www.paulnixon.org

The miserable old git who used to live next door to us in Catford used to cycle with Catford cc. His name was John, ah can't remember his surname... do you know him? I would imagine he is known as miserable old John at the cycling club.

Al

I don't actually ride with the Catford CC as such, though I take part in their events.

Shame you didn't get on with chap next door; cyclists are on the whole a charming bunch. You sure you weren't causing him trouble - you were a bit of a wee scamp as a youngster I 'eard :-)

Ah right,

I used to annoy him with kicking the ball into his garden as a youngster, then when I was a youth I used to play my music too loud, that used to get his goat. He fixed my pal's bike chain once though, so not all bad.

See, once I thought about it I saw the good in the old wanker.

The snake its not a Viper, its a Green Tree Python

Unfortunate. Number 9's got his old boy on the wrong way up...

this is cool

that is scary and i love love love it

i held one in 1st grade it wasn't slimy if u think it was it was rough

that is one scary creature:if i came face to face i think id faint! wow that is abasalutely and most definately the scariest animal ON EARTH!!

I have seen things way more teriffying than that !

i have a camilon that looks just like it sitting next to me.

not scarey so get a new pic u fuckin ass holes

can anyone tell me what kind of lizard this is? i would really like to know so that i can use it for my english assignment.

sick

PS And not an ad in sight!

PPS And Christ alive, you're number 1 for the search 'learning xhtml'

Sorry to go on, but how cool is this

Thank you for the nod. I think it is popular because it is very simple and short. Looking at my logs, I have found a lot of colleges link to it and it has worked its way into the curriculum of a few web-related courses.

Aw, I'm so proud, well done Si

xx

Ouch, "know better"

Yes, ouch indeed. If this advert does go out we should release another advert quoting a choice bit from the fairy tale Bible like;

"I have wiped out many nations, devastating their fortress walls and towers. Their cities are now deserted; their streets are in silent ruin. There are no survivors to even tell what happened. I thought, 'Surely they will have reverence for me now! Surely they will listen to my warnings, so I won't need to strike again.' But no; however much I punish them, they continue their evil practices from dawn till dusk and dusk till dawn." So now the LORD says: "Be patient; the time is coming soon when I will stand up and accuse these evil nations. For it is my decision to gather together the kingdoms of the earth and pour out my fiercest anger and fury on them. All the earth will be devoured by the fire of my jealousy. "On that day I will purify the lips of all people, so that everyone will be able to worship the LORD together. My scattered people who live beyond the rivers of Ethiopia will come to present their offerings. (Zephaniah 3:6-10 NLT)

Can't you just feel the love....?

This whole bus ad fiasco is quite embarrassing. The atheist ads aren't a substantial challenge to any theistic worldview and the Christian ones are not good counter-arguments in the eyes of anyone who doesn't accept the idea of biblical inerrancy (i.e. the entire target audience of the atheist ad campaign). I know that these ads are intended as marketing rather than serious arguments, but those intentions have done nothing to halt the wave of pseudo-intellectual reaction from the uninformed majorities on both sides. Not least annoying of which is the pejorative, anti-religious bigotry from the atheist camp.

The issue is too substantial for the medium of bus and tube adverts. To debate the issue in the context of these ads is a waste of time. The ads don't make any valid arguments. There is nothing to gain by 'refuting' them. There's humour to be had here certainly, but meaningful debate is elsewhere. Nobody seems to realise this.

That's nice is that!

What does God need with a bus?

There's a guy in the place

He's got a bittersweet face

And he goes by the name of Ebeneezer Goode

His friends call him Eezer and he is the main geezer

And he'll vibe about the place

Like no other man could

Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode

He's Ebeneezer Goode

Has anybody got any veras?

Lovely

Ya ha ha ha ha ha

Al, in the words Sir Rhodes Boyson (in the house), that's nice is that, though probably best left in the school yard :-)

It's well worth seeking out, by the way, the Ali G sketch - "will there always be education, in the nation, stopping domination.... in the station".

"Sir Rhode, do you think schoolchildren should get caned?"

Ha ha

Are you against all views of God, or just those of the major religions - Christianity, Islam etc. What about Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism? Any truth possible there?

