How did they know I was a Dandy Warhols fan??

These are the comments from my post I just didn't get it.

Anonymous_1 said...

Godless hippy,

The light wouldn't go out if you were reading the Good Book for once. God would keep it on becuase (sic) he loves you and wants you to be saved.

A-Man said...

Hah! Godless hippy. That's awesome. I can't even tell if anonymous is being sarcastic or serious.

If he/she is actually serious, I have a question...
In the history of electricity and churches, has there ever been a light globe go out in a church or other Christian establishment? Or in fact, at the house of anonymous? Because, if any light globes have ever been replaced even once, then by your logic, God doesn't love you or the patrons of the churches either...

Anonymous_1 said...

Dear A-man,

There is a circle in Hell set aside for people who ask rhetorical questions. They sit next to the sarastics (sic), those who make puns, and those who blind their hearts and minds to the truth by using tricks of language.

Of course lightbulbs eventually go pop. They are man's inventions, not God's creations.

If God wants a person to read the Good News, He will intervene in the world as necessary. That is proved a thousand times in the Old and New Testament. I suggest you educate yourself.

But if you "scientists" want to do the world a service, why don't you get yourself to a church one time, with a pencil and pad, and observe there if a lightbulb blows and observe whether anyone at the time was reading a Bible.

Instead you use poor logic to make the nasty minded joke that if a lightbuld goes out then God has foresaken (sic) his believers. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are a callow youth and do not know what you say.

Anonymous_2 said...

"Proved a thousand times in the Old and New Testament"?

Anonymous, you accuse A-man of poor logic and then base your argument on the assumption that something is in a book, so it must be true? Where is the tangible evidence? This post is about science and proof, which you have provided none of.

I wonder; if Harry Potter was written 2000 years ago, would we take that to be fact also?

This discussion is a good example of the difference between dogma, in particular religious dogma, and science. The dogmatist makes the statement "I am right", while the scientist asks the question, "Am I right?".

So how do we know who is right? Who makes the better argument? Who is using reason and who is using logical fallacies?

Let's start. The burden of proof is always on the claimant.
Evidence has to be provided by the person making the statement or hypothesis. Also, and this is crucial, the hypothesis has to be a non-negative statement. For example, "God exists" is a valid hypothesis whereas "God does not exist" is not. Let's replace the word god with "A teapot in orbit around Jupiter" or "The Flying Spaghetti Monster". Now it is impossible to rule out these two. However, there is just no evidence to suppose these things exist. Also, does the existence or non-existence of the teapot affect our understanding of nature? If not, then we can invoke Occam's Razor and disregard the hypothesis that the teapot exists in its said location.

Now A-Man is just after some evidence that anonymous_1's god exists. It's not up to him to prove that god doesn't exist, it's up to anonymous_1 to prove he/she/it does. What makes good evidence? As anonymous_2 says quite rightly, just because something is written down does not make it true.

So let's have a look at anonymous_1 evidence:
God loves us. Firstly, you have to prove god exists. You can't assume something you want to prove. Next.

That is proved a thousand times in the Old and New Testament. Give me chapter and verse of these instances. Oh, and make sure you specify which book you want to use. Have you read the works that your book has been translated from? Do you agree with its translation? Do you have it in its original tongue? Why do you think that these texts are factual or represent actual people? One assumption made here is that I haven't read the said texts and researched their origins. Doing so was one rationale that led me to the conclusion that there is no possible reason for such a being. In fact, I would even put it that these texts actually provide arguments against god's existence.

But if you "scientists" want to do the world a service, why don't you get yourself to a church one time, with a pencil and pad, and observe there if a lightbulb blows and observe whether anyone at the time was reading a Bible. (I'll just neglect the assumption that I haven't been to church. For 15 years I went to church, ah, and I can't help writing this pun, religiously.) An experiment we can perform. To make this a watertight experiment, the claimant must agree that if a lightbulb blows whilst someone is reading a bible then their god doesn't exist. They must be happy with the experimental conditions. No escape clauses. Then we can have someone continuously reading the bible with lightbulbs on all around.

The rest of the comments are just ad hominem attacks. It is the refuge of those that just can't provide any credible evidence.

Until such time as conclusive evidence can be given, I shall remain a "godless hippy".

(By the way, the day I gave up believing in the invisible being was the most liberating experience of my life so far. It wasn't easy. The entire process took a long time.)

Morcels

Stuff that's in my head at the moment needing to be let out.

1) Corrections/retractions in a newspaper should be printed on the same page and in the same headline font as the original story.

