The Science - Science Fiction thread

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  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,973
    Well the Islam is about 600 years younger then Christianity, and 600 years ago you'd get hanged too if you turned out a heretic who didn't agree with what the pope considered the truth. SO I guess we'll have to wait at least another 200 years for reason to start to sink in with muslims. They're still living in medieval times.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,808
    I think they're still living in the Stone Age and they want to drag us all back there.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited August 2016 Posts: 23,548
    Some 'expert' apparently said - and I'm sorry but I can't find the link anymore - that fundamentalists of various persuasions (Christian, Muslim, ...) hate us, scientists, simply because we understand science and they don't. Wait, what? Like that even makes sense. Here's three easy steps towards getting yourself a bit of science:

    1) Stop treating the Old Testament as a source of 'scientific' wisdom.

    If you refuse to accept all the evidence provided to us in a petri dish, through a telescope, through a particle accelerator, ..., simply because said evidence contradicts your beloved fairy tales, you are an idiot and you should probably be castrated.

    2) Start properly educating everyone, including women.

    Perhaps it would be wise to teach your young ones mathematics, physics, history (unfiltered if you please), chemistry, biology, astronomy... instead of how to stone women to death for not covering their faces in horrible rags and how to blow up cars with prisoners in them. Of course if you prefer that appalling joke called creationism over the indisputable fact of evolutionary biology, you are an idiot and you should probably be castrated.

    3) Read books and open yourself up to the 21st century.

    Science, unlike religion, doesn't hide its methods, data and knowledge in obscurity. Everyone has access to science and how science works. We don't assemble a papal conclave to figure out what is correct and what isn't, we let science decide things for us in absolute agreement with nature and publish those findings. I agree that most book stores don't help; they much rather keep hundreds of books on esoteric crap, cooking, tourism and gardening in stock than ten books on astronomy. But libraries are full of them, books that are willing to explain science to people of all ages, all levels of interest and all levels of education.

    More people on this planet know about Justin Bieber's sex life than they know about the Earth revolving around the Sun.

    Only 1 in 5 Americans believe in the Big Bang while less than a third think climate change exists.

    See? That's what I'm talking about. A few things:

    A) One doesn't "believe" in the Big Bang. There's no such thing as the intellectual right to believe or not believe in what is a hard fact. One can only accept the truth and if one doesn't, one is an idiot and should probably be castrated.

    B) Clearly there's something wrong with how people are educated in America. Oh wait, this:

    5a71853f365d3be15ffbc32cbba17821.jpg

    Yeah, people who are influenced by that are idiots and should definitely be castrated. Also, no wonder education fails in certain parts of the USA. Anyone who doesn't scoff at that sign or tear it down, is a potential terrorist.

    C) One doesn't "think" that climate change exists. One has to but look at the facts:

    tumblr_inline_o19hta05QL1tzhl5u_500.gif
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    edited August 2016 Posts: 7,973
    My dear @Darth, you should just start using the same methods as religions do:

    'You better believe in global warming or you'll burn to death!'

    'If you don't believe the world is round, then you WILL fall off the edge and dissapear for eternity!'

    you see, fear works!
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,548
    But of course I should start applying the same methods. After all, the indoctrination techniques of 2000 years of Christianity cannot be capriciously dismissed simply because I assert that they differ from what any sane person would consider morally correct today.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,973
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    But of course I should start applying the same methods. After all, the indoctrination techniques of 2000 years of Christianity cannot be capriciously dismissed simply because I assert that they differ from what any sane person would consider morally correct today.
    The ends justify the means!!
    :ar!
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    In some cases, the means justify the ends.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited August 2016 Posts: 9,117
    You've sold me Darth.

    Mass castration for the religious and we could be rid of this cancer in society in just a few years rather than have to wait a few more generations for it to slowly die off naturally.

