Robin Ince quits working for the BBC over his support for men in dresses and terrorists

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

Shame really he’s a nice guy, a huge bibliophile, met him a few times at book signings, the last live show of his I saw he did shoehorn in “and of course trans women are real women” or some such nonsense.

guessing the infinite monkey cage is cancelled now, that was in my top five podcasts.

can’t do a popular science show and think women can have a penis though. Wonder what Brian thinks?

the video of his love resignation , presumably at the end of a monkey cage recording, is here
https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1plg02g/bbc_presenter_robert_ince_claims_he_has_been/

notably he doesn’t say how men in dresses are being treated badly. Everyone has a blind spot.

One person's lack of faith is also another person's delusion, though.

The point about faith is the act of it, in my understanding. It's a choice, and it can have powerful consequences.

I'm an extremist militant agnostic, fwiw. Someday, we may all rise up and join in the Great Dithering as one.

Or not. 😊

I sometimes watch a General Conference session, but I'm more likely to look up old sessions on YouTube from the days before it was as corporate and boring as it is now. There's a fun clip of apostles in the 1970s talking about UFOs.

There's some wild stuff in the conference minutes from the pre-broadcast days. Back in the 1930s one elder spent his talk warning the youth against abusing a dangerous substance - mustard. I don't know if there was a problem in the 1930s of Salt Lake youth shirking their duties to indulge in mustard. I suspect that Elder Smith just really hated mustard and by golly he was going to use his speaking slot to say so.

This line of reasoning has been an interesting derail…

If the 'delusion' enables people to do things that would otherwise be impossible, doesn't it have a purpose?

An interesting discussion. I'm not a believer in anything really except trying to live what I see as a 'good' life which is no doubt shaped by my Christian upbringing. I also know when I'm at my lowest ebb I find comfort from sitting quietly in a Church. So many books on this subject but I just think we find comfort where we can and that we're probably genetically programmed to believe in something/anything to help make life more bearable. I really don't care what people believe as long as it doesn't harm others, if it brings them comfort good, and I envy them in a way. I'd love to believe in something that helped make life have a purpose.
Sorry this reads a bit nihilistic, didn't really mean it too!

but what if (or rather when) some of the things it enables are negative?

)not sure I understand what you mean by doing otherwise impossible things)

The poster may be alluding to recent evidence that decision making initially takes place in our brains before we’re actually conscious of it. So you could argue that we’re not actually exercising free will when that decision is made. On the other hand, we’re not being forced to make that decision by someone else. So maybe it is free will, in a sense. That’s my very superficial understanding of it.

I long ago decided myself that thinking about the existence of God, the origins of the Universe and stuff like that wasn’t worth my while, or anyone else’s for that matter, it being so unlikely that one could come to any firm conclusions. I don’t have the gene for religious belief and all religions seem like nonsense to me. I blame my Catholic upbringing, when I was told that if I didn’t believe in what I was told I would burn in Hell for all eternity. This seemed stupid, cruel and unfair, so I rejected it and am very glad I did so. It also helps me reject other silliness, like genderism.

It definitely enables things that are negative, but I think the human impulse to migrate and adapt depends on doing things that aren't rational and I think faith fills the gap.

Taking the example of the Mormons, faith enabled them to cross America without sufficient resources, and whether or not that was a good thing is very much open to interpretation, but you could say that about most human activity.

Lots of people migrated across America for all sorts of reasons.

Absolutely, and a lot of the most vociferous advocates hold to it with great faith, and will not countenance any divergence.

And the vast majority had faith in something that wasn't rational, whether or not that was religion.

Taking a leap into the unknown is easier with the support of faith.

Faith based science isn't science, however scientists need faith in an idea to keep going in the face of adversity.

But when we're talking about a caring god , it's only really thd Christian one. If we were ancient Greeks we couldn't have the same arguments for denying the existence of Zeus, he was horrible

Did they? Well, I suppose eg the gold rush folk weren’t maybe entirely rational but those who saw a lot of ‘unclaimed’ land for the taking may well have been making a pretty rational choice vs putting up with wherever they’d come from.

I wouldn’t call that ‘faith’ at all. ‘Faith’ is a trust which isn’t reliant on evidence. Obviously when a theory is proposed the evidence then has to be sought but any ‘belief’ in it is conditional - you should try to disprove it!

Perhaps they were just ignorant of the reality, but you only have to read the Little House books (as opposed to watching the TV series) to understand how hard it was. 'Pa' failed over and over again.

I think that early experiments in flight relied heavily on irrational belief.

Very good 😅

Robin Ince is a very self important little man. I attended a talk of his where he bragged about his relationship with Brian Cox, rambled breathlessly off subject and proceeded to tell the audience which newspaper they should read. I too found him insufferable

Experimental engineering isn’t necessarily science!😂

There is a god. However, he's a rather shoddy IT consultant who's determination to complete the project in 6 days meant that corners were cut during testing and most of the bugs were left in.

Well yes, he’s famously fond of beetles.

It's very big in atheist circles. Free will is an illusion. So is consciousness in fact ; you only imagine it all. This is why hardcore materialists are called Illusionists , whereas you'd think that title would fit the devout believers in some sort of purpose.

Keith Ward is a philosopher who later became an Anglican vicar. He was taught by the great AJ Ayer , who was an atheist of course. He recalls Ayer saying we can't really have thoughts , rather they are merely an epiphenomenon blah blop de bloo. Ward : ' I'd be sitting across from him having perfectly rational thoughts!'

Pays yer money and takes yer choice. I agree with Dr Johnson on this one - ' we know we have free will and there's an end on it.'

So you're saying your indecision is final ?
😆