Anyone? Anyone?

This morning I was browsing some other blogs here on wordpress and came across a fellow blogger who was talking about Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled.  I have to admit that I have yet to view it myself, but I certainly intend to in the near future.  

Talking about Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed or even intelligent design is not the focus of this post however.  The target is the other blogger who’s post I had been reading.  I considered linking his blog, then decided that there is very little point.  Nothing that I have to say will convince him of the impossibilities or fallacy of his beliefs if he cannot see them on his own.  So I will simply place the name of his blog at the end of this post and allow anyone the option of reading his post without the resulting flame war that might result from my deliberate attack on his blog.  

Said Blogger’s main argument was with an interview of Richard Dawkins during the documentary.  I understand why a doctrinal follower of Jesus Christ would take issue with someone who openly stands against everything that you believe in.  That fact does not mean that you should take things that he says entirely out of context.  One thing in particular that really bothered both the blogger was that Dawkins apparently stated that he believes that this planet was “seeded” by an intelligent alien civilization.  I put the word in bold the word intelligent because he did as well, obviously to allude that Dawkins was actually saying that he believes in “Intelligent Design” which is certainly not true and is a blatant attempt to take Dawkins out of context.

He then went on to say that believing that aliens seeded the earth took much more faith then believing in God “It takes a lot more faith to believe that than it does to believe Genesis 1:1.”  My question is why do you think that?  Do you think that because some trustworthy robe wearing people in goofy hats along with your parents didn’t tell you from birth that aliens created life instead of God?  How is it that Jesus Christ or God being responsible for all life with their magical powers is any less imbecilic then a bunch of aliens dropping DNA all over the place?  Explain this to me because I want to know exactly why it takes more faith to grasp one silly explanation for the complexities of the world then another.  Anyone with some semblance of ability to think clearly needs only take a look back in time and trace various civilizations rising and falling, each with their own views on god.  How can anyone look at that, sit back, then say “Man we really struck the nail on the head with Christianity.” Can you not see the illogical line of thinking that comes along with this?  Your belief is no different from the Cargo Cults of Vanautu, or the polytheistic view of ancient Greece.

He then claims that Dawkins is a fool and cites Psalm 14:1 and 53:1 as his reasons for declaring him such.  I can proclaim that someone is foolish and then cite unrelated antiquated reasons as well.  

You sir Blogger are a fool.  “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” – Ben Franklin

What did I prove by quoting Ben Franklin?  The same nothing that citing two psalms that have the word fool in them did.

The main point that he wants to make is not that Dawkins is a fool, though it is hard to figure that out since he certainly went on a nice tangent about it.  This man wants their to be alternatives taught in schools aside from evolution.  I’m fine with this as well, so long as the alternative being taught isn’t so obviously erroneous.  He attempts to cite an example of refusing to teach intelligent design is like.  The example is.  

“It’s as if you can come up with any answer you want regarding the origin of man and the universe, except one (that God had anything to do with it). That’s like a police department investigating a murder and being told by the District Attorney, “Arrest the person the evidence points to, except not if it’s the Sheriff’s son.” Ridiculous!”

No That would be insinuating two very different things.  One being that there is any evidence at all for he existence of god.  (Show me any aside from bibles and faith.  And nothing about how many people believe it, so it must be true.  We used to burn lepers clothing and send them away to islands because we thought leprosy was highly contagious.) Two, your example should actually be stated more along the lines of this.  “This man has a dubious track record of violence, his references are over 2000 years old, he has multiple offenses of blatant sexism, and consistently contradicts himself.”  “However, many people like him so we are OK with this man becoming mayor.”

It is people like this, who feel as though they have closed their mind to any possibility aside from ones that are found deep within an ancient book littered with self contradicting stories about the creation of this planet, think that other people should conform to their close minded view on what has so obviously not created the universe, that makes me ill.

Coram Deo – Name of the blog in case anyone wants to search him out.

Altruism and Dimes

I experienced an interesting parallel today while reading The Selfish Gene before my history class.  I had only just opened the book and was reading then introduction about the lack of true altruistic species when I was approached by a female student who asked me to watch her bag while she went to the bathroom.  This was the second time that we have spoken.  The first time she had asked me for a dime to replace the one that the vending machine had stolen from her.  

