Louisiana Improves Science

I don't mean to pick on Louisiana in general, that has been done well enough here.
It is disgusting that another victory has been won by those who are obviously trying to push religion into schools. And let me be clear... pushing religion into public schools is a violation of the constitution, an attack on freedom from religious persecution, and an outright assault on REASON. This is inexcusable, disturbing, and wicked on multiple fronts.

I can't pull punches about this kind of thing. When Gov. Bobby Jindal signs a bill into law that allows bullshit to be fed to open minded, easily influenced kids, I have to protest. I read about this on a few of the other atheist blogs, and this is exactly the kind of thing I hope to prevent. I am not going to report on what happened, only bitch about it. Click on this or this to read good write ups.

The real kicker, the guy supposedly has an honors degree in biology. Judas!

This bill is clearly meant to back door religious doctrine into "controversial" topics, that are only controversial due to their challenging of the old scrap book of know-it-all uneducated desert primitives. At least Scientology comes from a noteworthy sci-fi hack who made some money.... the bible comes from poor nomadic ignorants, who due to the era and environment that they happen to be born in to HAD NO EXPOSURE TO SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE, or even what we know by the time we start high school. And christians make fun of scientologists wacky beliefs... its like watching 5th graders tell 4th graders how immature they are.

Huckabee took Iowa! Save me Jebus!

I don't even know where to start on this one. I can't wait to see what Christopher Hitchens has to say about this after his last rant about the caucuses. The whole system is so screwed up, it elevated that bible believing hick into front runner of the Republican party. This makes me sick.

I was trying to explain to my wife how much of a fundamentalist he was, which led me to google his thoughts on evolution. I found the following:




After the initial shock wore off and my wife went into all the usual intelligent reactions to an answer like that (how can he defy the foundation of all known science and biology for a hundred years... all for an old book???), I began to read the comments for the reactions.

ALL POSITIVE. Oh yeah, the United States has an evangelical born-again majority. See these results (found on Adventures in Frickentardistan), just one of many Gallup Polls that have indicated that most of our country is not only extremely Christian, but likely not educated in the bible or even literate. That's okay, Muhammad wasn't literate, but it did not stop him from translating the pure word of Allah! You go, eventual spiritual leader of millions!!

I guess I have always been able to tolerate the fact that a large number of the human population is basically stupid. This is not hard to believe... everything in nature follows the bell curve, including human intelligence. Half of are dumber than the other half. Now consider that the dumb half have been tapped into by the engineers of the evangelical movements. That is almost a freebie. There is more susceptibility for easy to understand and touchy-feely ideas. They want to believe with their heart, and not understand and accept that they may have evolved from slightly simpler, yet impressive and beautiful creatures in their own right. It is hard for a very informed person to truly understand the scope and magnitude of the theory of evolution, let alone the uninformed, under educated, and easily confused.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to stop there. Plenty of the average intelligent people (which is most of us) and very intelligent are afraid to give up the beliefs of their parents. Afraid to give up heaven, immortality, magic, devils, demons, ghosts, a history resembling the Flintstones, or what have you.



I call this one "Huckabee's Ancestor Gets Home from Work". Then Fred begot Elmer, Elmer Begot Steve, Steve Begot Joe, who forgot to Beget at first, then finally got around to Begetting and Begot Spray. Spray begot Susan, who was drown for being female... Oh shit!

I used to enjoy that I did not seem to think like many people. I currently enjoy that the people who claim atheism, agnosticism, skeptics, free-thinkers, and even Brights are a select bunch. No one comes and recruits us, but we come here on our own. We are the wise men and women seeking the light of sanity and progressive thinking. We gave up seeking the baby king of the Jews who would some day bodily return from Heaven and save whoever had the sentience and exposure to specifically believe that he would do just that. I know Christians have made efforts to explain how my innocent and pure 23 month old daughter won't go to hell with me, just because she doesn't have the mental capacity to "believe" in what they tell her to believe in.

If Jesus would have showed up in 1989, I would have been packing my bags for a one way ticket to silver clouds, golden harps, and cherubs floating about. Maybe, I was still pretty skeptical, but it was probably the most I ever honestly did believe in a personal god. A few years before that, I also thought a man with a white beard gave me a shitload of expensive and unnecessary toys because I was a good kid. Not because I was fortunate enough to be adopted by hard working middle class parents who wanted to give me as much as they could afford.

I am much more impressed that my parents worked so hard to provide what they could, rather than a magical system of material karma rewarding me with plastic toys and mindless video games. I am also more impressed by the mysteries of the cosmos and the sub-atomic realm than by a confusing book of who begot whom, which is the victim of 2000 years of reinterpretation for personal and political gain, poor translation between languages, and numerous sects of varying interpretation.

Maybe, just maybe... Huckabee will take the Republican nomination and we will see an uprising and uniting of the secular and progressive. Or, we will dive 4 more years into de-evolution. I just built a house in Ohio, but I'll seriously consider moving to Canada, Australia, somewhere to get away from that.

Moved In. Back at it. Happy New Year! Ron Paul Doesn't Believe in Evolution!

