We Win.

(Thanks Scott!)

On military bulletins...

I've received 2 military related bulletins today on MySpace, and the second one just finally pissed me off enough to blow off a little steam. I haven't posted on this topic in quite awhile, so I guess maybe I was due for a little rant. ;-)

My responses (as should be obvious) are below in italic.

I'm going to post a point by point rebuttal to some of these statements as a "food for thought" type polemic.

Think.

Read to the end before you snap back...

-------------------------

Your alarm goes off, you hit the snooze and sleep for another 10 minutes.
He stays up for days on end.

You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.


As do hundreds of thousands of civilians, whose infrastructure we bombed into oblivion, directly and indirectly taking the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.


You complain of a "headache", and call in sick.
He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.

You put on your anti war/don't support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends.
He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.

I wouldn't wear a "don't support the troops" shirt, and it's incredibly stupid to think that not supporting the war means that you don't support the troops. Those soldiers are a bunch of men and women who signed up to defend an ideal... freedom and liberty... and they're putting their lives on the line in the belief that that is what they're defending. Whether or not they understand the full weight of what they're doing, their intentions are generally for the best, and to put their lives on the line for that deserves respect. But that doesn't mean that if someone disagrees with the government policy that has sent good men and women to die for no good reason, that they don't support those men and women. It is the same mentality that cannot understand what true patriotism actually is... and who believe that questioning the actions of the current administration is unpatriotic, when the very founding fathers themselves made it clear that to be a patriot was to question that very government, to be ever vigilant... that sometimes the blood of patriots must be shed to show that government who is actually in charge... THE PEOPLE of the United States... the government exists for no other purpose than to serve the people and the constitution of the United States of America, NOT the other way around.

Not to mention that he is NOT fighting for my right to wear that shirt. Our country is not and was not EVER under attack by Saddam Hussein OR Iraq. Our Freedoms are not under attack by any foreign power... they are under attack by our own government, which is plain to see for anyone who actually takes the time to look at the legislation that has been passed over the past few years, and just how many of your constitutional rights have vanished. You have been completely hoodwinked and blinded to who the real enemy is here. These men and women, however honorable their intentions, are fighting a war for a very difference reason, a reason decided and enforced by the current administration, not by the soldiers themselves... and again, even if the soldiers do believe they're fighting for that reason... they're not. Iraq/Saddam are not the enemy... they are not the ones that attacked us... and even the ones who did have at least in part, valid reasons for their attack that the government and many of the people either cannot see, or refuse to see.

You need to understand these things much more thoroughly (if you do at all) before you condemn or praise those involved.


You make sure you're cell phone is in your pocket.
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.

Just another reminder that a large part of this war is a matter of religious dogma and not rationality or truth.

That goes in part to the fact that Bush had launched this war believing that God told him to do so... and believing that we essentially have some divine moral high ground that ensures our victory... this is the same kind of mindset that the other side has... they BOTH believe in figments of their imaginations, and they BOTH believe ABSOLUTELY that they are Just and Right and WILL PREVAIL etc... both are convinced 100% that the other side is wrong, that the other side CANNOT be right, because that would mean giving up their own fairy tale belief in religion. It is a No Win situation until rational thinkers can bury this scourge of irrational superstitious nonsense and get the world to wake up to the reality of the modern day.


You talk trash about your "buddies" that aren't with you.
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.

And it's our fault that his friends are dying? We who oppose them having been sent there to die, and not the actual government who made that decision, against the majority will of the people? What kind of backwards thinking is that? Seriously.


You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls.
He walks the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.

Again, how is this our fault?

You complain about how hot it is.
He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.

Yet another case of "not my fault, I didn't want him there to begin with. There's no good reason for him to be there. blame the government that sent him, not me". Starting to catch on yet?


You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong.
He doesn't get to eat today.

I call bullshit on that one. The military is very well stocked, and if you want to cry about him maybe missing a meal, then maybe you should take a look at the many thousands that have died of starvation due to their homes, stores, water supplies, hospitals and so on... all being bombed into rubble. Actually go and learn about the hundreds of thousands who have died, and the conditions which led to their deaths... and then you bitch about a soldier missing a few meals while on patrol, if it even happens.

You need to get your perspective straight.


Your maid makes your bed and washes your clothes.
He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.

A MAID? Since when do I have a maid... and what on earth would it have to do with a soldier in Iraq, even if I did? Nothing. Again, another straw man statement that means nothing. Remember, I didn't send him there and even while he's there, he's not fighting for my freedom... at most he's fighting to keep my gasoline cheap... something that he's basically failed at doing. If he wanted to fight people that are more of a threat to the US, he'd be in Syria or Iran or any number of other places, fighting fundamentalist Islam, and our government would be fighting religious fundamentalism the world over, not simply breeding our own version of the same sickness domestically.

You people are so far off the base with this tripe that it's horribly disheartening.


You go to the mall and get your hair redone.
He doesn't have time to brush his teeth today.

Another straw man, not to mention that I've shaved my own head for the past 10 years plus... and that it's misleading to say he doesn't have time to brush his teeth today... the military are trained that proper oral hygiene is paramount and they are provided with the necessary supplies. And I highly doubt that missing brushing your teeth here and there is going to be that big of a deal. Extenuating circumstances.


