Now this is just super. Remember Time Cube? Yes, that Time Cube. Well, today, in my work email, I was treated to the wisdom of Frank Hatch, and his “Final Notice” before the Earth falls into “Null Space”.

I can’t possibly do it justice, so all I can do is let you see for yourself. Enjoy.

Genius

In a stunning case of political correctness gone horribly mad and special treatment for (obviously “moral”) god botherers, it seems that there is a “case” whereby imprisoned sex offenders who adhere to a certain flavour of magical thinking may be allowed to opt out of treatment for their crimes.

The treatment programme seemingly entails a period of discussing and acting out their crimes with their peers (presumably other jailed sex offenders) and assessment. Should their assessment be positive, they may be eligible for early release.

Muslims, apparently, have a religiously inspired injunction barring them from discussing their crimes.

One of the startling — and, in my opinion, very disturbing — revelations put forward is that, should muslims not take part in these treatments and thence not be qualified for parole as an assessment is only made during these programmes, they may be eligible to sue the prison service (i.e. the taxpayer) for having to serve their full .

However, union leaders warned that as treatment is used to assess whether prisoners are suitable for early release, Muslims who have to serve longer terms because they did not take part could sue the Prison Service.

So, let me get this straight: someone who has committed a crime, most likely against someone else, and been found guilty within the law might be allowed to receive compensation for serving the full sentence that they received for their crime, because they have some magical beliefs and refuse to receive treatment?

Fuck that.

Full article over at the Telegraph.

Source: The Times Online.

I’ve just heard on the news that sci-fi author and inventor Arthur C Clarke has died at the grand old age of 90 in Sri Lanka.

While I’ve not read much of his more recent output, his earlier works will stay with me and I am ever grateful for their influence in my childhood.

http://www.catholic.ie/

I’ll say no more.

Except “pwned”.

/hattip The BHA e-bulletin

although if the Discovery Institute get their way, they shouldn’t have any right to complain at all.

Although it does beg the question as to why they don’t put pressure on their churches to do this already, to lead by example so to speak, if they’re all about “fairness”.

Christian Voice’s civil blasphemy case appeal against the BBC over it’s screening of Jerry Springer:The Opera has, thankfully, been once again dismissed by the UK courts.

It’s not all good news though. The BBC reports:

However, the two senior judges at the High Court said the 1968 Theatres Act prevented any prosecution for blasphemy in relation to public performances of plays.

The 1990 Broadcasting Act, they continued, prevented any prosecution in relation to broadcasts.

They said it was reasonable to conclude Jerry Springer - The Opera “in context” could not be considered as blasphemous, as it was not aimed at Christianity, but was a parody of the chat show genre.

Unfortunately, as was pointed out to me when I was alerted to the news article, the blasphemy case wasn’t — as it should have been — rejected because it’s ridiculous, but because there are two other laws that supersede it.

The BBC’s statement after the ruling read:

“We believe the work, taken in its proper context, satirises and attacks exploitative chat shows and not the Christian religion,” it said. “The court’s judgement today vindicates that decision in full.

“Today’s decision addresses the way the law of blasphemy applies to broadcasters, and the Court has found that criminal prosecutions for blasphemy should not be permitted in relation to broadcasts.

“This is an important decision in the defence of free speech. We, of course, believe that broadcasters should continue to exercise great care and sensitivity when dealing with potential religious offence, and that has not changed.”

What the BBC seems to fail to recognise is that, although broadcasters are exempt from “blasphemy” (whatever that actually is) the greater general public are still subject to a law that puts the “right” of non-offence to a singular superstitious cult over the free-speech rights of the British public.

This is not on.

I can’t see this as a victory for free-speech, I can only see it as a victory for broadcasters.

We should, as I will maintain until they’re removed from the statute, repeal these retrograde, unprovable, anachronistic, discriminatory, thought-control laws now.

Sign the petition to have the UK’s blasphemy laws revoked.

Read the full article over at the BBC.

Pedro over at Way Of The Mind has recently posted about the fallacy often used by creationists to argue that “life could never happen by chance”. Go and read it, then come back, and I’ll give you my take on it.

Back? Ok.

One of the things that Pedro didn’t address is his post was the notion of the passage of time. He’s quite correct in saying that rolling a dice however many time to get 66666666666666666666 is extremely unlikely in any realistic lifetime, but that’s if we think that all life came about because of a lucky of a one-time hit. Thankfully, that’s not what evolution (in the timescales offered by the evidence of geophysics, palaeontology, cosmology and the other long-time sciences) predicts.