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,548
    I'd start with creationists. They're the worst. People who want to say their prayers in the privates of their most inner thoughts are by all means welcome to do that. Creationists, feeding their nonsense to children who haven't in their formative years the slightest chance of arming themselves against said nonsense, are despicable, dangerous people, guilty of brainwashing and child abuse. I read somewhere that a politician wants to punish parents who raise their kids on a vegan diet because a child, growing up, needs its proteins, cholesterol, ... I'd make a priority of punishing parents who raise their children by the intellectual brutalities of creationist doctrine. They deprive their children of equal chances in life by putting them in a competitive disadvantage and potentially shaping them into suicide terrorists.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,808
    You've sold me Darth.

    Mass castration for the religious and we could be rid of this cancer in society in just a few years rather than have to wait a few more generations for it to slowly die off naturally.

    I believe that the Nazis had similar ideas and look how that ended up.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,973
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    You've sold me Darth.

    Mass castration for the religious and we could be rid of this cancer in society in just a few years rather than have to wait a few more generations for it to slowly die off naturally.

    I believe that the Nazis had similar ideas and look how that ended up.
    Negative, they were in favour of 'Christianity', meaning protestantism and catholicism.
    That's why thos cardinals waved their right hands so Roman-like at that little Austrian running the show in Germany.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited August 2016 Posts: 17,808
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    You've sold me Darth.

    Mass castration for the religious and we could be rid of this cancer in society in just a few years rather than have to wait a few more generations for it to slowly die off naturally.

    I believe that the Nazis had similar ideas and look how that ended up.
    Negative, they were in favour of 'Christianity', meaning protestantism and catholicism.
    That's why thos cardinals waved their right hands so Roman-like at that little Austrian running the show in Germany.

    I was referring to their sterilisation programme for "inferior races" in particular here. For every Christian who backed the Nazis there were those like the Roman Catholic Bishop von Galen and the Protestant Dietrich Bonhoeffer who did not. Some even gave their lives to uphold Christian values and oppose the insidious rule of fascism. Let not their memories be forgotten before all Christians are tarred with the one brush.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,973
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    You've sold me Darth.

    Mass castration for the religious and we could be rid of this cancer in society in just a few years rather than have to wait a few more generations for it to slowly die off naturally.

    I believe that the Nazis had similar ideas and look how that ended up.
    Negative, they were in favour of 'Christianity', meaning protestantism and catholicism.
    That's why thos cardinals waved their right hands so Roman-like at that little Austrian running the show in Germany.

    I was referring to their sterilisation programme for "inferior races" in particular here. For every Christian who backed the Nazis there were those like the Roman Catholic Bishop von Galen and the Protestant Dietrich Bonhoeffer who did not. Some even gave their lives to uphold Christian values and oppose the insidious rule of fascism. Let not their memories be forgotten before all Christians are tarred with the one brush.

    First of all, be aware that the @Whiz and @Darth were only jesting. Then on the topic, keeping morality at a tentpole's distance, their steralisation programme had little to do with the outcome of the war. Nor were they the first...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,808
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    You've sold me Darth.

    Mass castration for the religious and we could be rid of this cancer in society in just a few years rather than have to wait a few more generations for it to slowly die off naturally.

    I believe that the Nazis had similar ideas and look how that ended up.
    Negative, they were in favour of 'Christianity', meaning protestantism and catholicism.
    That's why thos cardinals waved their right hands so Roman-like at that little Austrian running the show in Germany.

    I was referring to their sterilisation programme for "inferior races" in particular here. For every Christian who backed the Nazis there were those like the Roman Catholic Bishop von Galen and the Protestant Dietrich Bonhoeffer who did not. Some even gave their lives to uphold Christian values and oppose the insidious rule of fascism. Let not their memories be forgotten before all Christians are tarred with the one brush.

