Category Archives: thoughts

beliefs, quotes, thoughts

Religion as a Self-Fulfilling Prophesy

Here’s one of those longer quotes I mentioned earlier. I leave it here, without comment, for your consideration.

Religions are always stridently opposed to the world of the Supernatural. Alleged paranormal events represent competition for the miracles [aka paranormal events!] necessary to any religious belief system and thus compete for the allegiance and contributions of their believers […]

We can observe many members of society who appear to be intelligent and rational in the pursuit of their daily life. However, on Sundays they go to their church or temple. There they participate in incomprehensible and irrational rituals involving magic, prayer and other activities demeaning to their rational minds. Their rational mind tells them that a god does not exist and yet, there they sit and pray to him […]

[…] people tend to associate in communities of like-minded people. Believers restrict their circle of friend and family to other believers. They surround themselves with mirror images of themselves.

If people wear blinders successfully, then the young and naïve among them hear nothing but the desired belief. No reputable person in his or her sphere of life ever disagrees with or objects to the tenets of their common belief system. As time goes on, people in a mentally incestuous society consider it normal that all seemingly intelligent people believe as the community believes […]

[…] the believer sees non-believers as abnormal and undesirable. Thus, religious belief maintains itself through self-affirmation, insulation and demonization of non-believers.

[cliffkirtley at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/]

books, quotes, science, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

It’s been an odd week, apart from the fact I’ve been ill, with not many good quotes which are short enough for here, but lots of long ones. Maybe I’ll blog the long quotes in separate posts later, meanwhile here are a handful of short ones.

James Joyce fans in Dublin spend up to 36 hours reading Ulysses aloud every year on June 16.
[Times; 29 September 2010]

When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
[Isaac Asimov]

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.
[Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]

Life is change that we don’t attend to.
[Cory Silverberg at http://sexuality.about.com ]

Our experience of sexuality is inseparable from our experience of life.
[Cory Silverberg at http://sexuality.about.com ]

beliefs, medical, science, thoughts

Nobel Prize for Medicine

This year’s Nobel Prizes are being announced this week. In general the Nobel Committee makes good decisions on who deserves recognition in the sciences and it isn’t often that I would quarrel with their choice. I’m not really competent to judge when it comes to the Literature prize. And it seems to me the Peace prize is always something between the doings of the court jester and a political football.

The first of this year’s prizes, announced on Monday, was the prize for Medicine which was awarded to Prof. Robert Edwards who devised (and with Prof. Patrick Steptoe developed) IVF.

I apologise in advance if my view upsets anyone (I know it will some) but this is one science award I will quarrel with. In my view IVF should have been strangled at birth.

I take a basically “egalitarian” view of our relationship with Nature: “Nature must be interfered with as little as possible. There are no safe limits so we must always show caution. Nature is fragile. Any risk is unacceptable.” (OK like all these generalisations that is a slight exageration of the detail of what I believe, but I certainly tend more towards the “egalitarian” view than any other.)

In consequence I feel that if a couple are unable to have children naturally then Nature has some good underlying reason for this and perhaps we should not be playing God. To me IVF is not a step forward but something which we should not be meddling in; it is the medicalisation of a normal part of normal life. Not being able to have children isn’t a life-threatening, debilitating or even disfiguring disease. Compare it with, for instance, on the one hand elective cosmetic surgery and on the other type 1 diabetes. (It is also the first step on the path to eugenics, but that’s a completely different argument which we won’t go into here.)

As such to me IVF is not something worthy of a Nobel prize. That is in no way to belittle Prof. Edwards’ and Prof. Steptoe’s undoubted medical and technical skills and their vision of how to solve the problems from which much has indeed been learnt. (For example, Prof. Steptoe was a pioneer in the development of laparoscopy as a surgical technique.) But just because we have the technology to do something does not mean we have to do it.

Prof. Edwards is on record as saying “The most important thing in life is having a child. Nothing is more special than a child.” All I can say is that if he thinks that putting another mouth to be fed on this planet is the most important thing ever, well I despair. Where are his ethics? Where was his Ethics Committee? Oh, hang on, back in ’60s and ’70s when the work was being done there probably wasn’t an Ethics Committee. Hmmm.

amusements, beliefs, current affairs, photography, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

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Here, in random order, is this week’s rather rich helping of amusing and insightful quotes.

The first two are from Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert; right on the money as always:

A CEO has something called a “vision.” That is a view of the future that is not supported by evidence.
[Scott Adams at The Scott Adams Blog]

The primary function of a CEO is hurting other people, specifically the stockholders and employees of competing companies. He wants to take their market share, their wealth, and their happiness. And a CEO isn’t too affectionate with his vendors and employees either.
[Scott Adams at The Scott Adams Blog]

I can think of many who won’t like the next, but again it is so true:

Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told.
Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right.
[Found on Tumblr]

And this was from a video clip of an interview with a couple of gays; it cracked me up!