So, carrying on with Pedro’s dice analogy, and written using simplified terms from the language of biology, I decided to knock-up this little Ruby program (because it’s relatively easy to read, even for a non-programmer) to demonstrate this:

AVAILABLE_GENES = (1..6).to_a
WINNING_GENES = [6]
SUCCESSFUL_GENERATIONS = 15
@genome = ""
@generations = 0
 
while @genome.length < SUCCESSFUL_GENERATIONS
  @generations = @generations + 1
  @point_mutation = AVAILABLE_GENES[rand(AVAILABLE_GENES.size)]
  puts "Generation #{@generations}: " + @genome + @point_mutation.to_s
  @genome << @point_mutation.to_s if WINNING_GENES.include?(@point_mutation)
end
 
puts "Successful genome #{@genome} took #{@generations} generations."

I’ll explain a little about the program works here:

AVAILABLE_GENES is the range of possible “genes”, including both “good” (aiding to survival and reproduction) and “bad” (no surviving offspring) mutation possibilities (in this case, the range of values from 1 to 5)
WINNING_GENES is the list of “genes” that allows a generation of offspring to survive and reproduce (in this case, just 6)
SUCCESSFUL_GENERATIONS is the number of generations of surviving offspring that we want
@genome is the “genome” of the current generation
@generations is a counter to see how many generations that we’ve tried so far

When we run this program, it adds “mutations” (in the form of dice rolls) to a “genome”. If the new mutation is advantageous (i.e. a ‘6′) and aids in survival and reproduction then the gene is added to the genome. If the gene is bad (not a ‘6′) then that generation dies without reproducing, and the current genome remains the same.

Each generation, it tries to “reproduce” with a new gene mutation, the successful survive and the unsuccessful remains the same

Of course, this program is (deliberately) incredibly simplistic (it doesn’t take into account populations, retrograde mutations, what constitutes a successful gene, predators, environment, etc.) but it should serve to illustrate the basic point that a successful genome can be arrived at quite easily over time given enough opportunity to reproduce.

Running the program, what do we see? I’ll save the full listings, but I’ll run it a few times to see what we get (further runs are truncated for space):

Desktop:$ ruby dice_simulation.rb 
Generation 1: 2
Generation 2: 4
Generation 3: 6
Generation 4: 66
Generation 5: 661
Generation 6: 663
Generation 7: 664
Generation 8: 661
Generation 9: 661
Generation 10: 661
Generation 11: 662
Generation 12: 663
Generation 13: 662
Generation 14: 661
Generation 15: 665
Generation 16: 662
Generation 17: 665
Generation 18: 666
Generation 19: 6661
Generation 20: 6663
Generation 21: 6666
Generation 22: 66662
Generation 23: 66666
Generation 24: 666666
Generation 25: 6666664
Generation 26: 6666664
Generation 27: 6666665
Generation 28: 6666666
Generation 29: 66666661
Generation 30: 66666661
Generation 31: 66666661
Generation 32: 66666666
Generation 33: 666666661
Generation 34: 666666663
Generation 35: 666666666
Generation 36: 6666666665
Generation 37: 6666666664
Generation 38: 6666666661
Generation 39: 6666666663
Generation 40: 6666666664
Generation 41: 6666666666
Generation 42: 66666666661
Generation 43: 66666666663
Generation 44: 66666666663
Generation 45: 66666666664
Generation 46: 66666666664
Generation 47: 66666666664
Generation 48: 66666666661
Generation 49: 66666666665
Generation 50: 66666666664
Generation 51: 66666666663
Generation 52: 66666666666
Generation 53: 666666666665
Generation 54: 666666666664
Generation 55: 666666666665
Generation 56: 666666666666
Generation 57: 6666666666663
Generation 58: 6666666666661
Generation 59: 6666666666664
Generation 60: 6666666666662
Generation 61: 6666666666666
Generation 62: 66666666666661
Generation 63: 66666666666665
Generation 64: 66666666666661
Generation 65: 66666666666662
Generation 66: 66666666666665
Generation 67: 66666666666666
Generation 68: 666666666666661
Generation 69: 666666666666662
Generation 70: 666666666666665
Generation 71: 666666666666666
Successful genome 666666666666666 took 71 generations.

Desktop:$ ruby dice_simulation.rb 
Generation 1: 3
...
Generation 7: 6
Generation 8: 62
Generation 9: 63
Generation 10: 65
...
Generation 16: 66
Generation 17: 665
...
Generation 27: 666
Generation 28: 6663
...
Generation 42: 6661
Generation 43: 6666
Generation 44: 66664
Generation 45: 66662
Generation 46: 66665
Generation 47: 66666
Generation 48: 666662
...
Generation 55: 666666
Generation 56: 6666662
...
Generation 62: 6666666
Generation 63: 66666664
...
Generation 78: 66666666
Generation 79: 666666665
Generation 80: 666666662
Generation 81: 666666666
Generation 82: 6666666666
Generation 83: 66666666663
...
Generation 90: 66666666666
Generation 91: 666666666663
Generation 92: 666666666665
Generation 93: 666666666666
Generation 94: 6666666666664
...
Generation 97: 6666666666666
Generation 98: 66666666666664
Generation 99: 66666666666662
Generation 100: 66666666666661
...
Generation 107: 66666666666666
Generation 108: 666666666666665
Generation 109: 666666666666662
Generation 110: 666666666666666
Successful genome 666666666666666 took 110 generations.