You're angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He's told he will be held over an extra 2 months.

And this is a good point... but again a responsibility that lies firmly on the shoulders of the government who betrayed the trust of it's own soldiers under false pretenses and used a backdoor clause to force them in for extended tours because they needed the extra bodies to fight their war for them. I didn't want them there to begin with.


You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight.
He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.

Again, place the blame where it belongs, not with the people who never wanted them far from home and dying in the first place.


You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday.
He holds his letter close and smells his love's perfume.

See above... again.

You roll your eyes as a baby cries.
He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they'll ever meet

See above... again.


You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything.
He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting.

WHAT!? This coming from a government who has flat out stated that we are not beholden to the Geneva conventions or laws of war and who admit to torture and who have actually passed new laws to ensure that we can torture prisoners of war and not be accountable to any international human rights bodies etc...

This statement is THE height of HYPOCRISY.

We have caused the deaths of over 100 TIMES as many as Saddam ever killed... in a SECULAR country that was actually one of the most stable in the region... turning it into a graveyard and the hottest breeding ground in the region, if not the world, for terrorist activity. We have created and exacerbated a problem far FAR beyond anything we claimed to be solving.


You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.
He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded.

I've never done any such thing. And as for the screams... when you consider that we've killed over 100 TIMES as many of them as they have us, and that 60% of those deaths have been children... I think you'll forgive me a lack of pity here.


You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.

I couldn't agree with this more.


You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don't.
He does exactly what he is told.

And while, as I've said before, I respect the reason he believes he's fighting... I feel that one of the main problems today is this mindless, blind obedience to the government... to authority figures. People need to start THINKING... to understand the history and the FACTS that have led us to this point... and to use their own minds to make informed, rational decisions... and have the spines to act on those.


You stay at home and watch TV.
He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.

I don't watch TV. I don't have cable. But that's beside the point. Again, any discomfort he feels is the fault of the government for sending him there... and perhaps I'd feel more compassion for him if he really were defending my freedom and liberty... but to do that, he'd have to not be blindly obedient and would honestly have to be here, in the US, fighting to overthrow our own government, abolish all these laws lately that have overridden the constitution and take us back to the kind of free country that the founding fathers intended... to actually fight for my rights. What is going on today couldn't be farther from the "truth" the government does it's damnedest to try to convince you of.


You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable.
He crawls under a tank for shade and a 5 minute nap, only to be woken by gunfire.

*sigh*... these meaningless comparisons get REALLY OLD when you're not enough of a sheep to swallow them hook line and sinker without thinking.


You sit there and judge him, saying the world is probably a worse place because of men like him.
If only there were more men like him!

Again, I commend the soldiers who sign up to the military believing that they'll be making the world a better place. That they'll be defending Freedom and Liberty... those are noble ideals... but the truth is far from the belief... it is not always so... but sadly, with the US... it is almost always the case that good men and women die because of lies... because of money... for any reasons but freedom and liberty. I guess such is often the case when a government can spend the lives of it's youth as easily as it spends our tax dollars...

As Stalin said "the death of one man is a tragedy... the death of a million is but a statistic."

Food for thought.

And as a footnote... if you really want to do a service to your country as a patriot... try going and reading about the founding of our country... read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence. Read the Federalist Papers... the works of Jefferson and Washington... understand the turmoil and the bloodshed that surrounded the founding of this country...

I want to leave you with a few quotes to contrast... and see if you can't get an idea who had a better idea of what true freedom and liberty actually was...

"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." --Thomas Jefferson

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." --Thomas Jefferson

"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." --Thomas Jefferson

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson

"Delay is preferable to error." --Thomas Jefferson

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." --Thomas Jefferson

"I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason." --Thomas Jefferson


"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier... So long as I'm the dictator." --George W. Bush

"I think people attack me because they are fearful that I will then say that you're not equally as patriotic if you're not a religious person. ... I've never said that. I've never acted like that. I think that's just the way it is." --George W. Bush

"There ought to be limits to freedom." --George W. Bush

etc.

As always... read, learn, educate yourselves.

Thank you for taking the time to read this far.

On Lew Rockwell, George Washington and Liberal Commies etc.

I wrote an e-mail to my boss this afternoon in response to a comment he made about an article I was reading. First he said that he thought the article was bullshit... and then when he saw that it was on LewRockwell.com, he said "Isn't he a Liberal Commie?" etc.

For the record, I generally agree with what the guy in the article wrote, having been on both sides of both the airline situation and the police situation. I've been lied about blatantly by police officers in their own attempt to justify their treatment of you, and I've been through airports since 9/11 and had things like my nailfile confiscated... although that pales in comparison to the man and his wife's treatment in the article. Luckily in my run-in with the police, where the officers wrote that I was prowling in some lady's yard, that lady just happened to be my mothers bible study teacher and I had babysat her children in the past etc. Our family's were good friends. She wrote a rather scathing letter to the court backing up my side of the story and the court dropped all charges. I was rather upset about that for a number of years until I was jumped by a few ex-prison convicts and the law was on my side... I saw the officers as generally good guys trying to do the right thing. I think I have a pretty balanced view of them at this point.