    First of all, be aware that the @Whiz and @Darth were only jesting. Then on the topic, keeping morality at a tentpole's distance, their steralisation programme had little to do with the outcome of the war. Nor were they the first...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

    Yes, of course and it could be said that that was the lesser of the Nazis' considerable crimes against humanity. I'm glad to see that sterilisation doesn't seem to ever have been brought in by the UK at any point, from that link at least.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,973
    As far as I know it was used in the UK as punishment or 'cure' for homosexuals. It's what drove Alan Turing to his suicide. One of the greatest minds the UK has ever had...
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited August 2016 Posts: 17,808
    As far as I know it was used in the UK as punishment or 'cure' for homosexuals. It's what drove Alan Turing to his suicide. One of the greatest minds the UK has ever had...

    Ah yes, how could I have forgotten that one?! Turing was treated most shamefully by the authorities after all he had done to help Britain win the war. "Chemical castration" I believe it was called. Not a glorious chapter in our past by any means...
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    I was paddling around the backwaters of BBC iplayer tonight and came across this from 1974:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p027vs31/tuesday-documentary-the-dracula-business

    It starts off as a fairly pedestrian history of Dracula (Vald the Impaler, Romanian castles etc) but then halfway through branches off at a tangent and discusses the occult.

    They interview two priests who have performed exorcisms on people who claim to have been possessed by the devil or are having their blood sucked by vampires.

    The one that had me in tears is on 38 mins where a priest, deadly serious, mimes a woman being choked by the devil then says:

    'She was obviously choking so I thought I must do something so I went over to her and said 'In the name of Jesus of Nazareth I command you to come out of her.' Nothing happened and for a moment I was puzzled but then I remember reading that sometimes people involved in exorcisms struggle so I kept on with the same command several times and eventually she collapsed on the floor and was unconscious for 15 mins.'

    Phew good job he was there to save the day! Its the guy's earnest demeanour as he regales us with this bullshit story that is so funny. Well it tickled me anyway.

    The frightening thing is though that this is a serious documentary by the BBC and that only 42 years ago in this country this sort of tosh was being treated as credible. I suppose just thank Christ we dont live in the US where they would probably even now nod their heads sagely and say 'Yeah lucky he was there to command the devil to leave her'!

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,548
    @TheWizardOfIce

    Though my living outside the UK seems to prohibit me from watching the documentary, I'm glad you bring this up. It's terrifying, isn't it, that superstition, magic, the occult, ... can reign supreme in certain midsts, even the educated ones, and so frighteningly close to modern times. One would assume that we left exorcisms and the likes behind us, aeons ago, and that the advent of modern science would make people burst out in laughter when confronted with such medieval superstitions.

    Carl Sagan's book THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD, to this day one of the most enlightening bits of reading I've ever done, shocks us with numbers concerning the type of nonsense powerful, 'smart' and important people cling to, including dogmatic religious symbols, alien abduction theories, truth and fortune telling, ... He provides compelling evidence against all of these things, which makes this book mandatory reading for literally everyone. If my own students didn't struggle so much with English, I'd make them sit down and read it.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,548
    Get me Dr. Jones.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Christmas?
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,973
    nope, the other one:
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,548
    Ok... so, the Vatican has decided to make one of the most horrible women in history a saint now.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/krithika-varagur/mother-teresa-was-no-saint_b_9470988.html
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Who cares?
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    edited September 2016 Posts: 7,973
    You do old boy, they gave her the lot next to the one reserved for you in heaven. they think she's a demigod too...
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Right. I shall have a talk with her.
  • stagstag In the thick of it!
    Posts: 1,053
    Has anyone seen the film 'Quatermass & The Pit'? I remember watching it in the early 70's & it really creeped me out. It was on TV recently & I must admit my main focus was on the delicious Barbara Shelley. She had the most tenuous of Bond connections insofar as she worked with Christopher Lee on occasion.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,548
    I love that movie, @stag. It's included in my Hammer Horror collection.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    I have seen it. Thought it was very good, but don t really remember much except thatTorquemada was lovely as always.
  • stagstag In the thick of it!
    Posts: 1,053
    Barbara Shelley would have made a great Moneypenny.
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