Really, guys, you should aspire to higher standards. :-)

JB

But I’m writing to bitch ya out. Speaking of Tiger Woods’ infidelities in this episode, y’all said something like:

———
“Yeah, you don’t have to be a Buddhist to know it’s wrong to *expletive* 17 women when you’re married.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda… it’s against the vows.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Christian… I mean, everybody knows that’s out of bounds.”
———

Uh, no. Everybody does not know that. That’s an argument ad populum, and you should know better.

So you listen here. You keep your grubby hands off my wedding vows. Different people regard marriage in different ways, and it ain’t just the Mormons that like the idea of unusually structured marriages. I have a number of friends of various religious stripes (including atheists) who don’t regard monogamy as a critical aspect of their marriage, and several friends who are in happy group relationships. To be direct, it is not necessarily “wrong” to *expletive* 17 women when you’re married.

The issue isn’t that marriage doesn’t allow such behavior, the issue is how Mr. Woods’ and his wife understood THEIR vows. I think you would agree that it’s actually none of our business, though the immense religious controversy is certainly worthy of comment and ridicule.

A bigger chunk of the population than you might expect agree with me, and genetic studies have well-established that monogamy really isn’t human nature. It’s myth, pure and simple. We would all do well to acknowledge such and get over our society’s silly attachment to this strange, twisted ideal.

You of all people should know that a popular perception does not make a universal truth. So have a care and make your point more precisely in the future, or I’ll sic all my freaky friends on ya.

That being said, I’m lookin’ forward to seein’ y’all at Dragon Con again this year. The Skeptic Track is the best thing to hit DC since the invention of room parties, and my memory goes all the way back to DC 1989. (Fuck, I’m old.)

Peace.

JB

I just wanted to respond to the discussion on Buddhism in this show. I tend to agree with most of what Alison said, having read quite a bit about Zen and Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist and find the areas of superstition in some sects very unappealing, but I want to make the point that the human mind seems to work best when it’s focused and it’s easier to focus when you have a framework and even easier when you explicitly practice “focusing” several times a week.

I’m sure you have both read Sam Harris’ book: “The End of Faith”. Towards the end of the book are a couple of chapters that touch on Buddhism, “The Science of Good and Evil” and “Experiments in Consciousness” – not that I want to commit the logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority, but he discusses why it seems like a good idea to meditate and why Buddhism has a large “body of knowledge” that can be helpful in our day to day existence.

My point is in response to thinking that Tiger should have just known better and doesn’t need Buddhist practice to fall back on. My observation is that a meditative/contemplative practice backed up by a philosophical/psychological framework is very helpful in becoming aware of our motivations and intentions etc… which in turn helps to live a happier life. Zen and other mostly non-superstitious sects say to “find out for yourself” -and provides a framework for that…sort of.

Anyway – I’m not asking for anyone to take any of this on “faith”, but I was a bit perturbed by how easily it was dismissed as unhelpful and that Tiger “should” have known better. The fact is he didn’t “Know” better, since he cheated multiple times, and I for one think that sitting quietly observing the workings of the mind can only make one more aware and focused and help to avoid impulsive behavior.

Just thought I’d link to a Sam Harris article about self-contemplation too – don’t let the fact that it’s from the Huffington Post distracte you :-):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/a-contemplative-science_b_15024.html

Another case in point about Buddhism being compatible with Atheism,
one practitioner, Stephen Batchelor, is releasing a book next week called: “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist”.

Cheers

Of course the Swiss have made a terrible, for both the Swiss Muslims and also themselves in the eyes of the Muslim world.

However this is not a question of the Swiss as an isolated case of a singular right-wing reaction but of a greater perception within Europe. The Swiss simply were first to make such a drastic move thanks to their unique model of direct democracy. You can be quite assure that the same sentiments are carried throughout Europe.

The Turkish prime ministers widely quoted remark that minarets are Islams missiles surely could not have helped the issue.

When I heard “2013 Unity Event”, one thing that I thought of right away, which I don’t know if Margaret Downey or others have considered, is the fact that “Unity” is actually a denomination of Christianity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Church

I know this is not the official name of the event (yet), but it’s possible that if the event were to include the name “Unity” it might cause some confusion. I really like the idea of unity, though, and I don’t think any denomination should have a monopoly on the use of a name. It was just something that popped to mind immediately when I heard the name, so I thought I’d mention it to see what others thought about the coincidence.

Knowing the facts, and not just the spoon fed details offered by public schools shows that evolution doesn’t work, and the vast majority of the scientific evidence for an old earth is false.