2) Going to the footy this year (when we are not interstate, which seems to be every second week) has been so much more enjoyable than last year. We (The North Melbourne Football Club, not the Kangaroos) are playing a hard tackling, quick moving, chance taking brand. I'm enjoying the work of 19 (will be a future captain of the club), 11 (soon to join the 300 club), 24 (runs out of the backline like Dench did), 10 (our first father and son, and he will be a gun), 43 (a silent tackling assassin), 20 (not quite Shimma, but doing a magnificent job down back), 1 (he will/is scaring opposition coaches). It would only get better if we could get rid of 16, and bring back 38, 8 and 23. And I'm not reading all the gloom and doom stories in the paper.

3) Correcting exams is so boring. It's that time of the year and I also have to write reports this week. The new reporting system is not going to please some parents. But don't get me started on it.

4) I'm hosting a couple of trivia nights over the next month and I been having fun writing the questions, finding faces for my famous faces section, and putting together a music round that will be slightly different to the music rounds of previous trivia nights. I have this urge to test the questions on everyone, but I can't considering that there could be a leak. Anyway, here are famous faces from a previous trivia night.


5) I need to go out and see some bands. Rock and/or roll, it doesn't matter.

6) Training is going well and I feeling quite fit at the moment. The bodies taken a lickin' but it's kept on tickin'. I should be writing the next weights phase for the squad but I'm procrastinating.

7) Attitude to existence, keep em busy so they don't think, Am I right? versus I am right!. These are just notes to myself for future rants.

Old school III

Time to revisit old nightclubs again.
Chasers was a Melbourne institution and hosted one of the best nights, Outlaw. The Hound Dog and Stratos used to spin excellent tracks and knew their ROCK. Many memories.

I just didn't get it

"I was hopeless at maths and science. I just didn't get it." It's a statement I've heard a lot and I heard it again during a conversation I was having on friday night. It often follows the question, "So, what do you do?". Usually the topic of conversation changes and I don't get the chance to give a simple description of what science is, and how in fact most people practice science everyday without realising it. Now, one of the reasons I took up teaching was to show the beauty and power of these two topics. So here goes an attempt to give a primer on science.

You are sitting in the lounge reading a book with the lights on. At the end of a chapter you disappear to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. You come back to the lounge room and the light is out. What do you do?

Option 1
God did it. You sit down and that's it. Some prefer this and spend the rest of their lives in the dark.

Option 2
You decide to find out why the light is out. There must be some natural explanation. Believe it or not, this is the first step in thinking scientifically. So why is the light out? The bulb may have blown.
If this is your only reason you can think of, then you are just a novice scientist. A good scientist will trying to think of many reasons why the light may be out. It may be that your flatmate came in and switched off the light, a fuse may have blown or the electricity in the neighbourhood may be out. And sometimes there are reasons that although improbable, are possible. That possum living in the roof may have bitten through the wires. A thief has cut the power to your house in preparation for a robbery.
Now you have your reasons, where do you start? The simplest explanation is usually the go so you decide to see if someone has switched off the light. You perform an experiment. You flick the switch. Bingo! You go back to reading your book. However, sometimes it's not that easy. Sometimes it requires stepping outside the current problem and making other observations and doing more experiments. You may check other appliances in the room to see if they work. This can help narrow the range of reasons. You may need to ask the advise of others who have had similar problems. You keep trying different ideas, throwing out the ideas that don't work. This way of thinking is an example of the scientific process.

The next question is, what is the difference between good science and bad science? That I'll leave to another post.

Mobile Philosophers

Update
Saw this sticker yesterday and it got me going:


What the hell is it supposed to mean?
Is it that you can only have morals if you believe in an invisible entity? Is it that you must be a conservative if you believe in said invisible being? Or are you supposed to stay in the right hand lane as some sign that you are a god-fearing mofo?

Old bit of post
Bumper sticker seen today;
"MY BOSS IS A JEWISH CARPENTER"
I thought that this needed some witty reply. The best I could come up with was;
I BET YOU HE'S GOT YOU ON AN AWA.
I'm sure that you can think of something better.

Here are some other stupid bumper stickers that deserve a response;
"PHYSICISTS DO IT IN ELEVEN DIMENSIONS"
FIRST TRY IT IN THE USUAL FOUR DIMENSIONS

"I OWN A GUN AND I VOTE"
TOLD YOU DEMOCRACY DOESN'T WORK

"BABY ON BOARD"
I'LL CRASH INTO THAT OTHER CAR THEN

I know these are pretty lame.