Graham Taylor (former Watford and England manager) commenting on my footballing prowess at the philosopher's football match (he managed my team - the Greeks). He was a really great guy.
He gave me two comments. I will leave you to guess which version is more accurate. Also includes opportunity to see Prof. Stephen Mumford semi-naked (with his permission)!
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Philosopher's Football Match Sunday
Date: Sunday, 9 May, 2010
Location: The Harry Abrahams Stadium, Finchley, N12 0PD (nearest Tubes: East or West Finchley)
Gates open 1.30pm.
Commentator: Laurie Taylor.
John Humphrys (Today Prog R4) will be there, as will Terry Jones (Monty Python), Graham Taylor (former England manager)...
The Match kick-off takes place at 3pm and will last 110 minutes in total and thus
with final whistle (allowing for extra time at the referee's discretion!) is at
4.50pm.
We anticipate getting 500 spectators on the day, including families, on the day,
and there is extensive media interest as well.
£10 web (collect your ticket at the gate) or £20 on the day. Kids £1.
Website: www.philosophersfootball.com
Germans
Philosopher Simon Glendenning voted Most Creative Goal Celebrator 2008-09 season is in goal for Nietzsche Albion, Philosopher Julian Baggini in the back as Nutter Tackler with a strong mid-field duo of Philosopher and Journalist Mark Vernon and Comedian Arthur ‘Schopenhauer’ Smith big fan of the Flat Back Four up front. Philosopher AC Grayling is Manager reported to be banned from the touchline for barracking the fourth official for crass determinism.
Greeks
For the Socrates Wanderers, we have Comedian Mark Steel Academy Discovery in goal. Tony Hawks is a front runner and Ariane Sharine is sweeper. Ariane Sharine is very much in form while Tony Hawks has been quoted as determined to hack old foe Epicurus off the park. Former Watford, Aston Villa and England Gaffer Graham Taylor is Manager.
I am centre midfield for the Greeks.
Location: The Harry Abrahams Stadium, Finchley, N12 0PD (nearest Tubes: East or West Finchley)
Gates open 1.30pm.
Commentator: Laurie Taylor.
John Humphrys (Today Prog R4) will be there, as will Terry Jones (Monty Python), Graham Taylor (former England manager)...
The Match kick-off takes place at 3pm and will last 110 minutes in total and thus
with final whistle (allowing for extra time at the referee's discretion!) is at
4.50pm.
We anticipate getting 500 spectators on the day, including families, on the day,
and there is extensive media interest as well.
£10 web (collect your ticket at the gate) or £20 on the day. Kids £1.
Website: www.philosophersfootball.com
Germans
Philosopher Simon Glendenning voted Most Creative Goal Celebrator 2008-09 season is in goal for Nietzsche Albion, Philosopher Julian Baggini in the back as Nutter Tackler with a strong mid-field duo of Philosopher and Journalist Mark Vernon and Comedian Arthur ‘Schopenhauer’ Smith big fan of the Flat Back Four up front. Philosopher AC Grayling is Manager reported to be banned from the touchline for barracking the fourth official for crass determinism.
Greeks
For the Socrates Wanderers, we have Comedian Mark Steel Academy Discovery in goal. Tony Hawks is a front runner and Ariane Sharine is sweeper. Ariane Sharine is very much in form while Tony Hawks has been quoted as determined to hack old foe Epicurus off the park. Former Watford, Aston Villa and England Gaffer Graham Taylor is Manager.
I am centre midfield for the Greeks.
Friday, 7 May 2010
Phew
Prepare to see the owners of the Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Express, Standard, etc. unleash the forces of hell as they face the distinct possibility of a Lib-Lab deal on electoral reform that would mean that the party of the rich few will never again have a working majority!
I wonder if Labour will really do it, though? For they'll be unlikely ever to get a working majority either. I guess the decision for Labour is: should they sacrifice the Labour Party's chances of ever again being the single party of government in order to lock the Tories out forever (and also ensure our government will in future reflect the country's broadly liberal-left character)? Have I got this right?
I wonder if Labour will really do it, though? For they'll be unlikely ever to get a working majority either. I guess the decision for Labour is: should they sacrifice the Labour Party's chances of ever again being the single party of government in order to lock the Tories out forever (and also ensure our government will in future reflect the country's broadly liberal-left character)? Have I got this right?