What is being taught is an atheist agenda, if you actually read the 1st Amendment or if you know where the “separation of church and state” statement comes from and you have read Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist’s Association, then you would know that the statement was about establishing a government doctrine. Government and Christianity were intended to be mixed.

Great Guest and I am so glad he wrote the book!

Regarding aromatherapy, one of you guys said that scents can’t trigger pain… well I can tell you that it can cause pain. I have migraines and when I am having one (like last night) just the scent of a candle can feel like an ice pick stabbing up my nose and into my brain. Not fun and very painful!

Also on another occasion just the smell of something has made me instantly throw up. So there has to be something to aromas that effect (affect??) the body.

But I know that there is suppose to be a certain scent that is suppose to help headaches feel better but it doesn’t. I don’t want to smell ANYTHING when i have a headache, any scent just makes me feel worse.

Thanks for the show/podcast. I love it!!

Sharon

The title and the blurb describing it lured me in.
The movie is made well and starts off in a reasonable way with some interesting details, but as it progresses the atmosphere becomes more and more hysterical, women began screaming. Okay, well not really but it does dissolve into creationist nonsense.

It is an exercise is pure deception, Satan, if he existed, would be proud.

My reactions started out as: “that’s interesting”, progressed to “why are they talking about that? How is it relevant?”, and finally to “Whaaat?”

Is there anything sneakier than a creationist?

I’ve heard — though I’ve not seen this confirmed — that the Iraqis like these because they *don’t* like using the most effective bomb detectors out there: dogs. Unclean, you know.

My suggestion for the Iraqi general who praises these things is that we do the following test: we lock him in a garage with ten cars, one of which has a time bomb in the trunk with a two minute fuse. If he picks the right car, we let him out.

Repeat 10 times for statistical significance.

But that’s just me and my crazy schedule.

Dennis

Pat Robertson is an insane, head-up-his-butt asshole. He’s no bitch.

Disappointed in your response. Not what I was expecting from a freethinker.

“You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the LORD.”

In a similar vein: http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/leviticus-fail/

Hmm. Odd… I see no mention of the Devil here.

I would like to assume you are just joking, and that you understand the difference between criminalizing criticism of religion and the fact that certain racial epithets are now considered out of bounds. I would be equally opposed to any attempt to criminalize use of the word “nigger”…but a simple insult isn’t what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. We’re talking about the right of every citizen to critique (or even mock) any given religious belief without fear of imprisonment or worse. Surely you can understand that.

Or maybe not.

whats next? October 5th lets call every black person a nigger day?

……dumbass

http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20091224.html

I’m personally happy to have a fixed national holiday in the neighborhood of the solstace. There’s a lot of power in so many people celebrating the same holiday at once, the sense that the world has stopped in its tracks for a day or a week, which is certainly in the spirit of Saturnalia and the early solstace celebrations. Perhaps calling the national holiday ‘Christmas’ is somewhat vulgar, but it’s the least of our battles. The Pledge and national motto are certainly higher on my personal list of qualms.

- raven of Made With Molecules

On one hand, as an American, anything you do to disfavor one religion against more favored alternatives is bad. Period, end of story.

But Europeans are feeling threatened by muslim encroachment into their countries. Europeans have been getting less and less religious over the last 60+ years, and to see what is, in essence, a “foreign” religion come in and grow in what are alarming numbers is frightening. If enough of them get together in small democracies like Switzerland, it is feared that they could take over from the traditional populations and enforce their “foreign” religious values.

Since Europeans have just, in the last 60 years, gotten away from that monster, they don’t want to go back.

Perfectly understandable. Flawed, but understandable.

Great idea! We’d see an immediate reduction of religious representation in Congress!

There are not enough “prosperity gospel” believers out there to affect a local farmer’s market, much less the housing market.

.. listening to the rest of the podcast …

http://www.faithfreedom.org/2009/06/11/apostasy-in-islam

http://www.faithfreedom.org/2009/06/13/apostasy-in-islam-londonspirit-vs-ibn-kammuna

I provide evidence from Qur’an and Hadith on this matter.

thank you

Symmetrically, in this case, primarily means it came down evenly into its own footprint. True, the penthouse started first, but that doesn’t change the fact that the overall structure came down symmetrically. Popular Mechanics did not recognize or acknowledge the fact that it (the exterior structure, which was connected solidly to the interior structure) came down at freefall acceleration for the first 2+ seconds.

Popular Mechanics got it wrong.

Also, to Jerry,

I NEVER said they were extraterrestrial, I said we don’t know where they come from – that’s a far cry from what you allude. What I said is that they are REAL, solid objects, or at least some of them are. Those that attempt to say otherwise aren’t looking at the evidence, which there is plenty of.

