I Crossed the Line...

... and so did Ray.

I was going to post this to the Raytractors; however, that vigilant Clostridiophile beat me to the punch by updating on the situation first posted by Rufus.

I am participating in the so-called Atheist Strike put forward by the Raytractors. In response to his untitled post where he quoted Plato, though, I just had to post a comment requesting a source. Of course, the quote he posted had no source as it is fictitious. Getting in an early comment for a source would certainly send some looking for it.

Mind you, though, this is not the first time he has put his words in Plato's mouth. But the hilarity of this post goes past this simple little fact, as is noted in the comments of Rufus's earlier post here.

I can imagine Ray and his cohorts replying to my "Source?" comment by sourcing the Newton quote. But we don't even need to consult Google's cache to see his dishonesty here:

Blogger takes the subject or first few words of the post to generate the title. The words the filename of the post generates from are:

"Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding." -- Plato

Well, we might as well also link to the Google Cache. But since that's not available at the moment, look at the Google result for this post:

His dishonesty has really gotten out of hand. If he wanted to be just minimally dishonest, he could have simply deleted the post (along with my comment) and then posted a new entry (and dishonestly fail to mention why).


Edit (11:03pm)
Well, the first comment responding to my source comment is in. Ray originally quotes Plato, for which I request a source. He then changes it to Newton. A reader comes to the blog seeing only the Newton quote and my comment and responds:

discomforting ignorance

just copy and paste the quote into google....it shouldn't be to hard to find...!

It could very well be that this Plato quote has a source, unlike the previous one, but as far as I could find, it doesn't. I was asking for a source for the Plato one before the readily verifiable Newton one (though, he should still source it).

Edit (10:24am, 7/21)
Second source for Newton in!

Any Toe Left to Stub?

The other half of the photo session of the death match actually relates to Ray's The Universe Eternal post. I created some inspirational posters relating to Ray Comfort.

I think Maragon made a decent summary response to Ray's Second Law of Thermodynamics post, pointing out the hypocrisy of using science to support claims.

Funny how theists hate and fear science when it says something about their worldview that they disagree with, but love and accept science when they think it's proving their point. You can't have it both ways; science either has the power to explain the universe around us, or it doesn't. Pretending to accept science when you mistakenly believe that it disproves other science is intellectually dishonest and a testament to how little you understand about the workings of this academic discipline.

I think there are two things to also point out, though. Her post overlooked the image. Darwin's theory has nothing to do with the big bang. I think "evolution" and "Darwinism" are used by Ray to mean anything which contradicts his scientific reading of the Bible, including evolutionary theory, radiometric dating, cosmological model of the universe, and so on. Ray also managed to overstep the broader question of the poster that the universe can't be eternal while God can, which is perhaps a subject for a later post.

In this post, Ray quotes Stephen Hawking from a 2004 lecture. The lecture he quotes from relates to a previous passage from A Brief History of Time he quote mined to suggest that Stephen Hawking believed in a Creator behind the Big Bang. As I pointed out in Another Toe-Stubbing Post on Hawking, though, the chapter discusses laws breaking down at singularities, finite space-time, and self-containment, and concludes the chapter with:

The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started -- it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

As a fan of Hawking (and knowing Ray's propensity to quote mine), I spent some time reading the lecture. The lecture he quotes from actually covers much of the same stuff. When reading the lecture, I wondered where Ray got the quote from (as I doubt he has read the article, details further below). In searching for this quote to see if it was on a prominent site for quote mining, I found it posted a lot in forums with the follow statement made by posters at a few:

This is a very recent lecture. While he may have supported a universe without a beginning earlier in life, this definitely shows that he has changed his mind in favor of a beginning of the universe and time. (paraphrased)

This is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Hawking's work and shows ignorance of it. To just provide you with a simple demonstration of this, what I quoted in a my previous post came from A Brief History of Time in 1988, the lecture was in 2004, and the following is from A Briefier History of Time (a revision and updating) in 2005 from the conclusion to Quantum Gravity in chapter nine (pg 103): (luckily I brought this book with me on my trip)

If there is no boundary to space-time, there is no need to specify the behavior at the boundary -- no need to know the initial state of the universe. There is no edge of space-time at which we would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. We could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE. As long as we believed the universe had a beginning, the role of a creator seemed clear. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, having neither beginning nor end, then the answer is not so obvious: what is the role of a creator?