But anyway... lest I digress as usual into a diatribe about how airport security is a result of "terrorism", which is the result of US Foreign Policy etc... and the ensuing pages of vitriol about our government blah blah blah.... I'll leave it with what I started this post for. ;-)

http://lewrockwell.com/about.html

I think you'll find that quite different from what you thought. Definitely not a "Liberal Commie" as you put it.

I'm still studying on Hobbes and Lockes views on social welfare versus personal "liberty" etc, but in the meantime, I think that I tend to find pros and cons on both sides... and I think that we unfortunately face a lot of the issue we do today simply because people can't separate the issues from the respective views held by the diametrically opposed camps of the Democratic and Republican parties. I think one of the prime manifestations of that today is the fact that Republican Conservatism transformed from it's traditional meaning of fiscal conservatism to the current meaning of social (religious) conservatism... and along with that, the core of policy in America today made a rather pronounced shift to the (religious) right, something I have a problem with simply because of the resultant infringements upon personal freedom in the US as government policy seeks to regulate more and more areas of life based on their perceived right to legislate their personal religious morality onto everyone else, regardless of personal rights, religious beliefs or even of any factual rational merit etc.

So it's very difficult today to say whether or not you're a Republican, because it's quite difficult to nail down exactly what that means right now. And while I think that Democrats are still pretty much the same as they've been for decades, even the nature of that party was once rather contrasted to it's modern incarnation. Almost as though the Republican and Democratic parties had flip-flopped.

Personally I won't vote for either "main" party.

I haven't read the entire document yet, but I believe this topic was addressed in some respects in George Washington's 1796 Farewell Address.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/washing.htm

But I digress... ;-)

I'll probably be back later with a post about Washington's Farewell Address once I get a chance to read and digest it.

I have a lot of studying to do on history and politics and the philosophical justifications behind many related ideologies etc... I've been taking some time off to do more of the proverbial "listening" than "talking". I felt like I needed to just keep my mouth shut for awhile and spend more time soaking up information and mulling it over... re-evaluating my stance in issues etc.

Until next time...

Defining myself.

I was just drifting off to sleep and in the course of my thinking, I had some ideas about how I define myself... and I wanted to make sure I "wrote them down".

I define myself not by where I was born, or the color of my skin, or who my ancestors were...

but by who I am, and what I believe. By the content of my own mind and how I relate the the world around me as a whole.

I find that I stand in stark contrast to many people where I work, who define themselves very strictly to the color of their skin, to who their ancestors were or are... and where they live, how they grew up etc.

I find it to be very small and artificial. Like children trying to find their identity... clinging to the latest styles of clothes to be popular... watching what you say, how you dress, what music you listen to... trying to fit in.

Then you grow up and realize that none of that really matters that much. Unfortunately people still require you to dress certain ways for work, or special occasions... and these are things that I also have problems with, but in a culture, there are certain rules of social interaction etc.

The point being... you stop defining yourself so much by others as you grow up. You start defining yourself and being your own person.

I see those around me now as not really defining themselves, but playing artificial roles to try to give meaning to their lives. When really these things don't mean much, or really don't mean anything at all. Playing to ancient superstitions and to wrongs that were never done to you... taking a stand against people who never wronged you... drawing artificial lines just to have something to push against...

I thought of it today when I made a comment about how my grandfather was a dutchman... and how it made me stop to think that maybe I shouldn't have said he was dutch... because of who I was speaking to. But frankly it's irrelevant to me... it's a part of who he was.. it was a story. I'm not going to alter my story to try to make myself fit in better with those that I'm talking to, and I feel that that is what the people here do. They focus on a particular part of their lives... even a miniscule one... and try to emphasize that.

These people hang dreamweavers all over, and eagle feathers, and pictures of wolves etc... but they drive modern cars, live in modern houses, wear modern clothes, use modern medicine, work modern jobs... they are trying to maintain an artificial facade of culture to try to make themselves feel relevant... to feel part of something. Most of the people are maybe 1/4 tribal. 3/4th of their blood is European or African American etc... and they try to bury that part like it doesn't exist... like they're 100% native american... as though even THAT has ANYTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH WHO THEY ARE TODAY.

I'm half german... I don't go around trying to learn German to continue my heritage... I don't wear german clothes and hang the german flag on my wall... I don't believe in ancient germanic religions etc... none of these things are really relevant to me. They don't change who I am... and frankly, some of the older stuff like the religion etc... are simply superstitious nonsense that I have grown out of.

I define myself by studying everything around me and working for what I see as the benefit of humanity as a whole in relation to the universe we live in. I look at "race" as an artificial construct to describe arbitrary lines drawn in the sand between what are essentially branches towards speciation within our species caused by time and geographic separation. Things which are rapidly becoming less of an influence... and as a result of this, our genes are mixing more, lines blurring... both physically and culturally.

Race is an arbitrary idea that simply promotes agendas... generally detrimental ones. It's like the idea of "life" beginning at conception. The very concept "life" being used in that sense is one laden with religious symbolism. Not the scientific concept of life, which is much more ethereal, and is really something that developed over billions of years and has simply been passed on. It doesn't "begin at conception", and that very notion is simply a requisite of the belief in a spiritual soul... that God must have to pick a certain point at which to imbue this new "person" with a new "soul" etc. These are just simple minded fictional creations of the human mind and really have nothing to do with the physical reality of the process.

