All posts by Richard

Censorship, Conservative Party, Freedom, Islam, Tyranny

Behead those who ridicule Colin Craig!

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Let’s be clear (in case any of Colin’s supporters are reading this). I am NOT calling for the beheading of those who ridicule Colin Craig. This is satire.

Earlier this week, however, Colin Craig was threatening to sue those who ridicule Colin Craig. Suing is so much more civilised than beheading, but both belong on the same slippery slope. Threats to sue those who ridicule Colin Craig and threats to behead all those who insult the Prophet both have a chilling effect on free speech.

Freedom of speech is the bedrock of our democracy. Any attempt to stifle free speech, whether by threats of beheading or threats of legal action, must be nipped in the bud early. It is a relief to read that Colin Craig abandons defamation suit. But he should never have threatened The Civilian in the first place. That he did shows contempt for the most basic of our Western values.

25000

Meanwhile, 25,000 Muslims March in England Calling for Laws to Silence Critics of Islam.

Up to 25,000 British Pakistani men, women and children from across the UK gathered in Aston Park to call on the British government to introduce legislation that bars people from insulting Islam under the garb of the freedom of speech.

The participants, who also travelled from several parts of European cities, were led in a mile-long march by Hazrat Peer Alauddin Siddiqui. This is the fourth consecutive gathering for the biggest Melaad-un-Nabi of British Pakistanis in Britain but this year it was dedicated to “protect the honor and legacy of Hazrat Muhammad”.

“To say Islamic terrorists represent the Muslim religion,” says this meme, “is like saying the Ku Klux Klan represents the Christian religion.” But this misses the point. Islamic terrorists are NOT a minority of Muslims. There’s at least 25,000 living in the UK and openly seeking to subvert freedom of speech under the guise of a ban on insulting their evil politico-religious ideology!

Restrictions on Islamic immigration must be put in place now before it is too late. It’s a numbers game.

mo29

Censorship, Conservative Party, Gay, Genesis

Colin Craig: “Big gay rainbows”

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“Williamson likes to talk about big gay rainbows, but it would help if he understood what the rainbow actually means. After Noah’s flood, God painted a giant rainbow across the sky, which was a message that he would never again flood the world, unless we made him very angry. And we have.”

– Colin Craig, Leader of the Conservative Party of New Zealand

 

Related links:

Maurice Williamson looking pretty stupid after floods

Chapman Tripp legal notice – 23 April 2013

Streisand effect

Humorectomy

Genesis 9:8-17

Kingdom of Heaven, Matthew

Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money?

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Proper 20 A Icon3

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (NIV)

Evolutionism, Fish, Giraffes, Intelligent Design

Evidence for Evolutionism #1. The recurrent laryngeal nerve.

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Long-Necked-Giraffes

In a comment on Tim’s post The Ludicrous Claims of Evolution! Why not ESP? Kiwi Dave says

Our recurrent laryngeal nerve inefficiently loops round our hearts instead of directly connecting to the brain stem; this, like cleft palates are a consequence of our fish ancestry.

I plan to post evidence for Evolutionism as I find it, to balance my pro-Creationist rants.

This is the first piece of evidence I’ve found worth posting.

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The recurrent laryngeal nerve is a branch of the vagus nerve (tenth cranial nerve) that supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx (voice box). It branches from the vagus nerve in the chest cavity before it loops around the aorta and then back up to the larynx. Why doesn’t it take a more direct route? That it takes this circuitous detour is cited as evidence of evolution.

The extreme detour of this nerve (about 15 feet in the case of giraffes) is cited as evidence of evolution as opposed to intelligent design. The nerve’s route would have been direct in the fish-like ancestors of modern tetrapods, traveling from the brain, past the heart, to the gills (as it does in modern fish). Over the course of evolution, as the neck extended and the heart became lower in the body, the laryngeal nerve was caught on the wrong side of the heart. Natural selection gradually lengthened the nerve by tiny increments to accommodate, resulting in the circuitous route now observed.

giraffe recurrent laryngeal nerve

If we (and the giraffes) did indeed evolve from fish, then the course of the recurrent laryngeal nerve has a simple explanation. Its course is less simple to explain if we (and the giraffes) are products of special creation. Thus, the course of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is not merely evidence of evolutionism, but evidence for evolutionism.

I have a question. How difficult would it be to genetically re-engineer a giraffe (or a human) so that the recurrent laryngeal nerve passes directly from the brain to the larynx?

Ayn Rand, Logic, Slayer

Objectivism causes brain damage

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Here are a couple of Randroid memes seen recently on Facebook. (Here and here.)

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Can you spot the obvious absurdity of these statements? Well, as one Facebook commenter explains

Quoting Ayn Rand is pretty absurd for starters, but “reality” and the consequences of ignoring reality are all part of the same set (reality) so it is making a distinction that doesn’t exist… so it really is saying nothing…

In other words, the consequences (of avoiding reality) are themselves part of reality. Therefore, Ayn Rand is saying that you can avoid reality and that you cannot avoid reality. She has arrived at a contradiction!

Ayn Rand’s work is littered with contradictions. They blend in with their context, so that her followers find them hard to spot. Which is why I bother to point them out. It’s a labour of love.

Ayn Rand was not much of a philosopher, but there’s no denying she had a wicked turn of phrase. This one’s my all-time favourite Rand sound-bite.

To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking. To maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.

Rand has arrived at a contradiction. But we all make errors in our thinking from time to time. So how do I back my claim that Objectivism causes brain damage? Well, to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind … i.e., brain damage. And that’s what Objectivists do. They maintain Rand’s contradiction! You see, Rand never said

You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

And she never said

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

These memes are contradiction maintenance by paraphrase! Here’s what Rand actually said.

[Man] is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss [that] he refuses to see.