And if my sources are correct, Einstein was a Pantheist.

:)

Steve, show me a sound theory backed up with a smidge of evidence and I'll believe anything.

But give me absurdity and a complete absence of evidence...

I think it's always going to be a fairly rhetorical argument. The question of God is more in the philosophical realm (or spiritual if that even exists). It can be certainly argued for in a philosophical sense but then equally against depending on your stance.

Eastern philosophers would point that God is not the creator but the creation itself, and therefore the evidence is all around you - you are walking on it, eating it and breathing it. A case of not seeing the wood for the trees.

To ask for emperical scientific evidence is beyond the range of our current scanners so to speak but that's not to say that it wont be in the future. Personally I dont think the realms will ever cross.

I'm glad you pointed out the people who experience 'altered states' which leads them to rationally believe in something else as I am one of those people who up until that point was a staunch mickey-taking atheist same as you. It messed me up for a while but with a healthy amount of research I think I've settled on a belief system that takes a bit from here and a bit from there and it makes sense within a certain set of parameters.

I may well be wrong but I doubt that matters in the long run.

I believe a question of greater significance is whether or not there should be a God. All evidence suggests that having one has generally been a Bad Thing, so I am of the opinion that promotion of such entities should be actively discouraged. Gods are more trouble than they are worth.

Steve, I'm not sure I get this "philosophical realm" business - it always sounds like an unnecessary murkying of the waters.

I'm will accept the rather nebulous sounding "eastern philosphy" creation-everywhere stuff - just so long as there is the slightest reason to believe it. If it can't be detected by our senses or 'scanners' how did someone know it was there in the first place?

I don't think you can just dismiss philosophy out of hand. Take the concept of nothingness for instance - which most atheists believe is what happens after death. It is a situation in which even the rules of science break down and can only be approached in a philosophical sense.

I'm certainly no expert or even really a student but my view is that Philosophy allows us to approach topics that are inherently difficult to wrap our limited minds around. This includes subjects such as nothing, infinity and God.

We are limited by what we can symbolise in either words, numbers or other symbols. Actual reality is an infinite wriggly place and we try to cast an abstracted net over the top of it with our tools.

Again, experiencing God is something that transcends most description and all we can do is point a finger to it and try to describe it as best we can such as in the eastern tradition Zen.

As for scanners not detecting things, well, they do - it just depends on which side of the fence you sit about what they represent. A personal choice between believing in something romantic and something more pragmatic.

Steve. I think our conversation can be much simplified.

If we have no way of knowing or sensing something, how can we know anything about it? Why would we waste time speculating about it?

Who knows if there are big purple monsters running the universe in extra dimensions that we can't see?

But given an infinite number of super-natural possibilities, all of which are totally unknowable by definition, why, for the love of all that is holy, would we waste time on any of them?

I do agree with what you say there, but I come at it from a different angle out of necessity. Having experienced 'something' I have learnt that there is something else. It's not something I can communicate easily to other people without coming across like a complete fruit loop and I certainly have no chance of changing anyone's opinions without them experiencing it directly also.

Not every god-botherer has one of these experiences, but I'm certainly not in a minority.

The experience does not hold all the answers but instead opens up all kinds of questions and it's quite fun exploring trying to find possible answers.

I guess it's the same as seeing a UFO. Easy to disbelieve if you haven't seen one but after someone sees something they can't rationally explain then they become believers.

Steve, very interesting.

So we are closer in viewpoint than it originally appeared.

In this situation we have to decide - is the probablity that your brain has fooled you into believing that you have glimpsed something 'supernatural' greater than the probability that you actually have?

One of the reasons I love optical illusions. We have a greatly misplaced faith in our abilities to accurately perceive reality. Just to make where I stand clear :-).

Bit of a long one this one :)

It's nice to be able to have a civilised dialog about these matters and I like being able to take a somewhat contrary stance to you without being lumped in with the vast majority of believers without proof.

This forum may not be the most forgiving place for me to air my opinions given the amount of humourous bible-banter around but what the hey, I love you guys :)

That's exactly what it was, a different perception of reality - an internal view where external senses such as sight and time perception broke down. Just because we can only experience the information that our senses send in a certain way means that we are already removed from what is true reality. For instance, you know that a bat experiences it very different than we do.