This is something the lecture touches on and if read to try to understand, rather than to quote, it becomes obvious. He discusses often what could have preceded the Big Bang, and then always dismisses them as speculation with the comment that we cannot know what happens before that as the laws of science break down in it. He mentions this even in the lecture Ray quotes from:

At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. (emphasis added)

I emphasized the passage where he discusses the beginning. He speaks of this "kind of beginning" of time (the big bang) is "different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier." What beginnings were considered earlier? The beginning of the universe as created by an external agency. And when Ray quotes that "this argument about whether or not the universe had a beginning..." is referring to this, as the section that precedes it reads:

It was therefore natural to believe that the human race, and maybe the whole universe, had a beginning in the fairly recent past. However, many people were unhappy with the idea that the universe had a beginning, because it seemed to imply the existence of a supernatural being who created the universe. They preferred to believe that the universe, and the human race, had existed forever. Their explanation for human progress was that there had been periodic floods, or other natural disasters, which repeatedly set back the human race to a primitive state.

What I find especially humorous to Ray using this lecture is that Hawking actually specifically addresses the beginning of the universe which Ray supports (biblical/created) and the different "kind of beginning" which the Big Bang is. This is the continuation from the previously emphasized passage:

These [different kinds of beginnings considered earlier] had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.(emphasis added)

After this he discusses some historical attempts to get around the Big Bang beginning, then past light cones, then quantum effects impact on the Big Bang theory, then imaginary time and its implication on real time, and then finally the self-contained, no boundary condition. If all this seems confusing (as it should) but at the same time interesting (as it also should), I strongly recommend reading the lecture yourself, reading some Wikipedia entries on the subjects, and also reading A Brief History of Time, A Briefer History of Time, and The Universe In a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking to find out what Hawking really believes, studies, and lectures on, rather than listening to Ray to divine such knowledge.

Woman... the Glorified Sperm?

Although my hands are still healing from conducting fruit death matches on my day off, I felt a need to briefly respond to Ray's latest post before heading out.

As with some of the other "comic strip images" for his posts, a message is hidden in the image for Woman... the Glorified Primate? A more accurate dilemma will be covered in a post coming up next week entitled Heaven Can't Exist. A picture of eternal life, freedom from sickness, forgiveness (not from those you've wronged), and no more old age or death is given. What of knowing that the majority of mankind is being tortured eternally in Hell? There's a good chance that the majority of those you know and are close to will be burning in Hell. An eternal life of knowing that every second for all eternity for my sister is infinitely worse than the worst pain I have ever felt in this life? Why would I possibly want to choose that?

Choosing a Heaven
And, presumably Heaven will follow those perfect standards of the Bible, such as the subjugation of women. Why would I possibly want to choose a place which denigrates women? And this goes to the latter half of Ray's post. Women are not my (a man's) equals. I am their equal. Women are not inherently inferior to me; I am inherently equal to them.

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

Will this be a law, out of the perfect Book, in Heaven? That women must "ask their husbands at home" if they "will learn any thing"?

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. (Ephesians 5:22-24)

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. (Colossians 3:18)

Will they be forced to submit themselves as well? Why would I want to live in such a place? I love women as I love all humans. I would not want to choose a place where women are considered inferior to men; that daughters can be sold into slavery by their fathers; that they are to be put to death in the event of rape. The Christian view of women makes it no better than choosing the Muslim Heaven.


Women are a glorified primate?
Ray writes:

You are forgetting Who it was made women in the first place. It was God. What you see in the beauty of a woman isn’t a glorified primate.

Yeah, God made woman from a rib. A rib! What you see in the beauty of a woman isn't a glorified rib. Yes, lower forms of primates play a part in the origin of a woman, as the woman is the result of a biological process from that primate. Does that make her a "glorified primate"? A sperm also plays a part in the origin of a woman, as the woman is the result of a biological process from that sperm. Does that make her a "glorified sperm"?

Lust is all atheists live for
Perhaps it was just Ray trying to squeeze in a poor shot at evolution in his post. Perhaps what he was really trying to convey is there is more to a woman for a man than just sex, as it goes to the reader's comment regarding lust. On this, Ray writes:

Your words reveal that, like most normal males, you live for sexual lust. It gives your sinful heart great pleasure, and you can’t think of a life without lusting for women.