Race is similar to this. Sure when you consider geographically isolated groups, or more specifically, tracking the spread of mankind over the globe since our birth in northern Africa, you can see how our species has adapted to different climates, from hot and humid to hot and arid, or cold and dry.. or very sunny... or much less so... and how our statures have changed based on the food sources available, or our skin color to compensate for prolonged exposure to sunlight... as well as our eye color... or our nasal structures in relation to body temperature and air temperature and humidity.

It's like a rainbow.... where do you draw a hard line separating one distinct color from another? You can't... you have to make one up because it doesn't exist... it's just one continuous gradient from one end of the spectrum to the other... and all part of the same whole... which is in turn part of a larger whole... life on earth.

It's amazing sometimes to think how life could be if we spent our time trying to solve the greater mysteries of the real world we lived in and stopped defining ourselves by figments of our imaginations, and devoting countless days of our lives in servitude to wishful thinking no more real or relevant to humanity and it's place in the universe than the Easter Bunny.

Top Ten signs you're a Christian.

TOP TEN SIGNS YOU'RE A CHRISTIAN

10- You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your god.

9- You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from lesser life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt

8- You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Trinity god

7- Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" -- including women, children, and trees!

6- You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5- You are willing to spend your life looking for little loop-holes in the scientifically established age of the Earth (4.55 billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by pre-historic tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that the Earth is a couple of generations old.

4- You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects -- will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet you consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving".

3- While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to prove Christianity.

2- You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1- You actually know a lot less than many Atheists and Agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history -- but still call yourself a Christian

I couldn't say it better.

I'm practically speechless.

This better illustrates why I hate religion than I could possibly express.

Shirley Phelps-Roper on Hannity & Colmes.

If you don't know who she is, then I suggest you read up a little on the Westboro Baptist Church.

This isn't insanity, this is the result of actually believing and following what Christianity teaches. The sad part is, she's still falling a bit short of God's commandments! She'll have to actually start murdering people to really obey "The Lord Her God". The only reason modern Christians don't do this, and make no mistake, they were still doing this even 150 years ago, is because they have learned that a whole lot of the bible is simply bullshit and have ceased paying attention to it. The only reason the religion is any good at all today is because people don't follow it! And that's not saying that it's really any good anyway.

Just watch the video. Yay religion.

*sheesh* :(

(I've been posting tons of verses from the bible to illustrate this stuff on another forum lately... so I'm a little heated about stupid religious people right now. As a matter of fact, this video was linked to by a guy Merlin that I've been arguing about tolerance for Islam with.)

Introspection.

Ok... I was a little drunk, sleep deprived and upset last night...

With a little sleep and introspection, I found a quote I'd saved that seemed quite fitting in light of the events of the past few days.

"So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy. And a further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists. Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties. For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution."
   - Alexander Hamilton - Federalist Papers no.1

Nothing more need be said.

You'll never guess what happened. ;)

Banned.

All my posts locked.

The children maintain their power structure and avoid threats to their religious beliefs... even though in the end it was just a number of intelligent people discussing M-Theory, String theory, Super Massive Black Holes, Adaptive Optics... and *gasp* Pascal's wager etc.

I expected it, but it's always aggravating.

But what do you expect with cowardly Christians in power whose main goal is to supress dissent with ample evidence (by which I mean, dissenting and showing ample evidence for said dissent... not them having any evidence for supressing dissent by themselves showing any evidence. I feel I must be very clear on that). ;)

Luckily I've saved copies of the threads... so that I can post excerpts etc if I'm so inclined. There were some very interesting discussions.

Just one more reason to finish Phreadom.com where, like this blog, I welcome dissent and arguments etc... even "stupid" ones... and even Anonymously (and I've explained my reasons why in past posts).

I feel that any real debate brings about something positive in some sense or another... even if only to grant an insight into why someone believes something that you don't.

Moving on... as usual. ;)

Priceless.

I'll let the following exchange stand on it's own. ;)

This is some of what I've been dealing with the past day or so in my discussions/debates on this forum. While this is admittedly the worst, the rest of my detractors haven't been much better.

Thankfully there have been some mature and/or intelligent people to carry on discussions with. :)

woahthere:
can some one ban him

myself:
If you don't like the thread, don't read it.

Quit whining.

"Someone is saying something I don't agree with! Because I'm incapable of making an intelligent argument against what he's saying, BAN HIM!"

Real mature there. *cough*

woahthere:
i dont even know what your talking about just sounds like aload of shit

myself:
So how about you either ask for an explanation of what you don't understand, or you stop reading it if all you're going to do is complain?

I mean, if you actually had a valid reason why you didn't agree with something I was saying, then at least you could have some constructive input to the conversation. I don't have a problem with intelligent constructive criticism. This is the reason why I don't just say "you're a fucking idiot", I give referenced examples illustrating my point and explanations that hopefully everyone can understand and learn from.

There's a big difference between just saying "you're stupid" and actually taking the time to write a detailed response with a listing of reference material to give an in-depth breakdown of the shortcomings of a person's particular beliefs etc.