Desktop:$ ruby dice_simulation.rb 
Generation 1: 6
Generation 2: 61
Generation 3: 66
Generation 4: 665
Generation 5: 665
Generation 6: 666
Generation 7: 6662
Generation 8: 6662
Generation 9: 6666
Generation 10: 66662
Generation 11: 66665
Generation 12: 66666
Generation 13: 666663
...
Generation 23: 666666
Generation 24: 6666662
...
Generation 31: 6666666
Generation 32: 66666663
Generation 33: 66666666
Generation 34: 666666663
...
Generation 42: 666666666
Generation 43: 6666666664
...
Generation 48: 6666666666
Generation 49: 66666666663
Generation 50: 66666666666
Generation 51: 666666666665
Generation 52: 666666666666
Generation 53: 6666666666662
...
Generation 75: 6666666666666
Generation 76: 66666666666664
...
Generation 84: 66666666666666
Generation 85: 666666666666662
...
Generation 88: 666666666666666
Successful genome 666666666666666 took 88 generations.

As we can see, each time we run this, we get different numbers for how many generations it can take to get a successful gene, and sometimes there are 10 or 15 generations without a successful mutation. However we can also see that, eventually, there are successful mutations that add to the genome.

Another thing to note is that if we increase the range of AVAILABLE_GENES to, say 1..9, it will usually take more generations to see the target genome come about. If, however, we add genes to WINNING_GENES (e.g. [1,6,8]) we will reduce the number of generations required.

In fact, in relation to the one-time hit that I mention above, that’s exactly what the creationists propose, and who could blame them for invoking magic in the form of creator-gods with something so unlikely?

My point? One way we can get to a specific genome is by *poofing* it into existence in one step. The other is by adding a little bit per generation over a long period of time.

While evolution doesn’t deal with trying to achieve a specific genome, I know which situation the science supports better.

A big /hattip to Fall of Hate for alerting me to this gem from Evil Milk:

B-E-A-utiful.

The latest edition — and, coincidentally, the first of the new-look Humanist Society of Scotland magazine, Humanitie — has an excellent essay on sexual morality written by student Eimear O’Casey, who jointly won a student essay competition run by the society with this essay.

Unfortunately I can’t find the essay online, but if you’re already a member you should have, or will soon have, received your magazine in the post. If you’re not, you can subscribe to the magazine (or join up and get it for free) from the HSS web site. It contains other good stuff too, including an exclusive essay by A C Grayling about his new book, The Choice of Hercules.

ION, the HSS also appears to be thinking about doing something more with Think Humanist, the rational alternative to the BBC’s ignorantly exclusive Thought For The Day, which would be excellent.

And, I can’t close without mentioning this wee nugget of an anecdote from the editorial on the recent HSS conference:

Maryam [Namazie — ex-muslim activist and a guest speaker at the conference] encouraged us to strive to remove barriers rather than build more, instancing the fact that when asked recently to support a “Humanist Academy” she had refused but would gladly support an “Academy for all” regardless of colour or creed.

Damned right, Maryam.

Do you remember the challenge that Christopher Hitchens apparently mentions in his new book Portable Atheist (which I haven’t yet read) and put to theists everywhere while touring with God Is Not Great? I’ll remind you:

Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.

It turns out that someone called Tom Flannery of that inimitable organ, WorldNetDaily, has taken it upon himself to take up the gauntlet and try to answer it.

And Flannery’s answer is (drumroll, please)…

In the case of Christianity, if its claims are true, then the greatest moral law of all is to love the Lord God with all of one’s heart, mind and strength. That’s something an unbeliever, by self-definition, could never do.

Emphasis as original, for whatever that’s worth, although it seems to me, from the general tone of the whole piece, that this emphasis has a pronounced sneering tone.

With mind-bending sophistry, Flannery argues that Hitchens, to then refute this answer, has to prove that christianity is not true. If he doesn’t, then he’s not engaging in the proper rules of philosophical debate and, I expect by default, must have failed to refute it.

He knows that in a philosophical debate of any kind, the skeptic (in this case Hitchens) must give the presumption of truth to his adversary. He must presume that the philosophy or worldview he is opposing (in this case the Christian faith) is in fact true, and then debunk it on that basis (on the basis of its own claims) if he is to cast any doubts upon its veracity.