It happened under the influence of weed but that doesn't make it any less valid an experience. The weed simply facilitated my brain to function and perceive in a different way than it ordinarily would. It is a state which I believe can take a meditator years to achieve but it happened to me in minutes - which is why my tiny mind struggled to make sense of it - I had no chance to prepare for it.

Whether this state is true or I was fooled into thinking it was true is open to debate but if I try to describe the sensation it may make more sense as to why I subscribe to the former.

I have kept the experience etched into my mind and always find myself returning to it and re-evaluating not just it's greater meaning but what it actually 'physically' was.

Like a caveman encountering fire for the first time, I had no frame of reference. Nothing to call it. My instant reaction was to call it God. And I was it. After much deliberation, the most accurate non-religious description I can give of what happened is a singularity of consciousness.

Everything came together into one. Outside/inside, up/down, left/right, me/other, time/space. It all collapsed down into one unit. A dot. A something. With no frame of reference as to its size.

It was as though I were nothing but in that nothingness I found everything. I hate these paradoxes as much as anyone but this seems to be the nature of the beast.

It was almost a mathematical experience as much as anything. The feeling of rushing to the end of the collapse felt as though I were travelling to the end of the number Pi. And at the end the equation collapses with all sides equally zero with me being the equation.

While waiting for you to reply I did a quick rummage and found this which strangely sounds very similar to what I experienced - http://www.erowid.org/spirit/writings/spirit_writings1.shtml - don't let the fact that it's Erowid put you off, it's quite interesting.

The experience was necessarily transitory and obviously time passed during it but while in it it felt timeless. All I managed to be aware of was the fact that it was happening. No verbal thoughts. Pure mind/ego/consciousness/spirit if you will.

To conclude, this was something that actually happened to me - not something I merely read of or hoped would happen. So, with all that in mind I hope you can see from my point of view that as far as I am concerned there is proof. But it's a subjective proof and not one that can strictly be recorded on paper except to point to it through metaphors.

phew :)

(I love optical illusions too - particularly the black and white castle one)

Steve, phew indeed.

That does sound fascinating and having had such a profound experience it's hard to imagine anyone not drawing some significant (naturally false :-)) conclusions.

You know I think that these experiences are pretty common, if not always so profound as yours. I have spoken to quite a few people that mutter darkly about experiencing "something" but I suspect that most are not so open as you are to relate those experiences.

Shame you can't bottle it though, eh :-). As Sally would have said, 'I'll have what he's having'.

I agree. Discussion is good. The upside of all stunts like the latest bus ads. I will warn you that I am cursed with a complete inability to be brief. I will try (not wanting to spam your blog with waffle only my second ever comment)

I don't like to talk about "outside the scope of science". I like science and it has always been central to my interest in origins. While it is obvious that science does have a limited scope and a lot of what people consider religous falls outside of that scope, those things are not useful in debate. If someone believes that there is purple monster in an unobservable dimension controlling us all, then science can say little about the truth or falsity of that belief. That said it is a fallacy to say, as some do, that because it is beyond the reach of science it is false. It does however make it a matter of blind faith and is of no value to anyone but the believer.

In general athiests are in the habit of misusing terms and attacking strawmen, religious people have many debating bad habits too (again, in general). The discussion surrounding these bus adverts demostrates this perfectly. It drives me mad and is one of two reasons that I said that the issue is too substantial for a bus ad campaign and that meaningful debate was to be had elsewhere. They put out a few ads and then a collection of people that don't seem to understand how to debate and don't properly know their opponents position scramble to make the same flawed arguments that they always make. Your comments regarding dinosaurs demonstrates this as well as any.