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Oh dear....
Front cover of THE SUN newspaper today. And one M Thatcher... I was struck by the similarity. Creepy. Almost as if they deliberately Thatcherized him.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
EKKLESIA: Telegraph chooses to ignore its own poll
FROM EKKLESIA...
Two weeks ago, the Telegraph ran a column by Frank Field entitled: 'Why is there no talk about immigration?'. The answer may have now come to light, as the Sunday Telegraph seems to have failed to highlight findings from its own polling.
In the ICM poll it commissioned, which was released on Saturday night, was a question about an amnesty for illegal immigrants (p10):
Would you support/oppose: Allowing illegal immigrants who have a clean record and have been in Britain for 10 years or more, to become full British citizens?
The findings:
Support: 55%
Oppose: 40%
DK: 6%
The apparent support for the Liberal Democrat policy for a migrant amnesty wasn't mentioned in its reporting. Instead, they decided to focus on the study released by MigrationWatch UK which suggested that more than a million illegal immigrants would be granted citizenship.
This has been followed up in the Telegraph today with a column by Matthew Moore entitled 'Nick Clegg struggles to defend immigration policies' and the Telegraph View piece: 'Nick Clegg amnesty folly'. Source here.
Two weeks ago, the Telegraph ran a column by Frank Field entitled: 'Why is there no talk about immigration?'. The answer may have now come to light, as the Sunday Telegraph seems to have failed to highlight findings from its own polling.
In the ICM poll it commissioned, which was released on Saturday night, was a question about an amnesty for illegal immigrants (p10):
Would you support/oppose: Allowing illegal immigrants who have a clean record and have been in Britain for 10 years or more, to become full British citizens?
The findings:
Support: 55%
Oppose: 40%
DK: 6%
The apparent support for the Liberal Democrat policy for a migrant amnesty wasn't mentioned in its reporting. Instead, they decided to focus on the study released by MigrationWatch UK which suggested that more than a million illegal immigrants would be granted citizenship.
This has been followed up in the Telegraph today with a column by Matthew Moore entitled 'Nick Clegg struggles to defend immigration policies' and the Telegraph View piece: 'Nick Clegg amnesty folly'. Source here.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
"Help me, help me!"
Many kids films make a filmic reference to "help me, help me" said in a tiny squeeky voice. E.g. the bloody awful Furry Vengeance that I saw with my kids yesterday. It crops up in lots of kids cartoons too. My kids, and perhaps no one under thirty, has any idea what the reference is to, so today I showed them. Here it is, in case you missed it.
Possibly a mistake - I don't think they'll sleep so well tonight...
Possibly a mistake - I don't think they'll sleep so well tonight...
Monday, 3 May 2010
The "It's hopelessly impressionistic!" response to the evidential problem of evil
The suggestion that the evidential problem of evil is pretty useless as an argument against the existence of God because it is based on claims about suffering, etc. that are hopelessly "impressionistic" has come up several times recently.
David Hart made the move in response to my contribution to 50 Voices of Disbelief (see this post). And now "Fun with Formal Ideas" runs the same move in a comment on the preceding post.
So it's worth dealing with. Here's the comment on the preceding post (nb by "Eth" commentator means the God of Eth):
"Eth is impressionistic, Stephen, it is not founded in any facts, data or evidence where these may be considered synonymous or statistically significant and relies finally upon a appeal to common sense."
David Hart said:
"Nicholas Everitt and Stephen Law recycle the old (and incorrigibly impressionistic) argument that claims of God’s omnipotence seem incompatible with claims of his goodness."
{POST SCRIPT: as TAM's transcript of the radio prog reveals, Denis Alexander also hints at the "It's hopelessly impressionistic" move. Re. huge amounts of suffering, Alexander says: "we simply are not in a position to measure those kind of things, we can measure certain things in science and so forth but..."}
The objection seems to be that assessments of how much good or evil exists are so subjective and unreliable as to be pretty worthless as evidence. Pain and suffering, for example, cannot be given numerical values, or reliably measured using a calibrated instrument in the way, say, mass or velocity can. Ditto happiness, etc.
Does this really deal the evidential problem of evil a fatal blow?
I don't see why.
