Clipmarks | ljgriffin's Comments

Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:03:56 GMT

clipped by: AcesLucky
clipper's remarks: Daniel Dennett and Lord Winston -- public debate.

Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Prof Daniel Dennett and Lord Winston present their arguments ahead of tonight's public debate

Yes, says Prof Daniel Dennett

No, says Lord Winston

If religion isn't the greatest threat to rationality and scientific progress, what is? Perhaps alcohol, or television, or addictive video games.

People are revered for their capacity to live in a dream world, to shield their minds from factual knowledge and make the major decisions of their lives by consulting voices in their heads that they call forth by rituals designed to intoxicate them.

"You cannot lose by professing belief in God - if He does not exist you lose nothing, and if He does exist, you will be rewarded in the afterlife." Dennett argues that it is better to live as if there is no God, attempting to make the world a rational and better place.

The debate on religion versus science will take place tonight at the British Council.

Tags: bible, christian, church, faith, religion, daniel dennett, lord winston

Men and women are programmed differently when it comes to temptation

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:19:06 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: "One interpretation of these studies is that men are unable to ward off temptation. We do not subscribe to this. Instead, we believe men simply interpret these interactions differently than women do," said Lydon. "We think that if men believed an attractive, available woman was a threat to their relationship, they might try to protect that relationship."

Clip Source: pastorbobturner.blogspot.com

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Temptation may be everywhere, but it's how the different sexes react to flirtation that determines the effect it will have on their relationships.

In a new study, psychologists determined men tend to look at their partners in a more negative light after meeting a single, attractive woman.

On the other hand, women are likelier to work to strengthen their current relationships after meeting an available, attractive man.

Men may not see their flirtations with an attractive woman as threatening to the relationship while women do, according to findings from a study in the July issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Researchers conducted seven laboratory experiments using 724 heterosexual men and women to see how college-aged men and women in serious relationships react when another attractive person enters the mix.

Tags: behavior, relations, gender differences

They make a lot of children!

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:23:58 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.

"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook.

He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4% of the world population — a stable percentage — while Muslims were at 19.2%.

"It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer," the monsignor said.

Formenti said that the data refer to 2006. The figures on Muslims were put together by Muslim countries and then provided to the United Nations, he said, adding that the Vatican could only vouch for its own data.

Tags: muslims, catholics

Believing Global Warming

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:43:16 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it's time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.

The real place where discussions of global warming belong is in the realm of belief, and particularly the motives for belief.

The first is as a vehicle of ideological convenience.

Take just about any other discredited leftist nostrum of yore – population control, higher taxes, a vast new regulatory regime, global economic redistribution, an enhanced role for the United Nations – and global warming provides a justification.

A second explanation is theological.

A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence.

Finally, there is a psychological explanation.

What's remarkable is the extent to which penance sells among a mostly secular audience. What is there to be penitent about?

Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We?

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:23:18 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We?

Millions of Americans are embarrassingly ill-informed and they do not care that they are.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson

Just how stupid are we? Pretty stupid, it would seem, when we come across headlines like this: "Homer Simpson, Yes -- 1st Amendment 'Doh,' Survey Finds" (Associated Press 3/1/06).

"About 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the fictional cartoon family, according to a survey.
"The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms."

How Floating Cities Will Work

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:35:51 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: www.howstuffworks.com

How Floating Cities Will Work

by Kevin Bonsor

Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this How Stuff Works article:

Bonsor, Kevin. "How Floating Cities Will Work." 22 December 2000. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/floating-city.htm> 01 July 2008.

Inside this Article

Photo courtesy Freedom Ship International
Freedom Ship will contain a city with 50,000 residents
and many amenities.

Tags: how floating cities will work, freedom ship, ocean real estate

Who Is The Real Patriot?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:44:27 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: I may not agree with his religion or some of his views, but I'd rather be in his fox-hole than Dick Cheney's or George Bush's.

Clip Source: www.blueridgenow.com

A young African-American man heard John F. Kennedy’s “Ask what you can do for your country,” gave up his student deferment, left college, joined the Marines for two years and then became a Navy corpsman. Elected class valedictorian, he was assigned for four years to Bethesda Naval Hospital where he helped care for Lyndon Johnson.

Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney used student deferments, avoiding active duty through family connections. Who’s the real patriot — one who sacrificed years or those who merely mouthed love of country?

Some of Wright’s comments are inexcusable and rightly condemned, but calling him “unpatriotic”? Wright’s church offers many services — housing, employment programs, scholarships, ministry to people with HIV/AIDS. “It’s (because of) his deep faith in God and his desire to be an agent of change in the world,” said Michael Pfleger, a South Side Roman Catholic priest. (Gleaned from AP and Chicago Tribune articles, April 4 ).

RedHeads Have More Sex

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:22:24 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Well, I DO have red undertones *LOL*

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Blondes may have more fun but redheads have more sex, according to new research in Germany.

The study by Hamburg Sex Researcher Professor Dr Werner Habermehl looked at the sex lives of hundreds of German women and compared them with their hair colour.

He said: "The sex lives of women with red hair were clearly more active than those with other hair colour, with more partners and having sex more often than the average. The research shows that the fiery redhead certainly lives up to her reputation."

He added that women who dyed their hair red from another colour were signalling they were looking for a partner, and added: "Even women in a fixed relationship are letting their partners know they are unhappy if they dye their hair red. They are saying that they are looking for something better."

Psychologist Christine Baumanns said however that it may not be the women who were to blame for the better sex lives of redheads.

