Interesting parallel between God & Hank

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Ravi Zacharias lies for Jesus on TV about Oxford University & Richard Dawkins

[Update: Ravi has been caught lying yet another time. Click here for evidence.]

I think I have caught Ravi Zacharias red handed, on 3 counts, of lying for Jesus. In this video at 05:19, Ravi says:

I lecture at Oxford University three times a year, I am senior research fellow there, although I live in Atlanta, I go to Oxford and lecture there regularly. Richard Dawkins lectures out of there. And when I was there a couple of months ago, there was a lead article by him, asking actually for Oxford to consider not admitting students who believed in an intelligent designer as the source of creation.

So the claims he makes are:

1. He lectures at Oxford University 3 times a year.
2. He is a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University.
3. And that Richard Dawkins wrote an article asking Oxford University to not grant admission to Creationists/IDists.

Here is how Claim 3 is a big fat lie:

I asked Richard whether Claim 3 is true. And he has replied to my question.

After that, I asked him whether Claim 1 & 2 are true. And Dawkins has replied to that here.

Richard claims:

The statement by Ravi Zacharias that I wrote an article asking Oxford to ban students who believed in Intelligent Design is, of course, a lie. Yet more Lying for Jesus. I really believe they think that, because it is for Jesus, it is OK to lie.

and this:

Of course I have never asked Oxford University to deny admission to creationists. I have quoted the distinguished philosopher A J Ayer as saying to me, when I told him that I had a creationist student, “What’s gone wrong with our admissions procedure?” Ayer was, of course, joking, but there is a serious point here. NOBODY is ever going to print, in a book of rules, “Oxford University will not admit any creationist students” (although in past centuries exactly that kind of rule was on the statute books with respect to the wrong species of Christianity). Of course Ayer would never have advocated any such rule, and nor would I. However, I would hope that the admissions procedures of a great university, especially given that entrance is so competitive, would be sufficiently well-tailored to exclude people who are stupid or ignorant. And that would automatically exclude young earth creationists.

Here is how Claims 1 & 2 are exaggerated beyond reality:

Ravi Zacharias lectures at The Oxford Centre For Christian Apologetics. Ravi is a Senior Research Fellow there. But, here is the bombshell; the following phrase appears on the OCCA webpage in the middle of the page:

(Please note that the OCCA courses are not accredited by the University of Oxford)

OCCA Certificates are endorsed by Wycliffe Hall which is a permanent private hall of Oxford University. Permanent private halls are not constituent colleges of Oxford.

Intelligent Designer of the Intelligent Designer of the Intelligent Designer of the..

The new Super Intelligent Design Theory is about the Intelligent Designer of the Intelligent Designer of Discovery Institute’s Intelligent Design nonsense.

Of course, there is the Super Super Intelligent Design Theory is about the Intelligent Designer of the Intelligent Designer of the Intelligent Designer of Discovery Institute’s Intelligent Design nonsense.

But I guess we will teach first subtype first, before letting ourselves teach every other super theory which explains the super theory below it, because the super theory below it is always so remarkable that, it needs the help of an intelligence to start existing.

Keep in mind that, The Super Intelligent Design Theory says nothing about God though. Who said anything about God? You are free to believe the Intelligent Designer was an alien race. But of course, since those aliens where highly improbable to have evolved on its own, we will be forced to postulate another intelligent designer who designed their race, and so on forever.

And each intelligent designer will be even more unlikely to have happened without the help of the intelligent designer that created it.

At this point theologians will jump right in, puling facts like “Designer is outside time” & “Designer is infinitely simple in design” out of their pockets without any evidence to back any of their conjectures.

Sambar is not a Vector

I had mistakingly thought Sambar is an -dimensional vector where is the number of ingredients because, if one mixes 2 Sambars, the result is a Sambar. And if one takes a lot of Sambar, the result is Sambar too.

But I overlooked the fact that, each of the ingredients (basis vectors) of Sambar must be Sambar too, if it has to be a vector. For example, toovar dal (pigeon pea) must be considered Sambar too, own its own, without water or any other ingredients.

More over, no Sambar must be Sambar too. Because null vectors are part of a vector space.

So I was wrong..

I think I know why Transcription Start Sites are hard to predict

Yesterday, Prof. Limsoon Wong taught Dragon Promoter Finder which is a party trick to predict the location of Transcription Start Sites. Unlike Translation Initiation Sites, TSSs are hard to predict because there is no start codon.

I think I know why TSSs are hard to predict. Experimental evidence shows most of the DNA is wound on histones and made to stick to nuclear membrane. Only some regions are available for transcription.

So all we need to do is to train a classifier to recognize sequences that tend to stick to histones and nuclear membranes and subject the rest to TSS prediction techniques.

What the?

There is so much freedom to be gained in these few years of existence we all call life. But some of us enslave ourselves to an imaginary master in the sky in the hopes of living forever.

I often wonder why are they not haunted by the vastness of eternal life they believe in. Do they really hope that their quadrillionth birthday would be less boring than their trillionth birthday? Don’t they know that life is beautiful because we are all mortal?

Why is it that, the people who preach about eternal life in heaven are remarkably the same people you wouldn’t want to spend an eternity with? I mean, they are so hypocritical, always denying everything that makes them human and yet committing the same things they deny, in secret. Always pretending to be holier than thou. No one would want to spend an eternity with some one like that.

I pity the gods, if they exist. I pity them because , there is nothing for them to do. They know everything, and they can do everything. Yet they must live forever. Spending zillions of birthdays forever and ever, bored for eternity.

But we are so lucky. We will all cease to be.

Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain; a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats,humiliations, and despairs–the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity; but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man’s best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free. — Mark Twain