So yeah, I'm finally fucking moved in. 2 grueling and miserable weeks. My hands are split and chapped from the overdose of physical labor. It has been a few years since I've done much more than walk up the stairs to my office. I'm getting soft.

Not to dwell on that terrible subject, it is over and I am finally settling back in to the groove. I did my usual rounds to my frequent sites (like us bloggers like to do apparently, preach to the choir). Also as usual, it didn't take long to find inspiration for a post.

A good lifelong friend of mine has recently put a lot of support into Ron Paul, in philosophical terms for now as far as I know. I have been trying to pay more attention to him because I do think his points about our government spending are spot on. He and Kucinich are just snipers when it comes to calling out the "mainstream" candidates, and I love it.

However, Paul just lost major points in the science department. We need a lot of things in the new president. We need fiscal responsibility, a sensible foreign policy that is not driven by corporate interests only, and we need someone with a respect and knowledge of science. When Ron Paul declares his belief that "evolution is just a theory", he is speaking in Christian fundamentalese... which takes its usual ignorant and defiant tone towards science.

From there, it's not much of a leap to assume that he questions the validity of global warming. This of course carries heavy and serious consequences that we can not continue to ignore. I will have to do more digging into this, as I need to be more informed. Not to be a one issue guy, but I can not support another science idiot. Thanks to vjack and mojoey for spreading the news on this.

Nova's Great ID v Evolution Special

I have nothing more to say now other than how amazing last night's Nova was. Please click on the link, and please watch the show.

If you do not know what this is, it is the story of the trial in Dover, Pennsylvania a few years back when the Dover school board required students be told that evolution is "only a theory". The show does a beautiful job of telling a fair account of both sides (yes, BOTH sides), and really exposes the relentless efforts of creationists to put religion back in school.

The website is full of great links and even contains the entire court transcript for the trial. This is a very important documentary. It should be shown in schools. It needs a bigger audience than the already science savvy Nova crowd. Spread the word. Probably the best introduction to modern evolutionary theory and findings anyone could ask for.

Reactionary Rant...

What can we do, right now? How can I get people to realize the complications of the wars we are fighting? How can I get them to see that bombs and bullets don't solve what true diplomacy should be handling? We can not beat the religion, belief, culture, and history out of millions of people. I also do not know how to get people to stop denying global warming... and furthermore, science.


Why is it that I must defend SCIENCE? I understand someone choosing to defend religion takes on a monumental task. They must take a stand on a position that is neither provable nor deniable. To be fair, they have safety in numbers. I mean, thousands of Elvis fans can't be wrong... thousands that for years believed that he really could not possibly be dead. If a shitload of people believe in something, then people feel more comfortable in believing. Sorry, not going to reference any journal to support this. It doesn't matter.

So, I have to take a stand and say:

Global Warming is real and a probable result of human consumption of fossil fuels. Why? Because the overwhelming majority of SCIENTIFIC research tells me so.

Darwinian Evolution is a theory that strongly supports the idea that we humans have evolved over millions of years of random mutation and natural selection from simple origins of life. Why, because the overwhelming majority of SCIENTIFIC research tells me so.

Testable hypotheses. Repeatable processes. Multiple studies. Volumes of data. Oh, so you have all this for Noah's boat? No.... What about a virgin birth, a resurrection, walking on water. No.

I can come closer to proving time travel, than anyone can proving one single component to the teachings of the bible. Is it really just about the message? Then fine, get everyone together and agree to that. Just decide what the message is... the bible does not seem to be sure itself.


So, we are all going to die. What is it all about? Nothing in particular. We all seem to be wired relatively the same, so the same basic stuff makes most of us happy. Sometimes there are fundamental differences in what makes us happy, but we all need basics. Oxygen, food, water, human companionship, stimulation, sex, and so on up Maslow's Hierarchy.

This really does not have a direction. As usual, it is me rushing to get my thoughts out with limited time, limited energy, and limited patience. More excuses, more piled up stories for another day.

God of the Gaps

God's gap is getting increasingly smaller. Thanks to the advances of science and technology the domain of superstition, mysticism, and religious dogma has become much, much smaller. It is because of this that a person of average intelligence and curiosity for the world around them can so easily realize the truth. Let's try and look at it in a very simple way:

• I am typing on a computer, connected to a world wide network of computers.
• Computers are possible because of advances in science, technology, and overall enlightenment and education of the general public
• Science, through its proven and repeatable methods, have given us a range of theories
• Among these theories are the theory of relativity, string theory, the Big Bang theory, and evolution
• All of these theories are directly contradictory to many of the key theories put in place by religion and superstitions, which also attempt to explain the world, life, death, and the beginning of human existence.
  
• Christians and Muslims, who do not allow for the fact that their scriptures may not be totally true, are forced to condemn the findings of science.
• Those who do accept some of the science, but refuse to give up religion, are forced to dwell in the gaps.
  

With that, I present The Anointed-One's argument against atheism. Thanks to a poster on the Atheist Revolution website for pointing this out. This is a very well thought out attempt at marrying science and superstition. I give this credit for now, I have not had the time to really dig into the details. I will be interested to hear other's thoughts.