"When a man is of no use to himself or to others, when his days and nights are filled with pain and sorrow, why should he remain to endure them longer?" - Robert Green Ingersoll | Writings & Interviews On Suicide

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Critic 1:

"From what I've seen in your MSN pic, yours sag la. They sag further than an old lady's. Can secure down with your belt already =p"

I am almost insulted enough to inflict eternal torment on everyone by posting a picture of my moobs.

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Fundamental Union

"Under the heading "Are we being misinformed?", IslamOnline has a series of articles discussing homosexuality in "an Islamic and a scientific light". Almost all their scientific content comes from the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (Narth), a fringe psychiatric organisation in the US which promotes "sexual reorientation therapy" and enjoys support from the religious right. IslamOnline has no fewer than 26 links to Narth's website, and a news item on Narth's website reciprocates by welcoming IslamOnline's "very useful contribution to the on-going dialogue".

(Narth's views, incidentally, are rejected by all the main professional bodies in the US, including the American Psychological Association - with 150,000 members - which says homosexuality is not an illness and warns that attempting to "cure" it can be harmful.)

... On this issue, with a president who sounds increasingly like an old-fashioned imam, the United States now sits in the religious camp alongside the Islamic regimes: not so much a clash of civilisations, more an alliance of fundamentalisms."


Understanding religion: Joan of Arc was not the wife of Noah

"Here is the paradox: Although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about religion.

In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians and the Irish can tell you about the Seven Deadly Sins or the Five Pillars of Islam.

But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12% think Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc. That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but can’t be bothered to read what he has to say...

When Americans debated slavery, almost exclusively on the basis of the Bible, people of all races and classes could follow the debate. They could make sense of its references to the runaway slave in the New Testament book of Philemon and to the year of jubilee, when slaves could be freed, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus.

Today it is a rare American who can engage with any sophistication in biblically inflected arguments about gay marriage, abortion or stem cell research."

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loupgarou on my Christian Questionnaire:

"[quote]
And as for the square circle... ever heard of the fourth and fifth dimension?[/quote]

pitiful answer.
a square is defined as a geometric object having four equal sides and four right angles.
a circle is defined as a plane curve everywhere equidistant from a given fixed point (ie: its center).

no amount of dimensional manipulation will allow you to change either definition, a square circle is impossible, thus god cannot create a square circle no matter how the topology of the universe is warped. (since the definitions are mutually exclusive).

your answer is a none answer, because even if a square circle is possible in 5 dimensions, you haven't shown proof that it is possible. (mathematically speaking).

string theory and M theory have proposed that the universe actually comprises of anywhere between 9 - 16 dimensions. (depending on the theory).
there are also explanations for why we only see 3spatial+1 of time .
go google for it.

now, try to imagine a universe where every living creature is capable of 100% efficient photosynthesis as well as all possessing of great empathy, such that any act of violence or suffering inflicted on another (whether direct, indirect or through non action), is immediately reflected in the inflictee as emotional anguish or psychosomatic pain. I highly doubt anything such as human evil will arise out of this universe, yet freewill will not be an issue either. since you can choose to inflict evil/violence but pay the immediate consequence for it, in otherwords, you WILL choose not to do evil.

the fact that I can think this up and its not the reality implies less than perfectness from any god that may have created this universe, unless of course that being willed this universe with exactly the conditions for (entrapment, original sin, lies in the heavens and earth to mask the age of earth and the presence of intelligent design etc...)"

It is, of course, almost useless arguing against fundies, but we do it anyway. Intellectual tennis without an opponent may be derided by some as indulging in cheap thrills, but the frightening thing is how the non-existent opponents don't realise that they've lost.

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Cast of Characters

"It wouldn't really be much of a stretch to call Martine Rothblatt, chairwoman and CEO of Silver Spring, MD-based United Therapeutics, the most unique entrepreneur in Greater Washington - if not the entire world. After a career spent as a tough-talking telecommunications lawyer who helped launch companies like Sirius, a New York-based satellite radio company, and WorldSpace, an international satellite network for developing nations, Rothblatt completely shifted gears when she found out that her daughter, Jenesis, was afflicted with a rare and serious disease called pulmonary hypertension (PH). At the age of 40, Rothblatt personally funded the largest nongovernmental research foundation dedicated to finding a cure for the disease. Then she entered the biotechnology field, determined to find the cure herself...