What we don’t have is evidence of where they come from or who/what they are. If you can prove otherwise, please show it.

Mackey makes an even stronger statement at the end of his post, “Feel free to propose your own hypothesis if you think you have a better one. I have yet to hear one that is even vaguely plausible.” Thus, not only does Mackey not think explosives are the only thing that could cause it, he doesn’t even think explosives are vaguely plausible.

That is simply an amazing statement to come from a NASA scientist/engineer.

Mackey apparently places no importance on the fact that WTC 7 came down completely symmetrically, whereas the single column NIST assumed in their little study to have explosives placed on it, column 79, was in the extreme corner of the set of core columns. I don’t which is more absurd. To suggest a controlled demolition contractor would only place explosives on a single column and expect the whole building to come down symmetrically, or to pick the single core column in the most asymmetrical position possible.

I think, even though you aren’t a structural engineer, you should be able to see the deficiencies in Mackey’s position.

As I am not a structural engineer, I turn to others to help in analyzing the data and report – others who are structural engineers. A thread on the JREF forums from last year – in between the draft and final versions of the NIST report – discusses the findings of one David Chandler, who pointed out the freefall portion of the collapse.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=128194

I would point out in particular, the second post, which explains that the core failure would result in the load from the upper building falling on the exterior columns, which, according to the NIST report page 44, buckled between floors 7-14. This is the “negligible support” spoken of and accounts for the portion of the collapse that was at freefall speed.

But post 29, by R. Mackey (a structural engineer), addresses the overall point more when he says, “NIST acknowledged your observation, but that is because it appears to be correct, within the limits of experimental error. What is at issue is the interpretation of that observation. NIST certainly does not agree with you that explosives are the only thing that could cause it, and neither do I.”

As a matter of fact, on pages 26-28 of the NIST report, there is a discussion of the possibility of controlled demolition that might account for the observations. The conclusion was that the lack of a blast effect on windows and sound of a blast rules out controlled demolition.

Therefore, NIST provided an explanation that is consistent with observations. They presented the data that said a portion of the collapse was at freefall acceleration. I fail to see how anything is being swept “under the carpet”. They even took a look at the CD hypothesis and found it inconsistent with the data.

While I would be glad to discuss this further in my non-technical way, I concede that my knowledge is such that I have to defer to experts. If you are such an expert, I would love to see your smoking-gun evidence for CD. If you are not such an expert, perhaps you should also concede that there are experts who have looked into the points you are trying to make and have found the evidence wanting.

Thank you very much for asking. The pertinent words I copied from the NIST Final Report, which can be downloaded from:

http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/NCSTAR1Aindex.htm

This is from page 45:

For discussion purposes, three stages were defined, as denoted in Figure 3-15:

• In Stage 1, the descent was slow and the acceleration was less than that of gravity. This stage corresponds to the initial buckling of the exterior columns in the lower stories of the north face. By 1.75 s, the north face had descended approximately 2.2 m (7 ft).
• In Stage 2, the north face descended at gravitational acceleration, as the buckled columns provided negligible support to the upper portion of the north face. This free fall drop continued for approximately 8 stories or 32.0 m (105 ft), the distance traveled between times t = 1.75 s and t = 4.0 s.
• In Stage 3, the acceleration decreased somewhat as the upper portion of the north face encountered increased resistance from the collapsed structure and the debris pile below. Between 4.0 and 5.4 s, the north face corner fell an additional 39.6 m (130 ft.)

As noted above, the collapse time was approximately 40 percent longer than that of free fall for the first 18 stories of descent. The detailed analysis shows that this increase in time is due primarily to Stage 1. The three stages of collapse progression described above are consistent with the results of the global collapse analyses discussed in Chapter 12 of NIST NCSTAR 1-9.

(my commentary on this last sentence is the following: to call it consistent with the analyses completely dishonest. Their analyses contained no mechanism that would account for freefall. Thus, this statement is equivalent to sweeping it under the carpet.)

Thanks for the clarification! As you know, people say and write all kinds of things, and it’s hard to know sometimes who’s credible and who’s full of crap.

John

You might want to back that up. I’d like a citation so I can see it in context. I’d also like to see the calculations used – either to determine it fell at freefall acceleration, or 40% slower than freefall.

I’m sorry if this comes across as rude, but my experience is that truthers tend to change the subject when actual calculations come into play. I also realize that I am offering no such calculations, but “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. And I have seen no evidence that the building fell as though ALL support was eliminated simultaneously, a necessary component for “freefall” acceleration.

