OT -- Naturalism vs Supernaturalism (052009)


Some links to articles which offer reasons
to doubt in the seductions & threats from
those who advocate belief in a God (or gods,
the "right" one or "right" group, in the "right"
way) as "the one and only way to, per their
claims/assertions, avoid oblivion or torment
in a supposed afterlife or for eternity":

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- - -
May 16, 2009
Video : Five minutes with Richard Dawkins
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8049711.stm
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While watching a TV show on the Military
Channel (Timewatch : "Himmler, Hitler, End
of the Third Reich"), the following segment
regarding an alliance between the Nazis and
Muslims might be of interest to those who
doubt in the claimed "total positive efficacy"
of religious faith, in general, and the religion
of Islam, in particular:

.... "SS Heinrich Himmler visits a newly
formed division of volunteers. The soldiers
of this division are Muslims from South
Eastern Europe." ... Almost all of its sol-
diers were Bosnian Muslims who even had
their own Imams.

Zvonimir Bernwald (Interpreter, SS Handschar):
"Himmler had a special liking for the Muslims
.... If anybody insulted the Bosnians' honor,
or their religion or race, Himmler ordered him
to be severely punished."

The Germans were desperate for soldiers who
would die for them. And Himmler thought
Islam was therefore the perfect religion.

Himmler: "It educates the men in this division
for me, and promises them heaven if they
fight and are killed in action. A very practical
and attractive religion for soldiers."

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May 20, 2009

Irish church knew abuse 'endemic'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8059826.stm
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Excerpts:

An inquiry into child abuse at Catholic institutions
in Ireland has found church leaders knew that sexual
abuse was "endemic" in boys' institutions.

It also found physical and emotional abuse and neglect
were features of institutions.

Schools were run "in a severe, regimented manner that
imposed unreasonable and oppressive discipline on
children and even on staff".

The nine-year inquiry investigated a 60-year period.

About 35,000 children were placed in a network of
reformatories, industrial schools and workhouses up
to the 1980s.

- - -
LEGACY OF HURT

From Shane Harrison, BBC News, Dublin

Thomas Wall, an orphan from Limerick, was sent by
the criminal courts to a Christian Brothers run reform
school when he was just three.

"From eight years of age I was sexually abused by a
Christian brother at Glin," he said.

"If they took a liking to a person then you became a
danger, then you became a target. And there was no
way of avoiding it... I mean they had access to you
24 hours a day."

Read more of Shane Harrison's piece here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8058105.stm
- - -

More than 2,000 told the Commission to Inquire Into
Child Abuse they suffered physical and sexual abuse
while there.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal
Sean Brady, said he was "profoundly sorry and deeply
ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in
these institutions".

"This report makes it clear that great wrong and hurt
were caused to some of the most vulnerable children
in our society," he said.

"It documents a shameful catalogue of cruelty: neglect,
physical, sexual and emotional abuse, perpetrated
against children."

Police were called to the commission's news conference
amid angry scenes as victims were prevented from at-
tending.

More allegations were made against the Christian Brothers
than the other male orders combined.

The report found child safety was not a priority for the
Christian Brothers who ran the institutions, the order was
defensive in its response to complaints and failed to ac-
cept any congregational responsibility for abuse.

Ritual beatings

The report said that girls supervised by orders of nuns,
chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual
abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to
make them feel worthless.

....

Abuse report - at a glance
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8059973.stm

Reaction to Irish abuse report
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8060056.stm

The five-volume study concluded that Irish church offi-
cials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded
their orders' paedophiles from arrest amid a "culture of
self-serving secrecy".

It also found that government inspectors failed to stop
the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

The commission said overwhelming, consistent testimony
from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to
80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire sys-
tem treated children more like prison inmates and slaves
than people with legal rights and human potential.

"The reformatory and industrial schools depended on rigid
control by means of severe corporal punishment and the
fear of such punishment," it said.

"The harshness of the regime was inculcated into the cul-
ture of the schools by successive generations of brothers,
priests and nuns.

READ THE INQUIRY'S SUMMARY

Summary of findings from the Commission to Inquire Into
Child Abuse (105Kb)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/20_05_09_abuse.pdf

....

"It was systemic and not the result of individual breaches
by persons who operated outside lawful and acceptable
boundaries.

....

Its findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions - in
part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the
commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its mem-
bers, dead or alive, unnamed in the report.

No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear
in the final document.

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- - -
Scientists find the 'missing link': A 47million-year-old
lemur that could revolutionise how we see human evolution

by David Derbyshire
Last updated at 10:17 AM on 20th May 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1184556/The-missing-link-A-47million-year-old-lemur-revolutionise-human-evolution.html
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Excerpts:

Her name is Ida, she is three feet tall and if scientists are right,
she could be a common ancestor of apes and monkeys - and
you.

Researchers yesterday revealed the beautifully preserved re-
mains of the lemur-like creature who died in a lake 47million
years ago.

Scientists claim she is an important 'missing link' in mankind's
family tree and will shed light on a crucial part of evolution.

- - -
Photo : The lemur's skeleton shows distinct physical character-
istics of human beings, such as opposable thumbs - or hands
that can grasp things
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/19/article-1184556-05024EE6000005DC-615_634x689.jpg
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- - -
Drawing : Family portrait -- This is how Ida might have looked
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/19/article-1184556-0502B926000005DC-19_634x458.jpg
- - -

She is so perfectly fossilised, it is possible to see the outline of
her fur in the rock.

Ida was discovered in 1983 in a fossil treasure trove called the
Messel Pit in Germany, but the collector who put her on his wall
had no idea of her significance.

It was a high stakes, secretive, million-dollar deal in a Hamburg
vodka bar that finally thrust Ida into the hands of researchers
who recognised just what her skeleton might mean for our
understanding of human history.

