PhysioProf gently chides Colin Powell.
James likens religious thought to intellectual dodgeball and observes that
The unavoidable result is that religion becomes little more than a choice, subject to the same social, cultural, historical, and economic pressures as any other. It ceases to have truth-value in any objective sense and must be relegated to whence it came: the realm of the socially political.
Jen Sorensen shares my disdain for the present crop of
Tim Kreider shares his horrible, horrible thoughts.
No, the Ku Klux Klan has not endorsed Barack Obama.
The Democratic Senate shows some spine on civil liberties. Well, if by "spine" you mean "craven cowardice".
Dave Johnson thinks the right is exploiting the Clinton vs. Obama wars to drive a wedge in the Democratic primary. (h/t to skippy)
I agree with PZ Myers: Threaten to kill us, and we'll mock your god.ronbrown locates the Objective Moral Standard. Heh. Indeed.
A week from tomorrow, Matt Taibbi will excoriate the Democratic Chicken Doves for sacrificing an end to the war in Iraq for at best temporary and at worst illusory partisan advantage. (h/t to Mike the Mad Biologist)
Disgusted Beyond Belief justifies the million dollar lawsuit. Spot on, DBB.
The concept of "Fractal Wrongness" has apparently been around for several years, although (as I commented at TechSkeptic) I hadn't seen it used until a few days ago. I found the full definition at this lexicon of computing. The full definition is:
ReplyDeleteThe state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.
Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as every refutation you make of that person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder, full of half-truths, leaps of logic, and outright lies, that requires just as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the Mandelbrot set in finite time.
If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the Internet -- in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums -- your best bet is to say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.
My personal favorite of the "Danish cartoons" was the one with Mohammed standing in front of the gates to Paradise warding off a crowd of martyrs and shouting "Stop, we've run out of virgins!"
ReplyDeleteHilarious.
If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the Internet -- in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums -- your best bet is to say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.
ReplyDeleteI spent a couple of years at the Internet Infidels Discussion Forum, debating theism. Hence this blog.