMT

Most of you should know about the plane that was "landed" in the Hudson river. There was a bird strike event where a flock of birds caned both engines, then the pilot made the decision to land the plane on the river. Everyone survived thanks to the pilot and there has been much said about his actions, but there has also been an annoying undercurrent of talk about "miracles" and "God". Case in point, check out the title of this BBC Piece

Pilot hailed for 'Hudson miracle'

Source: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7832439.stm

A miracle is an event that so surpasses natural powers as to be an act of the supernatural. What part of this surpasses all known natural laws? It was spectacular but perfectly possible to do. Also, ascribing this to god is to spit in the face of the pilot who did the work, the rescue workers and the collective human sophistication that creates such stable flying machines.

It's the same thing where people say "the miracle of birth". I don’t think anything qualifies more as a natural law.. Than reproduction. And to label such things as miracles is to take serious liberties with the English language.