As I've often said in the past "you calling me an asshole, and even me being an asshole, doesn't make what I'm saying wrong. you not liking facts doesn't change them."

woahthere:
all i saw was you riping into cgal because she is a christian. im not a christian but i dont go say bullshit about christianity, its what they bleave in so just leave um to it. TWAT

myself:
I only saw you attacking cgal because she is a Christian. I'm not a Christian, but I don't denigrate Christianity. It's their personal belief, so just let them have it in peace. *childish-expletive*

There... a little help for you.

Anyway... that little bit of banal tripe aside.... I believe I already covered in detail exactly why I didn't agree with the mantra of "let them be, they're not hurting anyone", and gave examples as to why etc.

I fear I'm going to have to stop bothering to respond to you... it's getting tiring having to point out that I've already posted things which render your subsequent comments invalid, but you post them anyway because you either cannot comprehend what I've written, or you're just too lazy to actually read a post before you bitch about it. I would hope for your sake you're just a lazy prick and not as retarded as your previous few comments would lead me to believe.

whoathere:
i dont even know what half the words you say mean, and there to long and full off bullshit to bother trying to find out what the fuck they mean so no i dont bother reading your posts.

myself:
I think that sums it up quite nicely. Thanks. :D

An example of this Ostrich complex.

See if you can't pick out the problem with her head in the sand approach.

No need to thank me. I have said it before and I will say it again....My God is an awesome God and NO ONE or NOTHING I read will EVER change my mind about that. It has nothing to do with courage to say it, well maybe it does in a sense, but it comes from my heart when I say I love my God and I am NOT ashamed to admit it!! I will not even attempt to change or convert anyone, and I will not get in a debate over religion, and I will NOT allow others beliefs to sway my own personal feelings.
Thanks allsix, those were nice words you spoke to me.

She somehow feels that by her saying this, that her beliefs are beyond reproach.

Sadly it just makes her a stupid stubborn idiot, incapable of learning or growing and progressing as a knowledgeable human being.

Fucking Sheep. Gah... I swear.

Grumblies!

So I'm in a bit of a debate over on another forum...

There's a thread about Noah's ark on there... in response to CNN running an article about an anomoly in the snow on Mt.Ararat.

As usual, I had to step in and try to talk a little sense... but given the general mentality of the people on that forum, I wasn't as diplomatic as usual... *cough* ;)

One of the moderators made the comment that she believed in God, and someone else commended her for her courage in stating that belief... to which someone else responded that in the US, it was ridiculous to say that it took courage to state your belief in God. A very good point.

Before I got around to replying to that comment though, I had saw some comment from another moron about using the Bible as a guide for morality or something... to which I posted my usual list of fun ways to murder friends and loved ones per God's commands in the bible... with the relevant bible verses, so that they could read along.

Someone else said something about the Ark itself, and about fitting 2 of each animal in it for 40 days or something... to which I left a scathing comment about actually reading the bible and seeing that the whole story is much more in depth than that... it's 7 pair of every bird, 7 pair of every clean animal (for food), 2 of all the rest, food for all the animals, enough for the entire trip, plus samples of ALL food at the time, to reseed the earth, as they spent about a YEAR under water deep enough to cover the highest mountains on earth by over 20 feet. And then they repopulated the earth from just Noah, his wife, and their 3 kids and their wives. Little incest action populating the world for the SECOND time, according to the bible... if you again ignore the fact that Adam and Eve weren't the first people on earth for the first time... but this second time leaves little doubt that we all are supposedly descended from less than 10 individuals, seeding the entire earth, in just a few thousand years.

Sorry... I'm getting off on a rant because the BULLSHIT is getting so deep in here... it just gets me fired up.

I told the jackass to go learn his own fucking religion.

I told the moderator that she was a fucking idiot, and that rather than run off and avoid the topic, why doesn't she even make a tiny attempt to defend her ridiculous beliefs against the flood of damning evidence straight from her own bible that I'd presented. And that courage wasn't what she'd done, stating her belief in God in a nation whose motto is "In God We Trust", I said that COURAGE was what my post was... standing up in this Christian country and stating that you don't believe in the man in the clouds just because everyone else says they do. Courage is being an open unbeliever in this day and age.

The last thing I covered (before that last part actually), was the fact that the same guy that had commented about how it wasn't courage for her to state a belief in God in the United States today, that he didn't have anything against her faith etc.

I made the point that if you believe someones beliefs are fucking retarded, but that they have a freedom to believe those things, that somehow you don't have the right, or shouldn't state that their beliefs are stupid. I said what was the fucking point then? If someone has a right to believe something stupid in this country, then let's not forget that we also have the right to tell them they must have been sucking on a tail pipe or something to be that stupid.

It's not just the religion that's the problem here, it's the faith in that stupid religion, and we need to start holding people accountable for believing fairytale nonsense that wouldn't remotely pass the test of credulity in ANY other aspect of their lives! This faith, which is in conflict with the very cognitive functions that enable a person to live the rest of their lives outside of religion, corrodes a persons ability to think rationally... it creates the mental partitions, the lack of critical thinking skills... the inability to grasp certain concepts because of the self-induced short circuiting of their reasoning skills in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance of conflicting ideas... within one's self even.