The matter of God or no God *is* a scientific issue. We have no other methodology with which to judge. If a worldview is completely out of scope then it is scientifically weak, not necessarily false but simply purely blind faith. However, the scope of science is not as limited as some believe. The modern arguments from design are in my opinion the strongest scientific evidence of the existance of God. Explanatory, logically consistant internally and falsifiable. It is science. Then for specific worldviews there are scientific arguments made based on predictions made by that worldview (biblical creationist examples: intelligent creation, flood, age of the earth, etc)

It is a matter for the fossil record, radioisotopic dating, probability, genetics, information theory, statistical mechanics, etc. etc. This is the second reason I said that the issue is too substantial for a bus ad campaign. Most people don't have any understanding of any of these things. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt and they must substantiate their dogmatic assertions. Few do and so their 'arguments' are mere opinion.

Okay, that look way longer in this column width than in my notepad :-\ Sorry.

steve i reckon you took acid by mistake

mmmmm...acid

To be honest, I'm not sure hallucinogens are a valid basis for a belief system.

never did it myself. well not intentionally anyway. had an incident in Ibiza though where some E's turned a bit naughty and the sky clouds turned into skeletons. a right laugh...(i was shit scared)

You've gotta feel a bit for Mugabe no? Widely misunderstood in the West. At least the rest of Africa is with him!

He's so handsome too. I can only dream of growing a moustache like his

His clothing is as ever fantastic, if Brown started wearing garms at this level I'd vote for him

quality!

Many Christians do exactly the opposite when it comes 2 the teachings of Jesus. The only really Christlike person that comes 2 mind is Mother Teresa.

Many Christians do exactly the opposite when it comes 2 the teachings of Jesus. The only really Christlike person that comes 2 mind is Mother Teresa.

... headslapping?

have you seen the South Park episode where Cartman gets thawed out in the future? There is no god only science but they are still at war over whose science is correct. very clever

Hooray indeed. Seems we agree regarding science.

I'm not sure that this applies to you, but many evolutionists are in the habit of labelling evolution (by which I mean the neo-darwinian theory of descent) as science. Then they dismiss any opposing views on origins as unscientific. Obviously evolution is a belief system about the past like any other (I use the term belief system only to indicate that it was not observed, not to try and make evolution sound religious). The fitness of evolution (pun alert) is judged, like all other belief systems, on how well it explains observed data.

I have to disagree with your view of the burden of proof. Whoever makes the assertion shoulders the burden of proof. If you wanted to state that there *definitely* is no purple monster then it would fall to you to support that claim. I agree that in this case you would not be required to take it seriously or respect it. Not so with the creationist view though, they have public scientific arguments for intelligent design, instantaneous creation, young earth, global flood, blah, blah...

I was previously only commenting on how people debate. I wasn't looking to debate my own views with anyone. I normally don't like to broadcast my own beliefs in the arena of this debate, not least because the only types of arguments requiring knowledge of what I personally believe are ad hominems. I'll give you the credit I think you deserve and assume that you have already guessed. It is the biblical creationist age of 6k - 10k years. Sounds crazy I know in a world where evolution has monopolised an education system which teaches it as unquestioned fact (every bit as insidiously as your Sunday school brainwashing). Ultimately the data should decide.

In my experience this type of exchange tends to run quite long. I personally never get tired of such debate, but don't feel obliged to debate me on your blog. I understand that you are having fun in your posts at the expense of Christians and don't have to provide a comprehensive and boring justification for everything you say. Humour has no bounds as far as I am concerned. Myself, I like to laugh at cripples.

So we can leave it here or not. Your blog, your call.

Kev, man. Not creationism!

That's a whole world of disparate clever shit stacked up against Genesis with it's talking snakes and women fashioned out of spare ribs! There weren't even Chinese takeaways around then for a start.

The events of the unobserved past don't spring automatically from the data. All theories about the past are necessarily formed on the basis of some starting assumptions. The strength of such theories is determined by how consistent that theory is with the data which can be observed and operated on in the present. This is the nature of historical science. It's the scientific way to examine the unknown past.

So when evolutionists (as in hydrogen and helium all the way up to man evolution) say that cosmology, physics, paleontology, geology, biology, etc. is denied by creation, that is dishonest. Those things are operational sciences that belong to all sides. And all sides can and do use them to make their scientific case.

What evolutionists usually mean is that creation isn't compatible with their own theory, based on their own assumptions, which they believe is very consistent with the data. Nobody disagrees with this. The two viewpoints are obviously mutually exclusive in most ways. Good arguments demonstrate consistency/inconsistency between a theory on its own terms (i.e. starting assumptions) and the data/operational sciences.

