Important Halloween note

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Michael

If you will be giving out candy this year, okay, yes, all the kids have come to accept that everything will be “fun size”. But let’s not give out crappy candy, okay? That pretty much means you need to exclusively be giving out this:

And please keep the Almond Joy to yourself, okay? Look, I’ve grown to actually like it on the rare occasion I have it, but that’s because I’m not 8. No kid likes coconut. That’s just a fact.

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On Adam and Eve

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Michael

Some Christians believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. In fact, over 40% of Americans believe the Universe is less than 10,000 years old. (We can presume the majority of those people derive their erroneous belief from the Bible.) This means a huge swath of people in the U.S. have beliefs that are inconsistent with science – and the reason is religion. However, we can at least give these people some credit. Their belief that the Bible is inerrant practically demands that they believe in a young Universe; they’re consistent. But there’s a more important reason for their beliefs: Adam and Eve.

Christianity is based upon Jesus dying for our sins as brought about by Adam and Eve (especially that dirty, filthy, sub-human woman Eve, amirite?). Without Adam and Eve, Christianity falls apart at the seams. Couple that with extreme ignorance, and you’ve got creationists. But what about the Christians who ‘accept’ evolution? We know they don’t really accept it, but they at least superficially claim they do. So what about them? They are necessarily rejecting the idea that Adam and Eve literally existed. Without these two, The Fall didn’t happen and Jesus was not necessary. In this view of Christianity, God created people as disobedient to him. Not only does this make God all the more twisted and weird, but it further compounds the Problem of Evil that Christianity is unable to answer.

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On the conflict between science and religion

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Michael

It’s often said, ‘Sure, other people’s religion conflicts with science, but they aren’t representative of the majority. Besides, my religion isn’t in conflict with science!”

Here’s a simple test to find out if your religion conflicts with science:

1) Do you believe in miracles?
2) Do you believe in a creator who directed evolution?
3) Do you believe prayers work? (And why doesn’t your god heal amputees?)
4) Do you think faith is a virtue?

If you answered “Yes” to any of these, and you derive your answer(s) from your religion, then your religion does conflict with science. Let me explain.

1) A miracle is a suspension or interruption of a physical law or constant. The whole idea in science is that physical laws and constants are true at all times and in all places. If you believe they can be arbitrarily interrupted, your belief is in conflict with science; science does not allow for the interruption of, say, the speed of light in a vacuum. You can believe that the speed of light in a vacuum can be changed by your god, but (aside from having no evidence for such a claim) your belief is one that is anti-scientific.

2) Evolution is a natural process that is based upon the changing of allelic frequencies within a population over time. It happens as a result of genetic change and interaction with the environment. It is a natural process that is contingent upon a long series of chance happening and natural selection; under the same environmental conditions, a re-running of the history of life would give different results. You can believe your god made it so humans (or any other animal) would be inevitable, but your belief is anti-scientific.

3) The science is in and prayer does not work. You can still believe it does, but your belief is anti-scientific.

4) Science is a valuing of reason, experiment, and, ultimately, evidence. Faith is the anti-thesis of this. You can still believe faith is a good thing, but your belief is anti-scientific; it is not a belief that is found within science.

Bonus conflict: Philosophy

Do you believe in the philosophical reasoning of the First Cause? This is the argument that says everything has a cause and thus the Universe has a cause. (And then it is randomly declared that God is eternal.) This goes against science because Newton told us that everything which has a force has an opposite and equal force. This is dependent upon observations made within the Universe. Your philosophy goes beyond this evidence and makes a conclusion which is independent of the sort of reasoning Newton used. In other words, if you say the Universe has a cause because everything else has a cause, you aren’t making sense. Everything within the Universe has a cause. That’s all science tells us. We can presume a reason for the Universe since it, well, exists, but we cannot use the scientific reasoning used by Newton; he was talking about forces within the Universe.

Filed under: Religions, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Thought of the day

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Michael

In Internet Feminism (which is a distinct school of feminism), it has become standard to effectively say, ‘If you disagree with any aspect of something a woman is saying about equal rights* and you have a penis, then you’re a misogynistic asshole.’

*It’s important to distinguish equal rights from other labels of rights. I primarily think of this in terms of ‘civil rights for gays’. Most people won’t use this phrasing, instead opting for ‘gay rights’. There is no such thing. That would be gay privilege – and no one is asking for that. Just the same, there is no such thing as ‘women’s rights’. That phrasing equally indicates privilege. To be fair, the intention of the speaker is rarely to reference anything about privilege; it’s just sloppy language. Regardless, let’s be more careful.

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Quickies

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Michael
  • The Tea Party is a response to a black president.
  • Most of the job loss in the Bush Recession occurred before Obama’s policies were even in place.
  • One major factor in the political polarization of the U.S. is the gerrymandering of districts – from both major parties.
  • Paul LePage knows nothing.
  • Matt Damon is excellent.

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Maloney update

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Michael

Maloney’s review was today. As I said earlier, I was unable to attend – it was observation only anyway – but I did give the relevant people a call to get an idea of what happened. I highly recommend getting your information from me since Maloney will almost certainly lie about.