Just because a man may lust after a woman does not mean that that is all that he cares for with regard to women. But I suppose I am an abnormal male as I do not "live for sexual lust." Even if I did, I doubt it would give my heart pleasure, as it would put quite a strain on it.

But what if I did incorporate lusting for women in my life? Does that mean that I live for lusting for women? I incorporate many things into my life. I drive my Buick a lot, and if the Bible said that that was immoral, I still would. Does that mean that I live for driving my car? I watch many episodes of Penn & Teller's Bullshit! as it gives my sinful heart great pleasure. Does that mean that I live for watching Bullshit!? I live for life. I have yet to meet anyone who lives for lust.

I reject the biblical teaching of repressing sexual lust. I reject the biblical teaching of prohibiting coitus interruptus. I reject the biblical teaching of loving thy enemy. I reject the biblical teaching prohibiting homosexuality and killing homosexuals. I reject the many misogynistic biblical teachings. I reject the biblical teaching of not wearing clothing made of two kinds of fabric.

While I reject all these things, it does not mean that I live for them; although, I certainly think it's fair to say that I live to end their influence on society and legislation.

Books, Blogs, and Photos

This is just a housekeeping post of several items, hopefully still interesting.

Coconut vs Pineapple Photos
The response to the death match was quite positive (I was honestly expecting many "what a pointless waste of time" comments, but even those were positive). I have uploaded all of the photos from the battle (~80) to a gallery. There was a photo every seven seconds, so it's really just a photo account of the battle.

Before conducting the death match, I took advantage of the photographer and did another small project on another trait of Ray's. Details to come soon... until then, Part IV of VII of The Theist Test is coming out this weekend.


Adrian Hayter's Book Club
I have been wanting to tie this into a Rational Sabbath; however, that's on hold for the moment (see below). As such, I wanted to mention the book club at The Atheist Blogger:

The book is The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. I have decided to participate (as I had it on my reading list, anyway). So, join if you can. This will be my first of the book club, so I can't comment on that itself, but I like the idea.

The Rational Sabbath
The Rational Sabbath is on hold until I can get back home. With the goings-on here, I have only enough time to update the blog and conduct death matches with fruits. My reading time (both books and blogs) is limited while out of town.

Some Blogs I am Trying Out
With that having been said, I thought I'd make a note of some new blogs I have recently started reading (when I find the time). I have not read much, but they look promising from what I've seen.

Kafir Girl: I'm enjoying this one. She is reading the Qur'an and providing commentary on each chapter. She also posts on ludicrous religious asininities in Islam. It has been delightful so far and I hope this doesn't fizzle out like some of the holy text blogs of days past.
Atheist Girls: ... because we need more females in atheist and skeptic rings :-) It is written by three atheist college girls. I haven't read much of it yet (as they're updating too fast for me right now), but it is one I'm trying out.
Answers in Genesis BUSTED!: For as long as this blog has been around and as much as I read AiG, I am surprised I had not found this blog sooner. It is a responsive blog to Answers in Genesis and other creationist organizations, including ICR and Discovery Institute. Of the entries I have read, he has covered articles from AiG, William Dembski's blog, book reviews, and more. It looks very promising. I have tried to read Dembski's Uncommon Descent, but it was too much of an irrational overload to handle. This man must have nerves of evolved steel.

There are of course some more, but these are the three top ones. I am excited about Kafir Girl as I have tried finding good Mormon and Muslim blogs but none have seemed up to par.

Blogrolling News
DisComforting Ignorance has been accepted to The Atheist Blogroll managed by Mojoey over at Deep Thoughts. You can read my introduction to Disco Igno posted at Deep Thoughts.

I have received a few emails requesting some blog recommendations (to which to subscribe). I already have a few of my favorites listed to the right. There are many more, though, so I have included a complete listing of all the blogs to which I am currently subscribed. I will try to keep it manually updated as I do revisions until I get an automated process in place.

Death Match: Pineapple vs Coconut

The theist's banana is
no match for the
atheist's pineapple.

Coconut or Pineapple: Which one is the theist's worst nightmare?

Note: This is not intended to be a serious post. It should be taken about as seriously as one should take Ray's attempt to prove God with a banana.