I've covered all this shit before... suffice it to say, people need to be held accountable for ridiculously childish and ignorant, if not downright stupid, beliefs in regards to their religion, the same way we would if they believed that Black people were descended from Mud, and therefor were not human... or that the Holocaust of the Jews didn't happen at the hands of the Nazis... while some people certainly believe those things, the vast majority of us don't even give them the time of day... we see the body of historical and scientific evidence that completely crushes any rational notion of entertaining those ideas as remotely true. How is it so difficult to carry that same thought process on to this other area of ridiculous belief?

Hell, I even went on to talk about how pathetic it was that people would argue for the infallibility of their bible... of the inerrant word of God that could not be questioned... and then have them try to worm out of killing their friends and family and numerous other people as God very clearly COMMANDS them to do in the bible. They are all about trumping up the perfection and power of God's word when it suits them to need that type of contrived authority... but when it comes to actually obeying what that God commands?... that's when you hear the hemming and hawing... "well... those aren't really serious... and Jesus died for our sins, so we don't have to obey those anymore.."... Oh really. So you don't have to obey the Ten Commandments? Or you get to pick and choose which of God's commands to obey? And what makes one be absolutely binding, but in the very next verse, you just brush over it? And let's not forget that Jesus was very specific that you had to STILL obey ALL of God's law, until the end of time! Every Jot and Tittle. Your own bible very clearly refutes your pathetic excuses. You can't have it both ways... which is the very reason these people end up with muddled thought processes... they have to allow this area of their lives to be riddled with contradictions and stand in stark contrast to the rest of their lives... they have to numb themselves to the irrationality of it in order to maintain a belief in it. And the reward for this shutting off of their faculties is the feeling of being loved and safe... that they'll go to heaven when they die and that God loves them no matter what etc. Those warm fuzzy feelings, which are nothing more than a result of their own imagination and are scientifically understood, are the reinforcement they need to continue believing this way.

I'll have to track down some of the studies on the neurobiological effects of religious belief. Simply put, it's about the same as falling in love. Same chemical reactions in the brain. Positive reinforcement through basically having your brain dope itself up.

Fun times. *grumble*

Deflowered.

I feel so hip.

I just bought my first song on iTunes.

"The Sun - Romantic Death"

I'll admit that I tried to find it on-line for free... but failing to do so, I really couldn't argue with the $0.99 price to buy it.

I feel that I'm now a part of some young hip iPod generation or something... who knows what crazy things will happen now that I've taken the first step.

The Gospel of Judas Iscariot.

'Gospel of Judas' Tells His Side.

I've heard this type of discussion before, and had seen mention of it recently, but I just happened to actually read the article that described it.

For an in-depth look at the gospel, please read the "Gospel of Judas" article on Wikipedia.

For background on what is meant by "Coptic" in the article, please see the Coptic Christianity article on Wikipedia.

For more related information, see the article "The Lost Gospels" on the National Geographic website which covers this along with several other related works.

The biology of near-death experiences.

Near-Death Experience: Find Out if You’re a Candidate.

I read about this on another link a few days ago. Interesting. ;-)

Another follow-up.

My earlier post "Case in point" dealt with the idea of "missing links" etc... I've just run across another related story that I'd like to add to that vein.

Catfish Hunt on Land

I think when we're comparing the amount of scientific evidence against the lone argument that "if we add up the ages of the people listed in the bible, starting at Adam, we get 6,000 years or so... so that is the age of the earth!"... I think it's pretty obvious who comes out in the lead. Not to mention that even the bible itself states that Adam and Eve were not the first people. When they, according to the story, left the Garden of Eden, Cain went out to the land of Nod after killing Abel, where he married and bore a son etc. (Genesis 4:14-17)

Hell, for a very entertaining and enlightening take on the story of Genesis, read the story We Are the Other People. The author is a little strange... but I found the story hilarious, especially given that it's taken directly from Genesis.

Nice summary of Creationist crushing news.

Ouch! Creationists Take A Beating…

Three stories are linked here, only one of which I've previously covered (at the beginning of my Case in point post).

Join me in pointing and laughing at the Creationists. :-)

(And for good measure, a direct link to the story the third part of the above link refers to: Fossil Find Improves Knowledge of Human Origins)

Visual timeline of evolution.

You have to see this.

Evolutionary Timeline

I tried to illustrate this a few posts ago (in my post entitled Case in point ) by describing the second hand on a clock... but this is way... WAY better.

Go. Look. Now.

Wow.

Why extinction is bad.

Why a spider hanging from its thread does not rotate.

This illustrates one of the many reasons that extinction is a bad thing. "Mother Nature" has been at this for millions of years and there are a multitude of such cases where "she" has already came to a much more elegant solution than we have. We can learn a lot from simply studying the biosphere around us.

Treatments for illnesses, new materials with amazing properties, alternate forms of communication... the list goes on and on. Not only can we draw inspiration from such things as echolocation in bats and dolphins, but also from actual biological functionality in such things as spiders and their silk, "Lightning Bugs/Fireflies" and their bioluminescence (which, along with many undersea creatures, fungi and worms, led to the creation of Organic Light-Emitting Diodes and other "cold light" innovations), and many others.

