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StephenDerry

Listed below are comments made by StephenDerry between Wednesday, 5th November 2008 and Thursday, 27th November 2008.

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Caption Competition 11:51pm on 27 Nov 2008 The council cleanup squad had never seen such a bad case of bubblegum stuck to the pavement, little did they realise that their desire to get hold of the clown who did it was about to come horribly true.
Morphing America? 6:24pm on 07 Nov 2008 Ed, however you measure consciousness, whatever the qualitative limitations of human consciousness, it's the best we know of and immeasurably better than that of a cup of coffee!

If there is existentialist coffee out there, its consciousness exists on another plane of reality from ours, is immeasurable and undetectable. Perhaps you should worship it?

(I'm tempted to go on about the improbability of life elsewhere but I fear we've already strayed way beyond what even the smartest cups of coffee would consider topical...)
Morphing America? 1:50pm on 07 Nov 2008 Humans have a brain, senses, and a degree of consciousness (so far as we can tell the highest degree of consciousness yet discovered). Humans don't know everything, sure, but they know enough to ask questions about everything

Coffee lacks a brain, senses and any consciousness at all, so coffee is incapable of comprehending anything.

Belief and knowledge is exactly the same thing from the point of view of the believer, objectively the only difference is belief can be mistaken. Agnostics don't believe or know either position to be true, they keep their options open. Deists/theists believe there is a god (they think they know but are mistaken) and atheists believe/know there is no god. It really isn't so complicated.

As for the "straw man" argument I accept not every element is a requirement for the existence of a god. At the minimum the only thing a god is required to do is exist (why would anyone believe in gods that they admit don't exist?). But a god that didn't create anything, doesn't listen to us, has no power and no knowledge seems so pointless and redundant that one wonders why it is worth the effort in believing in such a thing at all! The more relevant a god becomes, the more powers and knowledge and abilities he has, the more improbable his existence (although even the minimum god is as good as impossible).
Morphing America? 10:49pm on 06 Nov 2008 Atheism is indeed the absence of a belief in a god, rather than the belief in an absence of a god.

However I don't think there is any comparison between the belief in an absence of a god and the belief of the existence of a god. It's all about the probabilities.

If you believe in a god, you believe in a supernatural being who cannot be seen or measured or experienced outside an individual's mind, but can see and hear everything, including thoughts. It created the entire universe from nothing and communicates very obliquely, and never, ever, ever leaves any evidence of its existence... at least not for several thousand years. That's a pretty complex theory, produced from zero, or at best very ancient and dubious evidence. You have difficulty explaining how such a being is possible, where it came from, how it is so powerful, how it can read thoughts... everything about this being is inexplicable.

If you don't believe in a god, you simply believe that explanation is not only extremely unlikely, but actually wrong. There is a leap of faith there, but only a tiny one. It's the same leap of faith involved in being convinced a frog won't suddenly appear on your desk and start singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" in a falsetto voice. It is very unlikely such a thing might happen, but I would go so far as to say I actually believe (know) that it won't.

It still leaves things unexplained, but not half so much.
Stretching America 02:04am on 06 Nov 2008 402: Nick_Gotts

The liberal-biased mainstream media tell me that 350 electoral votes is generally considered a landslide result, Obama is on 349 and North Carolina looks like going his way, so I think by that agreed definition, it will just qualify as a landslide.

Obama's domination of the popular vote is nothing compared to Clinton or Reagan's, however.

As to whether a majority of people can make the wrong choice, the important thing to remember is that "right" and "wrong" are morally subjective terms, not absolutes. To a majority they made the right choice, to a minority they made the wrong choice.

So any majority is wrong, if you're in the minority, and any minority is wrong, if you're in the majority. While most reasonable people (in my subjective view!) would agree that Hitler was the wrong choice, I have no doubt there are individuals alive who still believe he was a truly great and inspirational leader. I think they're wrong, they think I'm wrong, who knows, maybe one day they will be in a majority again. I hope not. There is no ultimate authority of rightness and wrongness, just prevailing popular opinion.
Election analysis 01:53am on 06 Nov 2008 Isn't the argument about gay marriage an argument about semantics?

Marriage is the name given originally by the Church and subsequently by the state to a formal contract of pair bonding. But human beings were pair bonding tens of thousands of years before there was ever a church.

The argument should be (and hopefully is) that gay couples should have the same rights and benefits in respect of the state as married couples and common-law couples receive.

Marriage itself is becoming an outdated notion, it's just a divorce waiting to happen. Marriage is expensive, divorce is even more expensive, I think everyone is better off avoiding it and just, ya know, trusting their partners.
Stretching America 01:25am on 06 Nov 2008 390/robloop

So when you or similarly anti-Obama posters criticise someone it's disparagement (or crucifixion?), but when liberal posters do it, it is vilification?

I think you are playing around with semantics here. You have been consistently harsh on Senator Obama in both tone and language used, other posters have been harsher still. I think he has been treated to far worse accusations than Governor Palin, with far less basis.

He has been called a Muslim, a Marxist, a terrorist, a socialist, a liar, a deceiver, a person of low moral fiber, and a dismal specimen. The worst I recall Governor Palin being called on these blogs is (repeatedly with numerous variations) an idiot.

Personally if I were to label the treatment of one disparagement and the other vilification (ie painting as a villain), I'd go the other way round. But clearly you must be particularly sensitive about the accusation of idiocy, I dare not speculate why.

I'm happy to agree Governer Palin has been subjected to disproportionate abuse (notwithstanding her "Real America" comments and the newspaper question), but I've yet to hear the faintest acknowledgement from you that the same applies to President Elect Obama. I suspect this is because you genuinely think anything you say about him is fair on the basis that you believe it to be true. However independent you profess to be, to everyone else you come across as very stubbornly blinkered, and completely dismissive of any view you disagree with, and the people expressing them.
Stretching America 10:50pm on 05 Nov 2008 Isn't a basic level of Government welfare implicit in the inaliable right to life?
The wiser view 9:54pm on 05 Nov 2008 Don't count your chickens, nursealoft, there are whole cohorts of disaffected lawyers out there who were expecting nice juicy fees... things could still get nasty.
Morphing America? 9:50pm on 05 Nov 2008 2/webdeepak: that's a bit harsh!

You could say that the entire Republican party know nothing about politics because they were making the same prediction up until last night!

For Justin and Ewan to make the prediction a year ago before McCain had even won a primary, and when Hilary Clinton was the obvious choice reflects well on them, after all McCain got a lot closer than Clinton, Romney, Huckabee, Edwards, and even a lot closer than most of the pollsters anticipated.

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