Adrian Hayter, from The Atheist Blogger, noted on my first installment of The Theist Test that a pineapple is the proper theist's nightmare, and not the coconut. I frequently devour pineapples and, I must say, they're quite easy to open. The coconut, though, about killed me when I first tried to open it, as I hadn't the slightest clue as to how. When I slammed it against the counter and it came back at me... I take that to be an attempt on my life.

THE RULES
To the point, I decided to do a proper match between the coconut and the pineapple. Since the argument Ray uses is that God designed the banana for us (hands, indicators, opening, etc) and illustrates it with just his hands, the rules of this death match will follow in the same non-numinous spirit:

1. No man-made tools may be used. A knife would certainly make the pineapple easier to open, as would a butcher's knife or machete for the coconut. Since God didn't design the knives or machete, using them would be giving him inappropriate help (cheating).
1a. God did design certain aids, such as rocks and my hands, so those may be used.
1b. The rock or any other God-designed tool may not be improved on. If God truly designed it, it should be perfect anyway.
2. The fruit must be in a condition where nearly all of its edible contents can be consumed using just the mouth and hands. In the pineapple's case this means removal of the skin (not necessarily the leaves) and in the coconut's case this means get it in small enough pieces that it can be consumed.

Following the death match, a tallying will be done covering how the fruits fair using Ray's ten criteria he applied to the banana. A conclusion will announce the winner. If the pineapple wins, I will make this blog my personal pineapple, then.

THE CONTESTANTS
In this corner: a pineapple. In that corner: a coconut.

Which one will cause Ray to start shivering when he passes through the produce isle? Which one will give Kirk some praying pains? Which one will be... THE THEIST'S NIGHTMARE? Only one will remain standing.

THE TOOLS

I am unsure of what I will need, so I have gathered the following for outside:

1. A giant rock almost too heavy to lift. It will serve as some rock structure you might find near where you get the pineapple or coconut to beat it against.
2. Four stones of varying sizes, all able to comfortably fit in the hand (they must have been designed that way).
3. Two sticks. They may be needed to pry or dig some of the fruit out of the skin/shell.
4. Two bananas. If God has designed them to be truly the atheist's nightmare, they should serve as a fine tool to quickly dispel the theist's nightmare.
5. Two hands (conveniently attached to my body, which I found outside at the time).


THE BATTLE -- THE COCONUT
First up, the coconut.



Plan A was to give it a whack with the mighty banana. But alas, it failed miserably. Perhaps the intelligently designed banana that I purchased was defective.

Luckily, I had a Plan B prepared. My strategy was to bang it against the rock (I forgot about the rock and accidentally used the patio where I am staying for the first blow). One mighty thrust downward and the coconut nearly split in two. With a twist of my mighty hands, I failed to finish the splitting process. A whack on my giant rock did the job, though.

The next step was to get the halves into even smaller pieces. The goal, remember, is to get them into sizes small enough to be able to eat the meat from the shells using just my teeth and fingers.

I laid the halves on the giant rock and took one of my hand-sized stones and thrust it upon the coconut, scattering it into many pieces.

It was going much quicker than I had anticipated. Continuing this process with a few dozen more whacks, I finally broke the pieces down small enough to where I could (hypothetically) easily eat the meat from the shell. And now, behold:



THE BATTLE -- THE PINEAPPLE
Next up to bat: the pineapple.



As you may have suspected, my Plan A was to give it a whack with the mighty banana. But alas, it, like the coconut's, failed miserably. Perhaps I was unlucky enough to get two defective intelligently designed bananas.

I just knew the banana would work, though, and I didn't have a Plan B. My college education kicked in, though, and I devised a plan wherein I would whack it against a giant rock. It put a good dent on one side of the pineapple and made it easy to dig the contents out. Before doing that, I decided to remove the tab.

As much as I had studied Ray's video on the banana, it seems I would have flunked any test on it because, try as I might, I could not seem to remove the top of the pineapple by pulling on its leafy tab.

Luckily, I came up with another strategy. I hammered the leafy top off with stone against the rock. After going around it once, I could then pull it off by its tab (with some effort). It seems my pineapple was also defective as it lacked the perforation that Ray noted about the intelligently designed banana.