The evidential problem of evil (and mirror problem in the God of Eth) is based on the empirical observation that the universe is filled with immense amounts of seemingly pointless suffering. This provides us with excellent evidence there is no all-powerful all-good God, in the same way immense amounts of (from an evil God's point of view) seemingly pointless good is excellent evidence there's no evil God either.
Consider a different scenario - a school run by an all-powerful headmaster whom we never see. But we can see how his school is run. Many pupils are beaten senseless, forced to eat shit, and left physically and psychologically crippled by their experiences. Others have wonderful gifts bestowed on them - great food, education, etc. The distribution of these goods and evils appears to be pretty random.
Now consider two hypotheses - that the school is run by a supremely wicked headmaster, and that the school is run by a supremely good headmaster. Both are pretty decisively ruled out by what we observe of the way the school is run.
Notice that the fact that we cannot give numerical values to the pleasures and pains we observe being dealt out, or place them on some sort of objective, calibrated weighing scale, is largely irrelevant. It does not follow that the argument against each hypothesis is based on evidence that is "hopelessly impressionistic".
If that *did* follow, no conclusions about the moral properties of any individual could ever be drawn on the basis of the pleasures or pains they knowingly inflicted. For the reasoning we used would similarly be based on assessments that were "hopelessly impressionistic"!
The "hopelessly impressionistic" response to the evidential problem of evil is, in short, mere smokescreen.
For the evidential problem of evil and my version of it go here. http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A72V8TEm
What complicates things is that the "hopelessly impressionistic" move is often mixed together with a "no-see-um" move (I think Hart is running a combination of the two - though it's hard to be sure).
David Hart made the move in response to my contribution to 50 Voices of Disbelief (see this post). And now "Fun with Formal Ideas" runs the same move in a comment on the preceding post.
So it's worth dealing with. Here's the comment on the preceding post (nb by "Eth" commentator means the God of Eth):
"Eth is impressionistic, Stephen, it is not founded in any facts, data or evidence where these may be considered synonymous or statistically significant and relies finally upon a appeal to common sense."
David Hart said:
"Nicholas Everitt and Stephen Law recycle the old (and incorrigibly impressionistic) argument that claims of God’s omnipotence seem incompatible with claims of his goodness."
{POST SCRIPT: as TAM's transcript of the radio prog reveals, Denis Alexander also hints at the "It's hopelessly impressionistic" move. Re. huge amounts of suffering, Alexander says: "we simply are not in a position to measure those kind of things, we can measure certain things in science and so forth but..."}
The objection seems to be that assessments of how much good or evil exists are so subjective and unreliable as to be pretty worthless as evidence. Pain and suffering, for example, cannot be given numerical values, or reliably measured using a calibrated instrument in the way, say, mass or velocity can. Ditto happiness, etc.
Does this really deal the evidential problem of evil a fatal blow?
I don't see why.
The evidential problem of evil (and mirror problem in the God of Eth) is based on the empirical observation that the universe is filled with immense amounts of seemingly pointless suffering. This provides us with excellent evidence there is no all-powerful all-good God, in the same way immense amounts of (from an evil God's point of view) seemingly pointless good is excellent evidence there's no evil God either.
Consider a different scenario - a school run by an all-powerful headmaster whom we never see. But we can see how his school is run. Many pupils are beaten senseless, forced to eat shit, and left physically and psychologically crippled by their experiences. Others have wonderful gifts bestowed on them - great food, education, etc. The distribution of these goods and evils appears to be pretty random.
Now consider two hypotheses - that the school is run by a supremely wicked headmaster, and that the school is run by a supremely good headmaster. Both are pretty decisively ruled out by what we observe of the way the school is run.
Notice that the fact that we cannot give numerical values to the pleasures and pains we observe being dealt out, or place them on some sort of objective, calibrated weighing scale, is largely irrelevant. It does not follow that the argument against each hypothesis is based on evidence that is "hopelessly impressionistic".
If that *did* follow, no conclusions about the moral properties of any individual could ever be drawn on the basis of the pleasures or pains they knowingly inflicted. For the reasoning we used would similarly be based on assessments that were "hopelessly impressionistic"!
The "hopelessly impressionistic" response to the evidential problem of evil is, in short, mere smokescreen.
For the evidential problem of evil and my version of it go here. http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A72V8TEm
What complicates things is that the "hopelessly impressionistic" move is often mixed together with a "no-see-um" move (I think Hart is running a combination of the two - though it's hard to be sure).
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