Love at first innuendo.
[Dan Savage]

This one is for Katy …

Eat cake. Change lives.
[Macmillan Cancer Support advertisement]

I couldn’t resist this wonderful critical put-down on a paragraph of absolute scientific mumbo-jumbo:

That paragraph reads like he authors were cobbling together a braille sentence using the random distribution of acne on someone’s back.
[Jesse Bering at www.scientificamerican.com/blog/, 22/09/2010]

If only I’d been told this next many years ago!

The only disability in life is a bad attitude
[Quoted by Kittypinkstars at Flickr]

How the other half live:

Glamour model Katie Price has been found guilty of not being in proper control of her pink horsebox after veering into another lane in Sussex.
[BBC News]

Needless to say it was the very idea of a pink horsebox which got me! And so finally an interesting “off the wall” take which again contains a huge element of truth:

I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people. Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.
[Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists]

That’s all for this week.

beliefs, food+drink, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

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I’ll spare everyone another picture of Rye or the Romney Marsh today and instead I offer this week’s crop of amusing and/or thought-provoking quotes.

Plan B and Arcade Fire get Q nods
[BBC News website headline]

We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.
[Lily Tomlin]

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
[Antoine de Saint-Exupery]

Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra; sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus.
Baths, wine and sex spoil our bodies; but baths, wine and sex make up life.
[Epitaph of Tiberius Claudius Secundus]

Inside every old person is a younger person wondering what the fuck happened.
[unknown]

Come, bring hither quick a flagon of wine, that I may soak my brain and get an ingenious idea.
[Aristophanes, The Knights]

Leadership is a form of mental illness.
[Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert]

Oh and I thought I’d spare you more from the Dalai Lama on Compassion – that’s all he seems to talk about at the moment, although I do see why as that is largely, at rock bottom, what Buddhism is all about.

personal, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

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A rich crop of thought-provoking and amusing quotes from which to pick this week, so here’s my selection:

The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.
[Tom Bodett]

Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since one who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences, or the things of this world. And what is worst, those who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance, and so do not seek a remedy.
[Roger Bacon]

We apprehend time only when we have marked motion … not only do we measure movement by time, but also time by movement because they define each other.
[Aristotle]

Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.
[John Ciardi, poet]

To familiarize ourselves with the virtue of patience, it is very helpful to think of adversity not so much as a threat to our peace of mind but rather as the very means by which patience is attained. From this perspective, we see that those who would harm us are, in a sense, teachers of patience. Such people teach us what we could never learn merely from hearing someone speak, be they ever so wise or holy.
[Dalai Lama]

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
[Herm Albright]

amusements, books, food+drink, thoughts

Squashed Buttered Nuts

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Noreen bought a book yesterday.  I stole it.  I stole it because it contains such twinkly brilliant gems as:

Bottled at Source. Abbey Well, Highland Spring, Glenpatrick, Ty Nant Welsh Spring, Pennine (bottled at source in Huddersfield) … Apparently, you can’t walk more than a hundred yards in the UK without falling into a natural spring, an Ice Age glacier, a gushing source of healing, sparkling spring water or a 400-year-old magical fairytale wishing well with purifying pixies, adjacent sandstone filter, bottling plant and market-research department.

Mozzarella. Mozzarella cheese comes in Silly Putty-shaped shiny balls … It tastes of nothing. Mozzarella is stored in those unsettling little water-filled tubs – displayed like some sort of soft-cheese Petri-dish specimen …

Muffins. Since when did it become acceptable to eat fairy cakes for breakfast? … You can keep the modern breakfast muffin. I’ll take the fairy cake any day. Not one of those chi-chi chain coffee shop cupcakes; a proper fairy cake, one with icing and those edible rice-paper cake-toppers in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s face, that crab thing from The Little Mermaid, the Wuzzles or the Popples.

Pacific-Rim Cooking. More fucking mangoes.

At several chuckles, sniggers or snorts a page Sausage in a Basket: The Great British Book of How Not to Eat by Martin Lampen is a must. If, like me, you loathe false food or if you just desire an amusement for that transatlantic flight, then this book will not disappoint.

amusements, beliefs, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s crop of the profound and amusing.

When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
[Mark Twain]

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
[Carl Sagan]

As an atheist I do not believe that there is a God in fact, but the fact of the beliefs of others that God is is highly consequential. It is less important what the real Islam or Christianity is, than what Islam or Christianity is for the people at any specific place and time.
[Razib Khan at ]

Science has nothing to do with common sense. I believe it was Einstein who said that common sense is a set of prejudices we form by the age of 18. Inject somebody with some viruses and that’s going to keep you from getting sick? That’s not common sense. We evolved from single-cell organisms? That’s not common sense. By driving my car I’m going to cook Earth? None of this is common sense. The common sense view is what we’re fighting against. So somehow you’ve got to move people away from that with these quite complicated scientific arguments based on even more complicated research. That’s why it’s such an uphill battle. People start off with a belief and a prejudice–we all do. And the job of science is to set that aside to get to the truth.
[Simon Singh in an interview with Wired at http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/mf_qa_singh/]

Q: How can you tell if it’s been raining cats and dogs?
A: You step in a poodle!
[Misty at Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/misty69/4969353334/]