After that, I dug the fruit out to the core from the dented portion of the pineapple. The other, undented side was too firm to have its fruit dug and ripped out. As such, it was another few whacks against the rock and it came up looking like shredded pineapple.

The skin wasn't removed from the final product. It was, however, in little pieces like the coconut making it easy to eat it off the skin. The core had remaining fruit around it which also could be eaten off of it. In the end, it looked like:




THE SCORECARD

Scoring will be done on a 0-4 basis. 0 being not intelligently designed/unintelligently designed/defective; 4 being as intelligently designed as the mighty banana. I will first use Ray's ten criteria (discussing it for both fruits) and then a few of my own which I think are worthy, including how long it took me to open them.

1. Is shaped for human hand
Coconut: It is not at all shaped for the human hand. It has no ridges matching up with the hand. You can comfortably hold it, though. D-. (+1)
Pineapple: Holding it in the checkout line was extremely awkward, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. F. (+0)

2. Has non-slip surface
Coconut: It does indeed... A. (+4)
Pineapple: There's really no non-slip surface here. The spikes make you want to let it slip. It's not frictionless, though. D-. (+1)

3. Has outward indicators of inward content:
Coconut: It does turn brown when ripened, but no color indicator of being too late or if the coconut water is bitter. C-. (+2)
Pineapple: You can examine the leaves and the uniformity of the markings along the pineapple, but this is no clear outward indicator of inward content. F+. (+0)

4. Has a tab for removal of wrapper
Coconut: It's a sphere. F-. (+0)
Pineapple: It has a leafy tab, but it's hardly for removal of wrapper. F. (+0)

5. Is perforated on wrapper
Coconut: Nope. F-. (+0)
Pineapple: Nope. F-. (+0)

6. Bio-degradable wrapper
Coconut: Yes, but probably a lot longer than the banana's 2-10 days. C. (+2)
Pineapple: Yes, but probably longer than the banana's 2-10 days. B. (+3)

7. Is shaped for human mouth
Coconut: Not for mine. F. (+0)
Pineapple: Epic failure. F-. (+0)

8. Has a point at top for ease of entry
Coconut: "top"? F-. (+0)
Pineapple: Nope. F-. (+0)

9. Is pleasing to taste buds
Coconut: It is pleasing... but as much as a banana? B+. (+3)
Pineapple: I was in tears once I finished mutilating it as I could not eat it. A+. (+4)

10. Is curved towards the face to make eating process easy
Coconut: It's curved towards the face alright (and everywhere else). F-. (+0)
Pineapple: Nope. F-. (+0)

11. Is easy to harvest from the plant
Coconut: It's in a tall palm tree. It falls several months after ripening, striking you on the head, and the water being bitter.? F. (+0)
Pineapple: Telling when it's ready is a bit difficult and it's spikey making it difficult to hold on to. C-. (+2)

12. Is easy to open with just your body
Coconut: Impossible. Epic failure. G-. (+0)
Pineapple: I suppose you could smash it with your fist, but it's far from easy. D-. (+1)

13. Is easy to open using stuff found in nature (like rocks)
Coconut: Took me five minutes to get it opened/broken enough to eat. It wasn't easy. F-. (+0)
Pineapple: Took me four minutes to get it opened and expose all the fruit content to eat. It wasn't easy. D- (+1)

14. Once opened with nature items, it's easy/clean to eat.
Coconut: Not really. Getting the fruit away from the shell was difficult with the teeth. It is clean though. C. (+2)
Pineapple: Messy, messy, messy. F. (+0)


Coconut: 25% (+14)
Pineapple: 21.4% (+12)

CONCLUSION

The pineapple and coconut are both, definitely, theist's nightmares. But which one is worse?

After tallying up the scores and seeing how close the two were, I had to decide how important the fact is that it is impossible to open a coconut with just your hands and feet (no rocks or anything). Certainly that factor is more important than it having a non-slip surface. If God were to design something for humans, he should at least have the foresight to have made it able to be opened by our hands, as he did with the banana.

This was subject to Ray's asinine criteria and, based on those alone, the pineapple gets a dismal 20%. So, if by that criteria alone, a banana is judged to be the atheist's nightmare, then we can say, based on these criteria, the pineapple is truly...
THE THEIST'S WORST NIGHTMARE