I found myself laughing inside at how much of an example of selfish altruism I was displaying by watching this girls bag, just as I had done a few days prior by offering her a dime.  While I would like to think that I gave her a dime purely be cause it was a “nice” thing to do, subconsciously I suppose and am almost certain that I had other motives driven by both social and genetic reasons.  By giving her a “dime” when she needed one I have opened the door for future “dimes” to be bestowed upon me when the time comes that I am out of “dimes”.  I speak of “dimes” with quotation marks because while it serves fine as an example, “dimes” are not the only thing that I could get back out of my one seemingly selfless act.   Perhaps I might need a quarter at some point in the future.  Maybe I could find myself without a pencil and for whatever reason desperately need one then.  Delving further, I could in theory use this situation to begin striking up conversation with her.  Conversation opens the door to flirtation, which opens the door to possible sexual reproduction.  Regardless of what I may need in the future I could turn to the recipient of my altruism and expect it to be returned in kind.  I expect it to be returned because of the simple fact that if it is not, the recipient would be cutting themselves off from future acts of kindness.  

I understand that the last part of that paragraph might make me appear as a lonely blogger trying to gather up courage to talk to a girl.  (I assure you this is not the case) I merely wanted to express my belief that in almost all cases acts of selflessness are just selfish acts in disguise.  I furthered a type of trust with someone who in the future I can now hopefully rely on when I need someone minor.  Therefore by acting altruistically now I may have hurt myself ever slightly (I’m out a dime), however, I only did so to selfishly set up a future situation in which I will benefit.

Hypnopædia

 æ  That letter shows up quite often in “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley.  So often you’d think that this author speaks Greek every chance he can get.  ç shows up as well, and I’m sure as I get further into this book even more fun letters will be coming out of the wood work.  

Never being fully sure if I am pronouncing certain words aside, I’m very pleased so far with this book, it details a dark future based completely on rigid caste systems that are decided at birth and forced upon helpless fetuses by controlling the substances and oxygen levels granted to developing test tube babies.  Hatcheries are responsible for making babies smarter or dumber to fit certain caste requirements.  Most of these genetic offspring come from a single egg in a process called the “Bokanovsky’s Process” in which a single egg is divided up to 96 times creating a large set of identical twins who are then all forced into the same job.  

“Brave New World” is just another anti-utopian totalitarian book that I am to soon am to have under my belt.  The past month allowed me time (time I have regrettably spent away from writing, though I feel much more refreshed and alert mentally after drowning myself in so many books) to read some very good classic negative utopian books, such as “1984” and “Animal Farm” and once I finish this current book I shall be moving right on to “Fahrenheit 451” which I haven’t read since high school.  

I’m not sure what has captivated me with the obsession to read about such dysfunctional societies, though my personal view that the United States is slowly starting to mimic Oceania in terms of telling us what to think and what to care about instead of allowing us to come to our own conclusions.  They make it a point to force a two party system on us, and televise debates between the two candidates to aid us in making our choice as to who is going to be the next president.  Of course the debates never include candidates from any other party aside from Republican or Democrat, thusly elimanating virtually all chance of the presidential nominee of the Libertarian, Green, or Constitution party from ever being elected.  

Why are these parties barred from such debates?  If we truly lived in a democratic society then no single person should be barred from an event, people like Ron Paul shouldn’t be censored from Fox news because the party might now agree with the message he is pushing.  The election is presented as an event where the people shall decide who shall lead them.  Unfortunately Ron Paul stood no chance against McCain since there was a concerted effort to keep him off television until recent times.  He has been on quite a high profile talk shows now that he stands no chance of being voted the presidential candidate of the Republican party.    

I work in a highly political real estate office, where people love to spend hours debating about liberal or conservative views, Republican or Democrat everywhere I look.  Hell most of these people are ignorant to the fact that more then two people even run for president thanks to our media blackout on every third party candidate and local states refusal to place them on Ballots.  I’m looking at you New Jersey.  For anger’s sake I’m going to list the three major third parties presidential candidates for everyone.

