Skepticule Extra 009 available for download

Stand by your podcatcher, the ninth episode of Skepticule Extra is about to drop into your mp3 player. Cruelly truncated in its prime, this episode cuts off just as it gets into its stride, but needs must when the evangelist calls.

Reith, Muhammed, Jesus (he was a Muslim, you know), Jews, Knowing everything, Telling homeopaths what you really think, Camping with Jesus (he was a Muslim, you know), Touring the End of the World, Prayers before bounty, Debating secularism (or not).

Like I said, short show.

500 miles for a good cause

Today The Mile by Mile Cycling Team began their marathon charity cycle ride from Lancashire to Hampshire, aiming to double their fundraising (currently around £10,000) in aid of Help for Heroes. Three lecturers at South Downs College are cycling 500 miles over ten days in memory of one of their students, Richard Hollington, who died as a result of injuries received on active service in Afghanistan.

The team's website is here:
http://www.milebymilecyclingteam.co.uk/

The blog is here:
http://milebymilebikeride.blogspot.com/

Follow them on Twitter here:
http://twitter.com/#!/MxMBikeRide
(use the hashtag #mbmct)

Find out more here:
http://www.milebymilecyclingteam.co.uk/events.html

Videos!

Maps!

Donate!

A hypothetical belief — and its effects

Imagine holding a belief such that everyone who doesn't share your belief is a liar.

Suppose you hold a belief that the universe is a particular way. That's not asking much; I suspect most people hold such a belief, to a more or less certain degree. Suppose, however, that your belief is very certain, to the degree that it's inconceivable (to you) that you could be mistaken. That's asking a little more, but it still doesn't place you at the extremity of the belief bell-curve.

But suppose the belief you hold — about the particular way the universe is — includes the idea that everyone else actually shares your belief, even if they deny it. If yours is a minority belief it places you in the invidious position of believing (to a degree that it's inconceivable to you that you could be mistaken) that almost everyone else is a pathological liar.

This is not a pleasant place to be, and will adversely affect your relationships with almost everyone. It's likely you will have serious issues with trust. If you firmly believe that most people are willfully lying about their own most fundamental beliefs, you will automatically (perhaps even unconsciously) label them as dishonest and untrustworthy. You will have difficulty taking their words at face value and will constantly question their motives. In short, you will mistrust everything about them.

Consequently, when events don't unfold as hoped or planned, your first instinct will be to assume the liars have cheated you, rather than to ascribe adverse events to simple error, happenstance or the vagaries of inanimate technology. You will be awash in a sea of knaves and scoundrels, against whom you must erect impregnable security.

Meanwhile those "knaves and scoundrels" who observe your actions will see only hubris and paranoia.

But as I indicated in the title of this post, this is a hypothetical scenario. No-one would actually believe something like that, would they?

Burnee links for Sunday

No Burnee links last Thursday (been busy, you know?) so here are a few. Other posts coming too.

The EHRC's stance on religious rights undermines its credibility | Andrew Copson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
It does appear as if the EHCR has forgotten what the "E" stands for.

CriticalThinking.org - Critical Thinking Model 1
A useful overview, with plenty of explanatory information.
(Via Vaughan Jones.)

Greta Christina's Blog: Why We Have to Talk About This: Atheism, Sexism, and Blowing Up The Internet
The last word on "Elevatorgate"?

A Skeptical Look at Aliens : Pharyngula
P. Z. Myers' talk at TAM — text and slides.

Giving teachers confidence to engage pupils on beliefs- Belfast Telegraph | The Tony Blair Faith Foundation

"An innovative scheme to encourage inter-faith dialogue in schools is being backed by former prime minister Tony Blair, writes James Nelson"

Wishy-washy waffle — par for course at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (which is not, I'm reliably informed, the name of a pop group). "Inter-faith dialogue" is doomed; it can never be more than lip-service to some kind of accommodation, because at bottom different faiths hold different and mutually exclusive beliefs. The different faiths may cosy up to each other when they want the same thing (such as "respect" for unsubstantiated, nonsensical beliefs) but at heart they are fundamentally opposed to each other.
(Via Ophelia Benson, who described this piece as a "warm pool of sick".)

‪Thunderf00t -Westboro Baptist Church (full interview)‬‏ - YouTube
The argument from loud voice, insult, not listening, talking over and interrupting. Why on earth did these two women agree to a video interview with Thunderf00t?
http://youtu.be/OTSbfs32yCU

The (unexpected) Skepticule Record

The recording of last Monday's unexpected "Fourth Debate on Presuppositional Apologetics" is now available for your endurance:

http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2011/07/skeprec-004-20110711.html

Note that this recording is about 69 minutes long (including intro and outro) and entirely unedited apart from a Skype drop-out in the middle.

You will be completely forgiven if you decide to skip it.

Presuppositional apoplectics

If you read Paul Baird's blog, Patient and Persistent, you'll know that our recording of Skepticule Extra 009 last night didn't go as planned. About half way through Paul B took a Skype call from Eric Hovind (while letting him know we were recording), and a little further on in the conversation we were joined by Sye Ten Bruggencate. What followed was a demonstration of Presuppositional Apologetics in action, and the main thing I took away from it — regardless of the validity or invalidity of its arguments — is that it clearly doesn't work as an apologetic method. The more I hear of it the less convincing it sounds. In particular Sye's schtick (amply evident in the recorded conversation) doesn't change. Because PA is essentially circular it can't expand and offer anything else, and when you've heard the same unconvincing argument several times it inevitably becomes less convincing each subsequent time you encounter it.

As far as I'm aware, Christianity isn't overflowing with converts who became believers as a result of hearing this argument, and when the subject was discussed in the Premier Community the most vocal opponents of PA were not atheists but other Christians.

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results."

(attr: Albert Einstein)

Eric and Sye have agreed to the unedited recording being aired on Skepticule Extra, so listen out for a special episode in the next few days.

Serious comedy is no joke

The News of the World is no more. Not that its demise matters to me at all. I took a look at an issue of the NotW some forty-odd years ago, and the first thing that met my eyes was an article about a man accused of skateboarding in the nude at midnight. Oh happy accident! Serendipity be my friend! In that very moment I realised the NotW had spared me the necessity of looking at its raggedy despicableness ever again in my whole life. And I didn't.

But there's a wider issue, and it was elucidated with superb concision and wit by John Finnemore on Friday's Now Show on BBC Radio 4. If you've not heard it, do yourself and everybody else in Britain a favour by going to the BBC iPlayer before next Saturday and listening to his ten-minute stand-up (it starts about six and a half minutes into the programme). You'll be glad you did.

After you've written to your MP, you could do worse than listen to the new series of Cabin Pressure, a comedy written by John Finnemore, about a small private airline (or more accurately an airdot) — a series that boasts a pedigree cast few radio comedies can match: Stephanie Cole, Roger Allam, Benedict Cumberbatch and John Finnemore himself.

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UPDATE 2011-07-11:

John Finnemore's Now Show transcript here:
http://johnfinnemore.blogspot.com/2011/07/preaching-to-choir.html