....

- - -
Photo: Dr Jorn Hurum speaks next to a slide of Ida at the Amer-
ican Museum of Natural History in New York as the fossil was
unveiled yesterday
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/20/article-1184556-05027116000005DC-395_634x407_popup.jpg
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- - -
Photo: Missing link? Ida, the 47-million-year-old fossil that could
change the way we understand human evolution
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/20/article-1184556-050259AA000005DC-473_634x401.jpg
- - -

....

There had been rumours in the 20 years since Ida was found -
rumours of an astonishingly well-preserved primate fossil. But no
one in the scientific community had seen it.

Now, like a real-life Indiana Jones, Dr Hurum's first instinct was
to claim the fossil in the name of science - and not allow it to dis-
appear into the murky world of private collections once more,
collecting dust as its significance went unheeded.

- - -
Photo: Dr Hurum shows New York City mayor Michael Bloom-
berg the fossil of Ida during the event at the Museum of Natural
History yesterday
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/20/article-1184556-0502716B000005DC-194_634x792.jpg
- - -

But it meant he would have to take the biggest gamble of his life -
raising the $1million asking price on the strength of just those three
photos and a ten-minute examination of the fossil itself to ensure it
was not an obvious fake.

Through dogged determination he raised the money. Yesterday,
after an exhaustive two years of research and investigation, Ida
was unveiled to a blaze of publicity at the American Museum of
Natural History in New York.

....

Dr Hurum said the fossil - named after his daughter - 'is the first
link to all humans' and 'truly a fossil that links world heritage'.

- - -
Photo: Ida is so perfectly preserved that there are still traces of
her last meal in her stomach - and outlines of her fur can be seen
etched into the stone
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/19/article-1184556-05024FFB000005DC-20_634x603_popup.jpg
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Lucy, the famous Ethiopian fossil (Australophithecus afarensis)
that is 3.2million years old, is just 40 per cent. complete. Ida - des-
pite being around 44million years older - is roughly 95 per cent
complete. Individual hairs can be seen imprinted into the rock.

Dr Jens Franzen, another of the researchers, described Ida as 'like
the Eighth Wonder of the World' because of the extraordinary com-
pleteness of the skeleton.

Other researchers described her as a Rosetta stone - the code-
breaker that could allow them to make sense of early primate
evolution.

However Dr Franzen said that rather than being a direct ancestor
like a grandmother, she was more likely to be an 'aunt'.

'She belongs to the group from which higher primates and human
beings developed but my impression is she is not on the direct
line,' he said.

- - -
Photo: An X-ray of Ida's teeth. She still had not shed all her
baby (deciduous) teeth when she died. Scientists believe she
was only about nine months old
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/19/article-1184556-05022E60000005DC-352_634x449_popup.jpg
- - -

- - -
Photo: CT images of Ida's entire skull, including her jaw and teeth,
seen in greater detail above
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/19/article-1184556-05022376000005DC-405_634x881_popup.jpg
- - -

But he, like the other researchers, is still not certain.

Ida comes from a time when the primate family tree was splitting
into two groups - one with humans, apes and monkeys, the other
with lemurs and bush babies. Her teeth appear to indicate that
although she appears more similar to a lemur, she is actually
closer to the line that resulted in apes, monkeys and humans.

Her forward-facing eyes are like human eyes and she has human-
like thumbs.

Astonishingly, she still has her baby, or deciduous, teeth, lead-
ing researchers to guess she was just six to nine months old
when she died.

Ida, who will be exhibited at the Natural History Museum in
London on Tuesday, is 20 times older than most known fossils
that can shed light on human evolution.

The team concluded that she is a new species they have called
Darwinius masillae, to mark the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's
birth.

- - -
Photo: The two halves of Ida: The skeleton was split in half on
its discovery in 1983, with the two parts going to different collec-
tions
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/19/article-1184556-05022381000005DC-305_634x607.jpg
- - -

Sir David Attenborough, who will present a BBC documentary
on the discovery next Tuesday, said: 'The link they would have
said until now is missing, is no longer missing.'

Speaking in The Guardian, he said: 'This beautiful little creature
is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals:
with cows and sheep, and elephants and anteaters.'

He added: 'People who study fossils are nearly always studying
the hard parts: the shells and the bones.

'They have to deduce from the shape of each bone what the
muscles were like. From that they can deduce more about how
the animal held itself and moved.

'If they are lucky they can maybe make suggestions about what
the internal organs were like.

'With this fossil you don't have make suggestions. Almost
uniquely, we not only have the bones, but we also have the fur
and the flesh.

'So it is not a question of deduction, it is not a question of
imagination or suggestions, it is fact.'

He had high praise for Dr Hurum. 'He had the insight and the
instinct to see this thing and to know in his heart immediately
that this was going to be of profound importance... To a cer-
tain degree, it was also an act of faith... His gamble has paid
off spectacularly.'

In the Guardian piece, based on an interview for Atlantic Pro-
ductions, Sir David finished: 'Ida is a link between the apes,
monkeys and us with the rest of the mammals and ultimately
the whole animal kingdom. I think Darwin would have been
thrilled.'

But others are more cautious.

Dr Henry Gee, a senior editor at the journal Nature, said the
use of the term 'missing link' was misleading.

And Dr Chris Beard, of America's Carnegie Museum of
Natural History, said: 'I would be absolutely dumbfounded
if it turns out to be a potential ancestor to humans.'

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~~~
Pro-Humanist FREELOVER
http://fire.prohosting.com/prohuman
(Freethinking Realist Exploring
Expressive Liberty, Openness,
Verity, Enlightenment, & Rationality)
~~~

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