Libertarian Party – Bob Barr

Green Party – Cynthia McKinney

Constitution Party – Chuck Baldwin

I don’t claim to know the policies of any other these people aside from Bob Barr, (since I’m Libertarian I better know what he is about or else make a nice ass myself) but I have the decency to know that they exist and take issue that these candidates are treated more then unfairly with ballot access.  How can a state simply decide that someone isn’t allowed to run for president from a legitimate political party?  While I am sure that there is some red tape reason that prohibits them from being on the ballot, what is the harm?  Every single person running for president deserves his or her best chance at being elected.  As far as I am concerned it should be illegal to withhold any person from a legitimate political party who has other elected officials working for our government from running for president.  Anything aside from a truly open ballot allowing all candidates a chance to be voted for president, or at least allow people to know they exist while at the ballot booth simply isn’t democracy.  Then again we live in a Republic, so I guess I shouldn’t complain much right?  

Before I go I should define the word I used in the title of this entry, Hypnopædia means sleep learning, and in the novel “Brave New World” they use it to imprint certain morals on the various castes of society, such as the impulse to throw out something old and buy something new, spend money on leisure at every opportunity, and that every class below yours is simply horrible and you shouldn’t speak to them.  I don’t even have to stretch it to find a comparison to modern society.  

Put down that beer and pick up that rifle!

Why 21?  Really is there anyone that honestly thinks that people are any more mature at 21 then they are at say another randomly decided benchmark like 18?  Even if there are some people that this might hold true for I can assure you that most people drank anyway, so what is really the point of a law that does little aside from turn normal adults into criminals?  

The drinking age was raised to 21 so that in theory people would be older, wiser, and most importantly more responsible when it came time to down a whiskey sour.  What I want to know is, if someone truly follows the law and never takes a taste of booze until that magical 21st birthday, how can they possible handle the situation better then had they done it at 18?  We are assuming here that this person has never drank in his life, therefore it is safe to assume that even if our imaginary friend has read countless articles on liquor and asked every single drinker in their family, they have zero idea what it does to them.  The first time having an experience with any mind altering substance will always be dangerous regardless of the age in which they start.  

With the age being set at 21 we have set up situations in which the first time drinking happens (in theory of course we all know better) when you are old enough to be living somewhere that is not with parents, so the support group for ensuring that one drinks responsibly are left somewhere between college party mates and friends, who are more then likely far more interested in having fun then watching out for you ensuring that you do not drink yourself into a stupor or get so drunk you start to make foolish dangerous decisions. 

Of course it isn’t just that I feel that it is more dangerous to not drink at home around people who are biologically compelled to look out for you, but what really gets me furious is that our government considers us old enough to be drafted into war but not responsible enough to drink a beer.  I find it difficult to think of a more insulting law that they could pass.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I really don’t like the idea of someone that is so irresponsible that they cannot drink a beer without harming himself and others holding a gun.   Would you want Private I Cannot Handle My Beer covering you in a firefight?  Or would you prefer Lance Corporeal Hey Turns Out I’m Responsible laying down the suppression fire?

When you treat people as if they are brainless idiots then why should they bother to act in any other way?  The sad part about this, is that the law accomplishes very little aside from annoying responsible people with bad luck.  Irresponsible people who would drink themselves into an intoxicated stupor when they are 18-20 and then drive around like Duke’s of Fucking Hazard will do so at 21 if they haven’t managed to kill themselves already.  They do this because irresponsible people have no respect for anything or anyone, including drinking age laws.  There will always be people that cannot handle the awesome responsibility to act like a responsible adult and we should set up our laws and punishments to punish them, not the people that are perfectly capable of acting like an adult.  

The punishment for driving drunk should be something akin to never being allowed to drive AGAIN.  Once proven that you cannot act responsible enough to handle both the right to drink and the right to drive that should be it.  Furthermore the punishment should be enacted quickly.  For example, a friend of mine just lost his license a month ago for a DUI he received over a year ago.  Despite knowing that my friend has in fact learned his lesson and stopped doing such foolish things, it does change my stance at all.  He should be punished, and punished in a far more effiecent manner.  What if my friend was one of those careless drunks that just wants to drive about with no care to the harm they put others in?  An entire year was allowed to pass in which he could have killed someone in a drunk driving accident.  I find that unacceptable.  