The complaint was dismissed, but not without a recommending letter. The board is going to issue Maloney a letter advising him to make changes to some of his practices. That’s pretty close to what I asked them to do:

A person with a serious ailment may seek an alternative to, say, the hassle of the overhead associated with many mainstream healthcare providers. Should this person come across Mr. Maloney’s website and see his lack of burdensome overhead, there may be confusion; the person may only be looking for an alternative to overhead, not an alternative to mainstream medicine. Mr. Maloney’s illegal claim to being a doctor without the qualifier “naturopathic” or its derivatives ought to be corrected. I urge the board to enforce the law and demand Mr. Maloney correct his website at the least.

So while the letter will be non-binding, the board does appear to agree with my position. Maloney ought not represent himself in any way that makes him appear to be a real doctor.

The account I was given over the phone made it sound like the letter has yet to be drafted, but I can’t be sure. I was not given specifics, so I can’t go into great detail or speak with great certainty (hence “the board does appear to agree…”). (It very much sounds like they will be asking him to change his inappropriate phrasings.) Once I get the letter, I will make a new post. At that point – unless he continues to fabricate history, attack atheists, or dole out plainly false medical information (again, there is no good evidence that black elderberry is effective against H1N1 – don’t believe him!) – I hope to mostly be done with this ridiculous character.

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More kili

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Michael

Why? Because it looks pretty.

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Fact:

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Michael

Horror movies are never scary.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: | 3 Comments »

Thought of the day

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Michael

Human beings are more important than the abstract ethical principle of liberty.

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Conservative definitions

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Michael

There is a lot of political rhetoric out there; it comes from all areas of the political spectrum and it isn’t used to bolster the effectiveness of any given argument. It is the argument. That said, the biggest offenders are conservatives. Much of the rhetoric they use is meant to elicit an emotional, knee-jerk reaction: ‘If I say these words, people will make this tenuous connection to what I really mean.’ For instance, “Tea Party” is meant to evoke a righteous fight for liberty, especially from taxation without representation (forget that all these Teabaggers use public roads to drive to their rallies). But all rational people know that isn’t what it means at all. It may superficially reference the Boston Tea Party and manage to get sympathetic conservatives to emotionally connect the current ‘movement‘ to that historic moment, but down deeper it’s simply a code for Racist Republican.

But that isn’t the end of the list, not by a long shot. There is a lot more conservative code floating around out there, so I think it would be appropriate for me to try and clear some of it up right now. Here’s a list of words conservatives frequently use followed by what they really mean.

Science – Something to be rejected if it conflicts with my previously held beliefs
“The science behind global warming is doubtful…oh, and we should loosen pollution restrictions on big business.”

Tax & Spend Liberal – A Democrat with the same economic policies as Republicans
“Obama is just another tax & spend liberal…even though Bush’s last budget deficit was greater than Obama’s first.”

Atheism – Religious faith
“Atheism requires just as much faith as Christianity…nevermind that I don’t think I have faith that unicorns don’t exist.”

Religious Faith – A virtuous position
“Remember Doubting Thomas? Even though he didn’t believe until he had evidence, Jesus (inexplicably) declared that he had faith and that faith was a good thing…oh, and forget that I’ve already shit all over the idea of faith to bring you down to my level of infantile thinking; faith is good when it’s my faith. And by ‘my’, I probably mean the faith my parents told me to have.”

Patriot – A conservative
“John McCain is a patriot for serving his country…just pretend like I’m not a fundamentally dishonest hypocrite when I smear John Kerry’s record.”

Working Class – Whites
“We need to strengthen the power of the working class…and the strength of my deadbolt – I saw a minority in my neighborhood today!”

People on Welfare – Minorities
“People on welfare are just mooching off the working class…excuse me while I buy this fresh Maine lobster with my food stamps.”

Liberal Media – Anything that isn’t FOX Noise
“The liberal media is just trying to take Christine O’Donnell down because they’re afraid of change in Washington…can we just forget that she doesn’t know anything about the First Amendment? Bringing that up is liberal bias.”

Liberty – Economic greed
“The government is taking away my liberty with all these taxes…I just wish they would fix all the potholes so I have a more comfortable ride when I take my kids to public school.”

Small Business Interests – Big business interests
“It’s a small business interest to cut taxes for those making over $250,000…because businesses create jobs purely based upon lower taxes, not anything to do with demand, right? And tax cuts don’t hurt and increase the deficit, right?”

Activist Judge – A judge who made a decision with which I disagree
“I can’t stand those activist judges who ruled that anti-sodomy laws are illegal…excuse me while I poke my wife in the pooper – it’s not sodomy if it’s with a woman, right?”

Elitist – Someone who is smarter than I am
“Atheists only scored higher on that religious quiz because they’re so elitist…who knew Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation? Wasn’t he that black guy? He was probably on welfare.”

Open-minded – Agreeing with me
“You don’t find ‘intelligent design’ convincing? You just aren’t open-minded…huh? Oh. No, I won’t bother to study evolution before I reject it. That leads to bad things.“

Muslim – Terrorist
“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

Filed under: Humor, Politics and Social | Tagged: | 6 Comments »

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