Remember kids... extinction is bad. :-)

I actually find it incredibly fascinating to look at the fossil record and see the kinds of life that have come and gone through the ages... strange branches on the evolutionary tree that died out or were wiped out in one of the many mass extinctions since the dawn of life... it's amazing to ponder what other forms of life might now be dominant on earth, or what me might look like if life had taken even the slightest detour millenia past.

It's things like this that really make me reconsider what I want to do in life.

Fascinating.

UPDATE THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 2006:
World’s Strongest Glue! Available Only From Nature!

Follow-up to the previous post...

I posted a "quick" response comment to the previous post on "Religion: Blight on Humanity?"... and a short follow-up to that... and figured I'd post them here for good measure.

I wouldn't call religion a mental illness per se, however I would say that it causes mental failure.

Religion requires a compartmentalization of thought to enable one to simultaneously believe drastically different or contradictory things. For instance, a man or woman in their daily lives will generally require just as much proof of an amazing claim as any other person would. But when it comes to their religious beliefs… even the most outlandish claims, which are in direct violation of the physical laws of the daily world we live in… and are wholly self-contradictory etc… they take these without question.

This type of cognitive suppression and compartmentalization, which enables them to essentially overcome cognitive dissonance, has numerous ill effects. Its symptoms include such things as a complete inability to even entertain that any notion that in any way conflicts with their religious belief might have any validity. It causes them to oversimplify complex issues that might conflict with their beliefs if studied too deeply. It causes them to treat people of other beliefs as sadly wrong individuals… or to do such things as treat homosexuals as abominations who are going to burn in hell… while usually at the same time being polite to their faces. They don't understand that them telling a person that they're perverse and evil and abominations could have negative repercussions in that persons life. They believe that God hates gays, so they feel 100% right in sharing that view. They believe that the bible teaches certain things, and therefor they have a right to legislate those particular morals onto everyone else, even when others might not share their personal beliefs.

This type of detachment from reality… and from critical thinking… the oversimplification of issues, the outright willful ignorance of matters that might threaten their beliefs… these things do harm to society. When you have people that willfully make themselves ignorant of scientific facts and medical and scientific progress etc… and practice rote memorization of religious dogma and use it to try to fight scientific progress and hold humanity back as a whole while violating the basic rights of other individuals in society, while being largely painfully ignorant of the facts and complexities of the issues at hand as a result of the very belief system they are trying to maintain… this, as a whole, has a negative effect on society at large.

People unaware of sexual education because of the forced ignorance of the subject, leading to STD transmission and early pregnancies etc… or discrimination against gays because "God says so" rather than any real world reasoning… or teaching bigotry against people of other cultures if they don't share the same beliefs etc, because any other belief must be wrong if it's not Christianity, and other cultures entail different beliefs on non-religious ideas as well… but being different is also seen as dangerous to the conservative status quo in the cultural sense… so you have a general misunderstanding of people like Muslims etc… and rather than addressing the real foundations of the problems with Radical Islam today, you have such ignorant mindsets as that all Muslims are towel headed lunatics who hate life so much that they just want to kill us while they end their own miserable lives out of depression, hatred and jealousy of our Freedom… when this is entirely wrong! This leads us into wars where hundreds of thousands of lives are lost and whole countries descend into turmoil.

People fail to understand that the problems we have with terrorism today are generally the direct result of Religious Fundamentalism… and while this terminology is bandied about as the latest buzzwords… people utterly fail to grasp it's implications. The problem with Religious Fundamentalism is merely in people actually doing what their religion teaches them, even commands them to do! The only reason the rest of the religious aren't following suit is because of a combination of things… failure to understand their own religion fully, and a failure to obey it's teachings. This along with the scientific and cultural secular advances of the past 2,000 years have led to a society, especially here in the U.S., where a majority of people claim to be religious and will steadfastly and vehemently defend their beliefs, but generally have a very poor knowledge of those beliefs and a very poor concept of how those beliefs interact with and even contradict their own daily lives, beliefs and actions. This being another result of the aforementioned compartmentalization of thought that enables them to function from day to day while maintaining a belief system that contradicts the world around them, and the knowledge that enables them to function in it. (dying is bad. if you walk off this bridge, gravity will make you fall and die. certain diseases will kill you. the dead cannot come back to life. etc. bob cannot be 2 places at once. your biological mother cannot be 2 different people. praying will not pay your bills.)

I have seen many times over the results of this compartmentalized mental disconnection from reality… and while many apologists would like us to believe that religion is a good thing, they fail to understand that the kind of "good religion" they're referring to is nothing more than a rather large failure of actually being religious, and mostly following the secular wisdom of the past few thousand years in violation of and in contradiction with the religions they claim to wholeheartedly believe in and steadfastly support. And they do this while denouncing the people on both ends of the spectrum simultaneously… those who are against their beliefs, or do not believe them at all…. and those who share their beliefs, but believe them 100% and obey them in accordance with that belief.