I’m digressing from my point.  I find that few people tend to agree with some of my more outlandish society ideals such as zero gun control, legalizing every drug, and lowering the age to drink, however in this case it seems some prominent schools are actually agreeing with me for once.  

The article explains in far more detail then I am going to go into but the short end of it is that 100 or so colleges have started rallying against the government to lower the drinking age back down to 18 to combat binge drinking on campus.  As it turns out, students that get to campus are drinking way to much without any supervision.  It is my opinion that learning to deal with how alcohol effects you should be done at home, with your parents there to make sure you are OK.

The article has someone that accuses the schools of looking for an easy way out of a greater problem.  Shouldn’t we be looking for easy answers always?  Who the hell wants a difficult one?  Besides the schools have a valid point, we assume that by 21 the students will be responsible enough to not drink themselves to death, but if they have yet to drink then how could they ever reach that level of responsibility with something they have never used?  Are 21 year old people better and more responsible with everything?  Are they by rule of age capable of using band saws in a safer way then an 18 year old would?  No!  They aren’t, the age of a person does not magically confer some sort of responsibility when handling anything.  Further more, students drink anyway, they can easily acquire booze from any 21 year old student, and by keeping it illegal we only make people want to do it more often, and because of the very nature of illegal activities, do so in dangerous ways where help cannot easily be found, especially if there is any fear that one will be in even more trouble after the fact for involving themselves in the activity in the first place.  In short, making anything illegal makes it more dangerous they it ever need to be.

 I have already decided that I’m going to get my children drunk, so that they wake up with an awful hangover and hopefully understand that drinking large amounts of any liquor has some pretty shitty consequences.  Hell, my dad gave me beer when I was eight years old, it was never taboo in my house, and now that I’m much older, I don’t drink a drop of beer, it tastes awful.  My point is that since it was never taboo for me, I never felt a need to go binge drink with friends, cause there wasn’t any mysticism attached to it.  I was allowed to have a drink at home when I wanted to, so I never had to go sneak out and engage in theft to get liquor to go drink it somewhere that might be dangerous.  People are going to do what they want to do, silly laws like the drinking age just makes innocent people criminals.  

Our laws should be based off what people will do, instead of what people should do.  Should is a relative term that is different to every single person on earth.  For example, I think we should get past all this religion stuff so that we can have one less thing to breed hate in our world.  Other people think I should go to church.  Japan has a law that states that video games cannot be released on a weekday.  Because kids will cut school to go buy it, and instead of trying to fight that social norm of their society, they just altered the rules to accommodate it.  As far as I am concerned if we are going to set an age for adulthood, then with that age should come all rights and privileges associated with it.  People will drive drunk, that is certain, but lets simply punish those people, not punish the 18 year old adults that have yet to do anything wrong and for all anyone knows might never do a damn thing wrong when it comes to drinking.

Late WBC update

It seems that despite managing to get some of their members across the border to protest the funeral of Tim Mclean, the Westboro Church decided to call it off due to fears of getting arrested.  

While I am glad that Canada decided to stand up for the personal feelings of it’s innocent citizens (it helped that in upwards of 600 people had showed up to personally form a wall around the Westboro Church members to keep them from ruining the funeral with their messages of hate) this just shows to me that this group of people are not as devoted to their version of God as they would like us all to think.

The same people that rant and rave that God himself killed Mclean because Canada is a “Fag nation” were actually afraid that God would allow the only family on earth that worships him properly to be arrested.  If God flew planes into the world trade center, decapitated a man, crippled soldiers, sent an arsonist to burn their church, (were getting silly here WBC) convinced Heath Ledger to overdose, and killed George Carlin of natural causes, then I’m sure as hell that he can handle a few police officers and some Canadian citizens.  

However, the WBC allowed their faith to fail them, and decided to call it quits instead of spend a night in or two in a jail cell.  Now if only America would take some sort of steps to keep this hateful lunatics from ruining peaceful demonstrations of loss.  I’m the first person to stand up for freedom of speech, I state my mind regardless of what anybody else thinks.  But I see no reason to go out of my way just to upset someone.  I don’t show up to Christian funerals with signs that read “I hate god” or “God isn’t real” and if I did, I would expect someone to ask me to get the hell out.  