…

The Bible tells us that it is impossible for a person to even say “Jesus is Lord” in spirit and in truth unless the Holy Spirit is the motivating force behind it, in which case the person has already accepted God and received the Spirit.

In arguing this, he makes note of The War Against Terror (TWAT™) and then claims that islam is not a true religion, and therefore doesn’t count.

Hitchens would point to the homicidal use of those hijacked airliners and say: “That’s religion for you.” To which true believers like myself would respond: “No, Christopher, that’s false religion for you.” He doesn’t seem to understand there’s a difference

Somehow I doubt that Flannery has subjected himself to the same standard that he puts on Hitchens: to prove that islam is wrong before dismissing it. Of course, with the theist logic at work, an assumption on his part that his belief is true automagically makes every other religious belief necessarily false. But to do this, he would have to prove christianity true which, of course, he doesn’t.

And, there’s the obligatory dig at his (obviously idiotic) idea of evolution, or — as the fundies like to call it — “Darwinism”:

Everything from child rape to murder to genocide would be justifiable as “survival of the fittest” or a modified version of it (say, “desire of the strongest”).

I’m sure I don’t need to point out the multiple levels of stupid in this single statement.

The funniest (and I use the term ironically) thing about this piece of “journalism”, though, is the anecdote at the end of the piece:

Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias tells of a time he spoke at a university in defense of truth and was accosted afterward by a group of angry students who insisted there is no such thing as absolute truth. Zacharias challenged the leader of the group by asking him, “If instead of giving a speech today, I came out and cut a newborn baby into pieces on the stage, would that have been wrong for me to do?”

The young man thought for a moment, realizing that if he said it was wrong he would be acknowledging the existence of truth. Then he tellingly replied: “I may not have liked watching you do it, but at the same time I can’t say that it would have been wrong.”

I’ll answer that: yes, it would have been wrong. At the same time, it should be noted that his bible shows his god happily duplicating this scenario on a scale that can only boggle the mind (Exodus 12:29-30, Psalms 137:9) and therefore, by Flannery’s own argument (God by nature … is perfectly holy and therefore perfectly just.) it’s not wrong, is it?

I was in the pub yesterday, and was made aware that catholic wingnut-in-chief Ratzinger had been bad-mouthing science and atheism by playing the old Marxism=teh evul! card and playing up christianity because it offers “hope”. Earlier today, I saw a few posts on blogs (The Freethinker, Atheist Ethicist - highly recommended) and articles in the press (The Times, Reuters) but none of them actually linked to Darth Benedict’s diatribe.

So, after a bit of googling, I decided to read what he actually wrote.

Unsurprisingly, Ratzinger’s ‘spe salvi‘ is simply an over-long morass of groundless assertions, divinely inspired hate-speech and, of course, a generous sprinkling of cherry-picked bible verses. i.e. the usual bollocks.

I’m guessing that this is the sort of level of being-verbose-about-religion-yet-saying-nothing (which I will now start to call “theonasm” - q.v. pleonasm) that Alister McGrath can only aspire to. Here’s a couple of samples:

Life is not a simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within everything and at the same time above everything, there is a personal will, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealed himself as Love.

Faith is not merely a personal reaching out towards things to come that are still totally absent: it gives us something. It gives us even now something of the reality we are waiting for, and this present reality constitutes for us a “proof” of the things that are still unseen. Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a “not yet”. The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future.

See? Utter bollocks.

“Theonasm”… I like it.

/hattip to that random guy in the pub.

BBC News 24 has just reported that Gillian Gibbons, the teacher at the centre of the Sudanese Mohammed Teddy stupidity, has been found guilty of “insulting religion”, and sentenced to 15 days in prison and is then to be deported, hopefully, for her sake, to a country not run by those who cling to their backwards bronze age mythologies.

The bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, calls it a “deep disappointment”, which sounds like a rather weak sentiment, but one needs to consider that he’s of the same bent, just of a different flavour.

He also calls the crime “a mistake” although, oddly enough, he has exactly the same law on the UK’s statute “protecting” his god-belief.

Fucking morons, the lot of them.

Yeah, you read that right…

I really have no comment to make on this story, apart from a great big

What The Fuck?

A British teacher has been arrested in Sudan for letting her children name a teddy bear Mohammed, the British Embassy said.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was detained on Sunday on suspicion of insulting Islam’s prophet.

The teacher let her class of seven year olds choose the name as part of a school project.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We can confirm a British national was arrested by police in Sudan yesterday. We are providing consular assistance.”

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Khartoum said Ms Gibbons taught at Unity High School in central Khartoum.

He said: “The children chose the name because it is very common here.

No shit. Every other man in the islamic world, it seems, has one part or other of their name that’s a variation on Mohammed. Hell, even in the UK (variations on spelling aside) it’s now the second most common name for boys (after Jack).

I think a nice, slow round of applause for islam is deserved.