I corrected Richard Dawkin’s gracious, enthusiastic but incorrect introduction to my AAI talk here

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Carolyn-Porco/116163229386?v=wall

…if you’re interested.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but when something is incorrect, it should be corrected, and it’s time to put this rumor to bed.

Just to pick on one of your points, “freefall acceleration.” NIST admitted to, what they called a “freefall drop” lasting 2.25 sec. on Building 7. They made that statement in their FINAL REPORT, issued Nov 2008. Even though, their draft final report of August 2008 said the building came down 40% slower than freefall.

They also attempted to hide this admission, in that they didn’t list this change under their list of changes between their draft and final reports.

i’ve had an email correspondence with carolyn porco which included a question by me regarding the above speculation and i thought you might appreciate the answer.

as the character consultant for the movie ‘contact’, carolyn porco asked sagan about the basis for the character in the book and was told directly she was not based on any one person, and not based on tarter. he added that the `voice’ of arroway was his own, which is obvious.

By the way – I’d love to see Dwain Deets’ proof of “symmetrical destruction” and the buildings falling at “freefall acceleration”. These are buzzwords just like “irreducible complexity”. I’ve been participating (yet mostly lurking) in 9/11 conspiracy discussions over at the JREF forums for a number of years and I have yet to see actual figures to back up those contentions.

Oh, and has Dwain worked out how “nanothermite” would burn across the main supports and not down, like thermite works? Or how thermite is not an explosion and would not make the sounds you say the first responders heard?

Forget that, because it’s just details. I buy the official explanation – that hijackers flew airplanes into buildings and the resulting destruction caused the collapse of the towers. That debris from the towers and fire caused the collapse of building 7. What’s your explanation? What are the facts and evidence that show your explanation is more correct than mine?

I’m guessing logic and observation are not these people’s strong points.

Here are some comments, paragraph by paragraph.

Connecting those four beliefs in a paragraph suggests that a person who believes one, believes all four. No evidence is offered to support that, and I’m quite sure no statistically significant data can be found showing much of a connection.

Don’t know what to say about that next one, denialism. Seems like most of the denialism is with the debunkers.

Quite the contrary, it must be above 95% of Truthers that say controlled demolition brought down the Twin Towers. That’s true, no matter what people think about the planes. Because, the planes don’t really enter in to the question of controlled demolition, or not.

I have nothing to say about Loose Change – Second Edition. it’s quite good.

Propaganda piece? What is propaganda? Yes it promotes a point of view, but to call it biased just because it doesn’t promote the viewpoint you maintain is, I guess, not very objective.

Hard to respond, since nothing specific is offered. However, some of the words put forth as criticism of Loos Change, would be apt to describe what is presented coming from the other side, in the paragraph, itself.

Basically, a complaint about using eyewitness testimony. But, why fling things like private planes and helicopters around, when there were 118 first responders, who, in their oral debriefs spoke of explosions in the towers. Remarkable agreement. Of course, the NYC authorities fought long and hard to prevent these from being released to the public, but finally a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) forced the testimonies to be released, and they were all published in the NY Times.

Yes, the collapse initiations began on the floors of aircraft impact. But, nothing should be read into that other than the demolition went as apparently planned. Rather than comment on any more of what is discussed in that paragraph, I will comment on what wasn’t discussed. (1) The aircraft impacts were asymmetric damage, but the towers were destroyed completely symmetrically. (Contrary to the laws of physics.) (2) There were massive structural members (many tons each) thrown horizontally, at speeds of 50 MPH which a gravity collapse can not explain. (3) Building 7 wasn’t mentioned in your whole writeup, the most mysterious collapse of all. It came down at pure freefall acceleration for over 2 secs, which translates into 8 stories of lower structure that had to have been removed abruptly. If you know any way of doing that other than by explosives, please speak up. (4) The byproducts of thermite/thermate were found, in the proper proportions, through the remains (iron, aluminum, manganese, sulfur, etc.) (5) Evidence of temperatures a 1,000 C greater than what office and jet-fuel fires can explain. (6) unignited nanothermite was found in the dust (a military-grade explosive that shouldn’t have been there.)

What? The thousand steel framed buildings that were destroyed in WWII? They didn’t come down symmetrically. They didn’t collapse at freefall acceleration. There is absolutely no comparison between any other steel-framed skyscrapers, and what happened three times on that single day.

What’s so outrageous about thinking someone would arrange to make billions off of this? Even today, Goldman Sachs made money in the stock market every single day the markets were open in the third quarter, except one. That’s better than 95% success rate. Some well connected folks are making billions off of everyone else. People do some pretty outrageous things if they see a way to make some big bucks.

Wikipedia can’t be trusted on this subject. I have spent enough time trying to get them to be more of an honest broker, but they have no interest in being even handed.