People have the right to their opinions, but nothing the WBC says or protests have any constructive purpose, they hate gay people, we get it, now grow up and stop caring so much about something that in no way effects you.

Turns out Canada isn’t gonna put up with you

With the recent antics of the Westboro Baptist church quickly becoming numerous I have decided to create a category in this blog just for them.  While I’m sure they will perverse this act (if they ever even read a thing I write.) and thank God for the devilish blogger that details his thoughts and murmurings about the fanatical hate group, I’m really adding the category just to make finding posts about these jackasses all the easier. 

The Church decided that it was going to protest the funeral of Tim McLean who was brutally murdered and decapitated on board a Greyhound bus in Canada.  Never being the type of group to keep secret about where they are going to be protesting next, news spread to concerned citizens of Canada who through the use of facebook groups, organized with the government an effort to prevent the church members from entering the country.

Shirley Phelps-Roper was pleased that she was prevented from crossing the border into the “fag” country, (something she and her family has said on numerous occasions about America as well) and simply stated that she has other members of the church crossing the border at other locations and she fully intends to be there to protest this man’s funeral.  

Phelps-Roper has repeated stated that this beheading was a “Gift from god.” given to us to show his anger with the way Canadians have allowed homosexuals to live in their country.  I almost want to think that this has to be some sort of joke.  She expects me to believe that God the Almighty, has so little to do with his Omnipotent self that he slew a single person who despite what Phelps-Roper said about him (despite never meeting him or having anything to go on other then her insane beliefs in a tyrannical insane God that smites everyone and everything for little to no reason) was a perfectly good person who did nothing to deserve such a vicious attack.  They would also have you believe that God caused 9/11, the earthquake in China, various mudslides, and was personally responsible for every lost life in the war in Iraq.  

 

This person is in fact an asshole

 

He isn't with social services why?

 

These photos were taken from the Westboro Baptist Church and are being used with permission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At least in Canada they have expressed to this bigots that their behaviour is unacceptable, deconstructive, and ludicrous.  It is bad enough that Tim McLean’s family has to deal with his loss without a group of lunatics screaming thanks to towards the heavens for this poor mans death.  Unfortunately here in America, freedom of religion allows these people to practice their hateful beliefs free of reprisal for the most part.  The only backlash they get is negative reception in the media, which only serves to fuel their convictions to continue to hate.  If only we didn’t lay back and accept that all religious beliefs are acceptable and should be given free reign to be expressed regardless of if their intentions are positive or not.  

For example, I wouldn’t be allowed to walk about holding signs wishing death on homosexuals just for the hell of it.  That would be a hate crime.  However, if I said that I hated homosexuals because God said I have to, then it’s perfectly fine and nobody will stop me from spreading my hate about like some spraying cat.  It’s stupid that we allow this as a society.  I’m tired of people using God as some super shield to protect them from the backlash they deserve for being hateful human beings.  If you want to show up to soldiers funerals and hold signs similar to this.  

I hate you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then expect some, if not all of the fallen soldiers friends and family to take offense, but don’t expect any law to come to your aid when they decide to bring their thoughts on the death of their loved one to your face with their fists.  These people are not bringing a message about religion or love or even peace.  In short, when you really read one of their signs about dead soldiers, it does not read “thank God for dead soldiers” it says, “Haha your son is dead”  

And that is just wrong.  Someone please burn these people with napalm.

Westboro Baptist Fire

The Westboro baptist church has sprung up again in the news, but not for picketing anyone’s funeral this time. A Fire broke out on a fence nearby the church and spread to the garage.

A spoke person for the Church Shirley Phelps-Roper stated that the fire was most likely set by an arsonist.  I however would like to guess that it might be possible that God started the fire because I think it is possible that instead of hating Fags, God instead hates belligerent hate mongers that make whatever God normal God fearing people believe in look absolutely bat shit insane.  

However, that more then likely did not happen.  Someone lit a fire hoping to burn that place down, the church of course responded with videos and statements like “Thank god for the arsonist, you’ve made us so happy!”  Though I can’t imagine them being too happy for too long if God or someone else continued to set their precious church aflame.