How hard is it to understand that there is a problem when the only way your beliefs are a good thing is when you don't really believe them or follow them fully? And how can you claim their infallibility while at the same time saying that some of them are not relevant or don't need to be followed? (hint: the compartmentalization I talked about earlier). How can you say that Gods word is infallible and must be obeyed, but then ignore all the things he absolutely commands you to do? How can you claim someone is evil or wrong and justify retribution toward or denigration of such people, when you yourself invalidate the very words you claim as your authority? compartmentalization of thought… willful blindness of contradictions… willful ignorance of complex situations… refusal to even acknowledge any error in logic relating to your beliefs.

I could go on and on about this… but I'm not the best writer by any means, and I would hope that my explanation so far has shed a little light on this.

After reading back over that comment, I noticed some things that I failed to clarify, which I felt were rather important, if not vital, to the point I was trying to make... so I added another reply:

I suppose that I should clarify something...
When I stated that "This type of cognitive suppression and compartmentalization, which enables them to essentially overcome cognitive dissonance, has numerous ill effects.", I should have clarified that the real danger with this is the fact that this same set of mental self-induced disabilities and dysfunctions follows through into their daily life... so that when faced with real life cognitive dissonance, they resolve it internally in the same manner. They ignore contradictions, they willfully maintain ignorance of ideas and knowledge that might contradict their preconceptions... and while these are all traits we somewhat share... they are also much more likely to simply completely fail to see even the most obvious contradictions, or to be able to use any real level of critical thinking skills or logical reasoning ability etc.

As these self-induced shortcomings spill over into their daily lives, this is when the damage really starts being done. At this point it is no longer simply a harmless fantasy that affects nobody but themselves, at this point they are failing to understand the world around them and using their own self-induced ignorance of concepts and it's resulting painfully flawed understanding of the world as motivations to force their beliefs onto other people by passing laws against them, or supporting wars against them, or simply spreading hate about them, while completely failing to see what they're doing for what it really is. They see what they're doing as perfectly right and perfectly good as extensions of God's perfect will.

If these types of people really did just have a fantasy that harmed no one but themselves, I wouldn't really care... I'd have little problem letting them run around and spend their lives as simpletons. I'd just pity them a bit and ignore them. But when we have them directing national policy and law because of their ignorance en masse... and when my life is personally detrimentally effected by their disassociation with reality and inability to think rationally etc... I have a problem with it.

Although Jefferson made his comment about it neither picking his pocket or breaking his leg... I think even Jefferson would understand that egregious violations of personal freedom in the name of religion is just as heinous... if not even more so.

(The closing comment about Jefferson refers to the following quote from Thomas Jefferson, taken from the Notes on the state of Virginia (1781-1785): "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.", which was made in the context of Separation of Church and State.)

Evolution follows few of the possible paths to antibiotic resistance

Contact: Steve Bradt
steve_bradt@harvard.edu
617-496-8070
Harvard University

Bacteria gain resistance from only a handful of 120 possible five-step mutational paths in a key gene

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Darwinian evolution follows very few of the available mutational pathways to attain fitter proteins, researchers at Harvard University have found in a study of a gene whose mutant form increases bacterial resistance to a widely prescribed antibiotic by a factor of roughly 100,000. Their work indicates that of 120 harrowing, five-step mutational paths that theoretically could grant antibiotic resistance, only about 10 actually endow bacteria with a meaningful evolutionary advantage.

The research is published in the journal Science.

"Just as there are many alternate routes one might follow in driving from Boston to New York, one intrinsic property of DNA is that very many distinct mutational paths link any two variants of a gene," says lead author Daniel M. Weinreich, a research associate in Harvard's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. "Although this fact has been recognized for at least 35 years, its implications for evolution by natural selection have remained unexplored. Specifically, it is of great interest to determine whether natural selection regards these many mutational paths equivalently."

Weinreich and colleagues generated a series of mutants found along all 120 possible mutational trajectories involving the gene coding for the enzyme beta-lactamase, which in altered form can serve to inactivate antibiotics including penicillin and cefotaxime. Analyzing how well each variant protected host Escherichia coli cells against treatment with various concentrations of antibiotic, the scientists found that only a very small fraction of these pathways confer ever-increasing resistance in pathogenic microbes, and are therefore relevant to natural selection.

Resistance-granting mutations of beta-lactamase occur in a five-step process, with the 120 possible mutational paths representing all the possible ways in which these five point mutations can occur. Fully 102 of the 120 trajectories are inaccessible to natural selection because they create intermediates that are no more fit than the original gene, and of the remaining 18 Weinreich and colleagues observed that only about half actually had a significant probability of evolutionary occurrence.

"To be followed by an evolving population, natural selection requires that antibiotic resistance increase with each mutation," Weinreich says. "In contrast, most mutational paths of the enzymatic variant we examined fail to continuously increase resistance. Importantly, this is not a reflection of the fact that many more mutations reduce biological function than improve it, because in the present case each mutational path is composed exclusively of mutations known jointly to improve resistance."

Weinreich argues that this finding likely applies to most protein evolution, not just the beta-lactamase enzyme.Although many mutational paths lead to favored variants, only a very small fraction are likely to result in continuously improved fitness and therefore be relevant to the process of natural selection.

###

Weinreich's co-authors on the Science paper are Nigel F. Delaney, now at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., and Mark A. DePristo and Daniel L. Hartl in Harvard's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.