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Search found 116 matches
- January 20th, 2009, 3:55 pm
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Sick jokes - a question of ethics?
- Replies: 19
- Views: 4818
Re: Sick jokes - a question of ethics?
Btw, I don't see why doing something primarily to entertain, as opposed to doing something primarily to hurt (as in the lions-xtians example), makes a difference to the rightness and wrongness of it, if the end results are same: some people are hurt, others are entertained. The results are qualitat...
- January 20th, 2009, 10:38 am
- Forum: Religion
- Topic: Holocaust Theology
- Replies: 1
- Views: 868
Re: Holocaust Theology
I found God, he was behind the sofa all this time... It's not a particularly new point, the Holocaust has been used countless times as an example of "evil" that weakens a concept of a benevolent god. I would agree that people need to seek out god, in that to me a personal belief is much better than ...
- January 20th, 2009, 10:11 am
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Sick jokes - a question of ethics?
- Replies: 19
- Views: 4818
Re: Sick jokes - a question of ethics?
Isn't how much something hurts people without good reason a measure of whether something is morally wrong or not? Getting eaten by a lion sounds like a pretty horrible way to die and yet in days gone by people were entertained by the spectacle. Nowadays I think most of us would say that feeding peo...
- January 19th, 2009, 6:06 pm
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: Sick jokes - a question of ethics?
- Replies: 19
- Views: 4818
Re: Sick jokes - a question of ethics?
It would be inconsistent of me to condemn offensive humour as a whole, given that I have told, and laughed at, many an offensive joke. If not generally than at least for myself and a small minority of others, offensive humour allows us to acknowledge the darker side of our imagination; not necessari...
- November 25th, 2008, 11:37 pm
- Forum: Social Club
- Topic: Have you ever?
- Replies: 33
- Views: 7112
Re: Have you ever?
I have Googled my own name, and could be anyone of the following
- A homophobic Australian MP (oh the irony)
- An estate agent (an unenviable job in the current economic climate)
- A professor at the University of York
OR
With a slight misspelling of my name, a very famous British author.
- A homophobic Australian MP (oh the irony)
- An estate agent (an unenviable job in the current economic climate)
- A professor at the University of York
OR
With a slight misspelling of my name, a very famous British author.
- November 25th, 2008, 9:46 pm
- Forum: Social Club
- Topic: Explain your avatar
- Replies: 561
- Views: 146921
Re: Explain your avatar
I was looking for a cool picture to cover my Vista folder "Psychology" that I use to store my uni stuff, no prizes for guessing what I study now, my avatar picture is what I found (and liked).
- November 25th, 2008, 9:43 pm
- Forum: Social Club
- Topic: Which historical figure would you like to meet?
- Replies: 18
- Views: 2821
Re: Which historical figure would you like to meet?
Erich Fromm, although he would not be my first choice of person I would wish to meet as that said person is still alive and thus hardly "from history". Even Fromm is not much of a historical figure, but his book ( The Fear of Freedom ) is one of the few books that has "struck an intuitive chord" wit...
- November 25th, 2008, 4:33 pm
- Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
- Topic: Well should they?
- Replies: 32
- Views: 4011
Re: Well should they?
the justification for not allowing the public to use firearms (I'm including tasers in that group), is that they are not appropriate and justified as a means of defence. If the police are routinely armed, then they would have no argument to stop the public owning them. If the assumption that the pu...
- November 22nd, 2008, 10:19 am
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: Injured man dies because he shunned conventional medicine.
- Replies: 19
- Views: 3301
Re: Injured man dies because he shunned conventional medicine.
I'm going to play Devil's advocate and say if anecdotal evidence is not acceptable for the efficacy of alternative medicines, then it cannot be acceptable for the lack of efficacy of these medicines :smile: But obviously there is a wealth of rigorous scientific and empircal research supporting the e...
- November 22nd, 2008, 10:15 am
- Forum: Education
- Topic: Should BNP members be barred from teaching jobs?
- Replies: 60
- Views: 12446
Re: Should BNP members be barred from teaching jobs?
My view is thus: People are entitled to their beliefs, usually I would say "reasoned beliefs" but then even to us here if voting for the BNP seems completely unreasonable, to those who do vote somehow they manage to rationalise it in their own mind. So, everone has the right to their beliefs, the di...
- November 2nd, 2008, 10:42 am
- Forum: Religion
- Topic: The Vatican
- Replies: 9
- Views: 1811
Re: The Vatican
"I think...well I don't know really, but I think the gays are wrong...I'm pretty sure god doesn't like em...but then, well god may not exist ya know...I think he does! Let's say for the sake of argument god exists...yeah then he wouldn't like gays. God's son only went around telling men to leave the...
- November 2nd, 2008, 10:37 am
- Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
- Topic: What do you make of this?
- Replies: 17
- Views: 3658
Re: What do you make of this?
Talk about straw man arguments and misrepresentation!
- November 2nd, 2008, 10:35 am
- Forum: Education
- Topic: Dumbing down in Universities and Colleges
- Replies: 44
- Views: 27046
Re: Dumbing down in Universities and Colleges
I am glad to see that my university does not appear! A lot of the universities offering such courses are former polytechnics, and mine also being a former polytechnic I was worried I was about to see it there! I'm equally glad that, thus far, nobody has placed a counselling/psychotherapy course as b...
- September 30th, 2008, 4:32 pm
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: A fridge that uses no energy?
- Replies: 11
- Views: 2332
Re: A fridge that uses no energy?
But I want a tan, and I can't wait for global warming :(
- September 29th, 2008, 9:41 am
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: Opus Dei and Science
- Replies: 2
- Views: 1163
Re: Opus Dei and Science
Isn't it sweet they're investing in science to present a face of at least searching for somewhat more objective truth?
- September 29th, 2008, 9:38 am
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: A fridge that uses no energy?
- Replies: 11
- Views: 2332
Re: A fridge that uses no energy?
I'm renewable energy, my wings are solar-powered.
- September 29th, 2008, 9:37 am
- Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
- Topic: Why are we impressed by celebrity?
- Replies: 45
- Views: 5077
Re: Why are we impressed by celebrity?
I would like to pretend that I'm never "star struck", yet for some reason even if I see a famous-person, regardless of whether I actually spoke to him/her or not, for some reason it becomes important news.
- September 24th, 2008, 10:31 am
- Forum: Sciences and pseudo-science
- Topic: A fridge that uses no energy?
- Replies: 11
- Views: 2332
Re: A fridge that uses no energy?
There is something quite peaceful about going down to the fridge at midnight and being illuminated by that enigmatic glow...mould or no mould!
- September 13th, 2008, 11:29 am
- Forum: Education
- Topic: Creationism
- Replies: 10
- Views: 2833
Re: Creationism
I think Eddie Izzard put it best, about how (Darwin's theory of) evolution had "a few holes" but then it is not right to go "Fucking magic!" YouTube clip here. I remember back in secondary school (Catholic) a boy had a bit of a debate with the biology teacher, when we were learning about evolution, ...
- September 1st, 2008, 11:48 am
- Forum: Education
- Topic: Humanism for Schools - new BHA site.
- Replies: 10
- Views: 3658
Re: Humanism for Schools - new BHA site.
If religion was taught discursively, and critically, I think it would be both necessary and important to teach humanism or at least "secularism". I cannot speak for how secular schools teach religion, if they teach it at all, but I remember RE from both primary school and secondary school (both Cath...