The way to stop something similar from happening in the future is to insist the evidence that is already available be taken seriously. If it is taken seriously, the next thing to insist on is that our governmental scientific institutions (NIST in particular) correct all the faulty information they’ve been giving us, and start reporting factually correct information from here on out. (This includes going back and correcting the shocking falsehoods they put out in their WTC reports.

In short, it turned out to be an anti-spam plug-in that prevented iTunes from pinging my feed. Or so they say–at any rate, when I turned off the plug-in everything started working.

I know the main stream media treat them as a joke, but thousands of normal, average Americans have seen them, and a large percentage of these have been reliable, professional observers such as airline pilots, police officers, and air force pilots.

No reputable investigators would definitively say that we know what UFOs are – many are explainable, but a lot of them are not. Evidence exists that proves they exist as solid, real objects, some having landed and left strong evidence of their presence. Air Traffic Control radars have tracked them, air force pilots have shot at them, so authorities DO see them as real.

But we don’t know WHAT they are, or where they come from. Does that mean they don’t exist? No, but it does mean that serious investigators are looking into that- and remarks like yours are uncalled for and unhelpful to those that have experienced a sighting or spend their time investigating these phenomena.

Crazies there are, but that doesn’t mean that everybody involved is too.

Here’s a good anti-HFCS take-off response to one of those pro-HFCS TV ads that has some of this info in it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYiEFu54o1E

As freethinkers, we should have an advantage in looking at this situation a little differently.

He has been outspoken against the war, so have I, and so have millions of people, probably a huge percentage of the democratic party. I imagine his religion added to that somewhat. Ever since, I imagine he has been persecuted for being muslim, especially in light of the fact that there has been a concerted effort on the right to ‘christianize’ our troops. Atheists, muslims, jews, whatever, have all been subject to this problem. Many groups such as FFRF, MRFF, MAAF have been combating this for some time.

In his job he dealt with returning soldiers with PTSD among other things. I’m sure he heard lots of horror stories that turned his stomach, and may have meet with some hostility from his patients as well for his religion.

I imagine all those factors combined to send him over the edge with disastrous consequences. The same issues are also at play in creating more insurgents in the war regions as well. If we as a nation, if our politicians, if our soldiers, all had a much stronger secular outlook on the world, not only might this situation not have happened, but neither might have the wars we are in, and there might even be a much higher chance that the Middle East would be a much more peaceful place than it is.

Lets not look at this indecent so simply as just terrorist of nut bag, but examine it more thoroughly to expose it as a symptom and almost expected outcome of the christian/sectarian attitudes that the right breed so strongly particularly during the previous administration.

I am pleased that Maj Hasan survived, and hope he returns to health to explain his actions. He will certainly pay dearly for his crimes, but hopefully his explanations will help us to better correct the error of our ways as well.

NH Baritone responded: No disrespect intended, but I fail to see how terrorist thinking and mental instability are mutually exclusive. The answer to your questions may be contained in the questions themselves.

Study after study has shown the Thimerosal has no harmful side effects and since it has been removed from all of the other vaccines since 2001, autisim rates haven’t declined.

Sorry for the error! Thanks for keeping me honest!

Bigots… plain and simple.

Dan

Now next may be BD’s mistake or perhaps because I don’t watch the show I missed something, but I watched the clip of that episode online and I didn’t see anything specifically Catholic about it. Lots of People put up pictures of Jesus, though it does seem like it’s mainly Catholics who are into the Mary on Toast, weeping statues type of “miracle”. Anyway, when I saw it I thought it was just making fun of gullible Christians, not specifically Catholics.

Finally, Bill Maher separating himself from atheists.
Maher has many times said he is not an atheist and that atheists are just as fundamentalist as theists. I can’t believe you guys didn’t know that.
It’s been a big deal, I think I even heard him saying before Religulous came out that his beef was with organized religions, not undefined theism since he didn’t think he could really say there is no god.
But when he last has Richard Dawkins on his show he introduced him as “my fellow atheist”.
My guess is Maher has finally been convinced that atheist just means lacking a belief in god, not necessarily forwarding the positive claim that no god exists. He clearly used to think otherwise. Good for him if he can take in argument and change his mind as a result.

First off, reach over and turn off the ALL CAPS. You’re giving me an eye-ache.

Second, if Christians stuck to healing the sick, feeding the poor and following the Commandments, we would have no problem with you. But instead you try to tamper with the rights of others, be it abortion rights, the rights of gays, or separation of church and state. As soon as we can sort that out, we’ll stop with the “attack and compare.” Thanks!

John