There's one other thing about Rothblatt: She used to be a man.

Rothblatt is a postoperative transsexual. Since the early '90s, when she underwent sex-reassignment surgery, Rothblatt, who recently completed a PhD in biomedical ethics, has appeared on the Donahue show and graced the cover of Transgender Tapestry magazine. She has written two books - one about bioethics and one about what she refers to as "the apartheid of gender" - both of which are on the reading lists for dozens of college women's studies courses. (In the latter, Rothblatt argues that dividing people into distinct male-female categories is as oppressive as racial segregation.) She has also written a workplace guide for transsexuals who are readjusting after making the big switch."

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Overcoming the myths about sex

"For example, the Netherlands, where sexuality education begins in pre-school and is integrated into all levels and subjects of schooling, boasts the lowest teen birth rate in the world — 6.9 per 1,000 women aged 15-19.

The French and German success rates are similar to that of the Dutch. These programmes have also succeeded in reducing the spread of Aids as young people learn to be more responsible and make the connection between behaviour and consequences."

Chalk one up for reality versus "values" and "morals".

The road to hell is truly paved with good intentions.

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String fellows - "At the beginning of the 20th century, our understanding of the world began to turn upside down. The new ideas behind quantum mechanics said the world was unpredictable, that the behaviour of everything lay firmly in the hands of chance. Einstein's general relativity described how the space around us was warped by gravity, turning our understanding of the force into an exercise in geometry. But these two concepts share a problem: they don't agree with each other. To answer some of the biggest questions in physics, such as what actually happened in the big bang, this disagreement is a big problem - do you use the equations of general relativity because there is an enormous amount of mass? Or do you use quantum mechanics because it's all in such a small space?"
So the question I must ask: do quantum mechanics and general relativity contradict each other? During my Philosophy of Science class I raised this as an example of 2 scientific paradigms co-existing, but my professor said that the two didn't contradict... Wowbagger? AcidFlask? Anyone?

Monkey "Pay-Per-View" Study Could Aid Understanding of Autism - "Researches have found that monkeys will "pay" juice rewards to see images of high-ranking monkeys or female hindquarters. They say their research technique offers a rigorous laboratory approach to studying the "social machinery" of the brain and how this machinery goes tragically awry in autism -- a disease that afflicts more than a million Americans and is the fastest growing developmental disorder."

School defends slavery booklet - "Students at one of the area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures."

Eiffel Tower: Repossessed - "You need look no further than Mickey Mouse in the US, or Elvis in the UK, to understand how copyright, for better or worst, affects the marketplace. But while Disney resorted to legal means to get more life out Mickey, those that oversee the Eiffel Tower came up with something far more clever. The Eiffel Tower's likeness had long since been part of the public domain, when in 2003, it was abruptly repossessed by the city of Paris. That's the year that the SNTE, the company charged with maintaining the tower, adorned it with a distinctive lighting display, copyrighted the design, and in one feel swoop, reclaimed the nighttime image and likeness of the most popular monument on earth. In short: they changed the actual likeness of the tower, and then copyrighted that."

Power Rangers": The Best Cartoon the 1980's Ever Produced - "By "1980’s cartoon," I mean a cartoon that mostly ignores atmosphere, character and even plot, but instead just kicks around "good vs. evil" heroics. The good guys have few if any flaws and are often pretty stereotyped. The bad guys scheme up ridiculous plots so over-the-top they usually collapse under their own grandeur. Occasionally, you’ll get a cartoon that transcends the limitations of the genre—He-Man is the best example—but usually they’re about the simplest thing you can imagine. Nowadays, and at least since the premieres of Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles, cartoons have trended either toward darker atmospheres and flawed protagonists or toward lighter anime series involving friendly competition. In this environment, Power Rangers is practically a throwback."

iKidney - NKF Singapore "Secrets of Success" - "“We give our dialysis patients a grade every year,” remarked T.T. Dunai, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF)-Singapore. “Those with better grades pay less for services.”"
Wah. Go doctor also got exam and got marks. Let it not be said that we do not reward people who work hard here!