Good arguments don't just present a list of various branches of science and state that creation denies them. What observation from those sciences contradicts the creartionist's theory on its own terms? That would be a good argument and then debate could begin. Unfortunately this type of debate usually requires a level of scientific understanding beyond that of the average man on the street, but unfortunately this is where the debate must take place.

Kev, nice one.

Where do you start when someone believes that the earth is flat? I'm reminded of the tactics used by tobacco companies 20 and 30 years ago. Sowing plausible doubt to complicate an argument that is too complex for most to understand.

I think we can see the power of scientific ideas all around us. It could be the foundations of almost all of our beliefs are incorrect and that the humble bible is actually correct after all, but the balance of probability is very clearly not on the bible's side.

I hope you can believe that I have no intention of overcomplicating the issue to obscure anything. That would be terrible, and precisely the kind of dirty debating tactic that I complain about. I was actually attempting (and failing, clearly) to simplify the issue, to explain how the issue can be debated coherently by way of the scientific method. Basically... make a scientific case on the correct terms and from the observed data for the assertions that you make (if you want to be taken seriously). I don't think this is too much to ask. I'm not saying you have to have a genetics PhD to enter the debate but to make a decent scientific argument unavoidably requires A) some knowledge of the relevant science and B) knowledge of your opponents position. For the most part nothing beyond the layman with a reasonably serious interest in the subject.

We do see the power of scientific ideas all around us. Those things have nothing to do with any atheistic theory of origins. If all atheistic theories of origins were thoroughly refuted, then those things would still stand. Neither are these things incompatible with creation. If the creationist view was proved utterly true, then those things would still stand. They are not a foundation of belief. The foundations of belief are the theories of origin by all natural mechanisms. Those theories are not the same as the theories of operational sciences that have given us the transistor, space flight and genetic engineering, they are theories about the unobserved past. The debate is not Science vs. Creation, it's Evolution vs. Creation. Science should settle the issue. Atheism is not a criterion of science and never has been.

Kev, I'm not sure that it's quite as simple as Evolution -v- Creationism though, as Nature magazine racily asked a couple of years ago "Was Darwin wrong?". The subtitle was, "no, the evidence is overwhelming".

Evolutionary theory sits, not in conflict with the rest of our scientific understanding, but rather neatly dovetails with it. Creation 'theory', er, goes pretty much against everything that we 'know' to be true. The evidence for evolution is no less strong than that for a spherical earth. If evolution was not in conflict with the biblical explanation of our creation it would not be in question today. And there would not be lots of clever, but deluded and misguided, people trying desperately to find non-existent flaws in a beautiful and elegant theory that fits the mountain of evidence that supports it.

Science is very clear that the age of the earth and universe is several orders of magnitude greater than your belief. Can you tell me where you think they have got it wrong?

Is this anything like wishing?

James. James Haigh? You still alive? I hope you are well.

"Together we can achieve anything" is the claim. Cure an amputee and they've got a new follower.

"Some call this quantum physics". Should this claim be a prisonable offence? Is it already?

grr, still some formatting gremlins!

In fairness to Straw, these things are not normally released until after 30 years. And we don't need to know what was actually said - it's enough to know it was all bullshit.

By the way, be wary of any "news" from the Guardian, since information is filtered through the lens of the wack-job Left. The Torygraph is better. Private Eye is best!

In the words of Henry Porter in today's observer. "Straw is a disgrace to his office and the parliament"

Simon... most amusing. It's funny how the truthfulness of a newspaper seems to accord with how well it represents your views.

You're lucky you only read the Telegraph online - the newspaper is a barely upmarket Daily Mail these days.

Embarassing.

I don't quite get this genre of 'gag'. I saw once last week for the Jaws films along the lines of "sharks throw up people until they have to open up a beach".

I think it takes a certain amount of skill to do a decent one; this is my favourite:

Godzilla:

Revived by missiles, a giant lizard goes on a civil construction spree in downtown Manhattan before retiring to its island home.

I think he was taking the mick (not taking the piss, he plans to charge a quid for that)

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