European Values - The Ideology of Fortress Europe?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:36:52 GMT

clipped by: Johanna_G
clipper's remarks:

Are the values of human rights specific to European civilisation, marking the continent off from other regions of the world? Traugott Schoefthaler takes a critical look at the positions of European think tanks and foundations.

↗"Europäische Werte"-Debatte - Ideologie der Festung Europa?

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

Many had hoped that the use of human rights as an ideological weapon during the Cold War would have come to an end with the UN Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993, solemnly declaring all human rights as "a coherent whole".

The recent debate about "European values" highlights two alternative options – a substantive option, insisting in deeply rooted cultural differences between Europe and other regions, and a commitment option, focusing on Europe's commitment to the implementation of universal values which are – at least on paper – shared by the international community.

The first option guides the new European values network, established by Czech, Polish and German civil society organizations. It insists in the specificity of "European values" vis-à-vis other regions and, especially, vis-à-vis Islam.

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

An alternative option

promotes intercultural dialogue as a key dimension of co-development of Europe and "all regions with which Europe maintains relations".

Tags: europe, european union, turkey, islam, european values

Abuse 'rampant' in Mormon compounds

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:54:20 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Talk about slaves in the sex industry. Religion once again wins the blue ribbon for abuse of children.

Clip Source: www.theage.com.au

The main temple in the grounds of the polygamist Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas.
Photo: Tony Gutierrez

CHILDHOOD within a fundamentalist Mormon community means little education, regular beatings, rigorously enforced household duties and, for girls, an arranged marriage in their teens culminating in a lifetime of subservience, say two sisters who fled that life.

"My father had four wives yet he couldn't keep his hands off his daughters," Rena Mackert, one of 31 siblings, said yesterday. "One of my sisters had five sons, all sodomised by their father."

Referring to her own experience, Rena's sister, Kathleen Mackert, said: "I was required to perform oral sex on my father when I was seven, and it escalated from there.

"The abuse was rampant. Physical, sexual, emotional — we experienced all three. Some of it at the hands of the men, some of it at the hands of the wives."

Tags: disgusting

Jesus more radical than Wright?

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:49:59 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: An intriguing challenge, especially to preachers. More on this clip at What's right about Jeremiah Wright

Clip Source: www.dailykos.com

Damn you rich! You already have your compensation.

Damn you who are well-fed! You will know hunger.

Damn you who laugh now! You will weep and grieve.

Damn you when everybody speaks well of you!

That's the Scholars Translation of Luke 6:24-26, and the speaker is Jesus of Nazareth.

God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.

God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.

That's Jeremiah Wright.

Wright isn't saying "FU America!" he's saying "these actions of America are worthy of God's condemnation."

Do I think that 9/11 was the "chickens coming home to roost?"

terrorists bear the personal responsibility for their actions

But to pretend that decades of actions overseas had nothing to do with that terrible morning is far more delusional than anything said by Rev. Wright.

"those who take up the sword, will die by the sword."

If you want

"traitors" in the pulpit, turn your eye toward those who never find anything wrong in the actions of this nation.

Tags: wright, preacher, politics, obama

What I did with my son yesterday

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:43:58 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: I'm getting way too old for this!!

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

What's your love style

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:15:48 GMT

clipped by: magicaldroplets

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Love styles are models of how people love, originally developed by John Lee (1973, 1988). He identified six basic love theories -- also known as "colors" of love -- that people use in their interpersonal relationships:

Eros — a passionate physical and emotional love based on aesthetic enjoyment; stereotype of romantic love
Ludus — a love that is played as a game or sport; conquest
Storge — an affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship, based on similarity
Pragma — love that is driven by the head, not the heart; undemonstrative
Mania — highly volatile love; obsession; fueled by low self-esteem
Agape — selfless altruistic love; spiritual; motherly love

Tags: love, psychology

Obama donor, "he is an elitist"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:16:50 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Mayhill Fowler, a blogger for OffTheBus.net, a Web site published by Huffington Post and created by Arianna Huffington and Jay Rosen, was the first to report Mr. Obama’s comments — that small-town voters bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations.

Ms. Fowler told me in an interview Sunday night that she was initially reluctant to write about what Mr. Obama had said because she actually supports him

She has maxed out at $2,300 to Mr. Obama

also given money ($100) to Mrs. Clinton

$500 to Fred Thompson

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

she found his response "professorial" and judgmental toward blue-collar voters

she was "taken aback" by them

“I’m a religious person, and I grew up poor in a very wealthy family -- sometimes we didn’t have enough to eat, but my larger family was rich,” she said. Her father was a hunter. “Immediately, the remarks just really bothered me. For the first time, I realized he is an elitist.”

Tags: obama, politics, religion, guns, election

Man falls down lift shaft. Meets woman.

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:29:29 GMT

clipped by: queerty
clipper's remarks: They do say things happen for a reason...

Clip Source: www.ananova.com

A German man survived a 25ft plunge down a lift shaft when he landed on a woman who had fallen down it a day before.

Jens Wilhelms, 27, was unhurt after landing on the 57-year-old woman and managed to free himself from the shaft at the apartment block in Frankfurt am Main where he lived.

He called out rescue services who took the woman to hospital.

Doctors said she is in a critical condition after sustaining injuries in her original fall - and then again when Wilhelms landed on her.

Wilhelms said he had slipped as he walked past the lift shaft which had been left open as it was undergoing repairs.

Police are investigating how the woman fell and also why the lift shaft had not been properly sealed off.