Post Rock

I know I didn’t mention post rock as something I would be posting about with this blog, and in fact, I’ll just go ahead and say that this post goes against the intent of this blog, but whatever, so long as I keep them few and far between right?  

Tuesday night I attended a show at the M-Room in Philadelphia PA, which was featuring Yndi Halda and two other bands I had never heard of.  Yndi Halda was amazing, as anyone who has ever heard of them could expect them to be, however it was the opening band that really surprised me with how much I enjoyed them.

Cloud Minder, which from what I gathered was a local Philadelphia band, was just plain good.  They did everything I expect from a band of this genre, which is basically rise and fall multiple times over the course of a song, do that and I’m happy, but again, their music was good, I enjoyed all three of the songs they played which is much more then I can say about the second band Now soon Nowhere who had me wanting to kill myself during the 6 or 7 songs they played, the only reason I didn’t walk out is because I was going to sit through them and see Yndi Halda come hell or high water.  

I find it to be a terrible shame that Post-Rock music simply cannot catch on here in America the way it can thrive anywhere else.  Even bands that have notoriety like Godspeedyou!  Black Emperor or Sigur Ros pull blank stares from people more often then not.  Yndi Halda has gained a considerable following over in England and despite only having one album out is already internationally touring.  The M-Room show was their first show in America, and at best maybe 30 people were watching them at any given time.  Perhaps it is because their music along with mostly all other post-rock isn’t delivered in the classic Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus.  I’m not saying that I don’t like songs that are song in this fashion, far from it i fact, but anything that isn’t song in this fashion (Pink Floyd aside) rarely gets on the radio over here, because it is just too different from what we have been fed over the radio to catch on with most people.  

More people should listen to experimental independent music, they are missing out on a world of emotion and idea’s all conveyed in 17 minute+ songs that rise and fall beautifully…. so long as the band is any good that is. 

And Cloud Minder is.

Step one: Inspect Underpants….

A man was arrested a few days back after claiming to be an “Underwear researcher” and offering families 20 dollars to inspect their young children wearing various brands of underwear.  He would instruct the children to try on various pairs, and run his fingers along the waistband to “check the labels” while he took notes about what he seen.  

Now unless the notes read “God these are some terrible parents to sell their young children out to an obvious sexual predator for 20 dollars” there is nothing about this situation that is even remotely normal.  No underwear company would send a single creepy man out to stare at scantily clad children while they try out various brands of underwear that while it was never made apparent were most likely not even manufactured by the same company and wouldn’t be sending a single representative collect a detailed “feel” from little kids.  

This man managed to convince three families that this was a perfectly legitimate situation before getting himself arrested.  That is six adults that we can assume went to school in our American education system, that didn’t think twice about allowing someone to hang out with their 8 year old children alone in bedrooms while they stare at them in their undergarments.  

That is six adults too many in my opinion.  How can anyone in a country such as this be dumb enough to allow an “Underwear inspector” into their home?  It’s as bad as handing over your wallet to the Wallet Inspector, are we incapable of thinking for ourselves anymore?  Has our country dulled our brains to the point that we accept anything a man in a suit has to say simply because he looks the part?  Are we so afraid of turbans that we forget that the majority of the harmful people we will encounter in our lives will be American?  The news doesn’t remind us of hidden dangers that doesn’t advance their political agenda, only vaugue terrible threats that most likely will never occur.  As my friend and fellow blogger has pointed out, we have never been lower then Yellow on the Homeland Security Advisory System, yet we have not been attacked by a group of forgien terrorists since 9/11.  Significant threat of terrorist attack my ass.

The media has turned this country into a flock of helpless sheep, incapable of drudging up an opinion of their own about anything more important then the latest hollywood teen turned parent.  Hence I don’t watch the news, I don’t care about which tomato made someone in Oklahoma sick, and I don’t care about any other media scare.  I’ll watch the news when they aren’t trying to pointlessly scare me, and they have something worthwhile to say.

Recent lack of posts

Some recent personal family upheavals came up last week which demanded most of my attention, so I never managed to get around to posting anything on this blog lately, which I assure anyone who cares, will be corrected soon.  I love WordPress, and I love that people other then two personal friends read this and comment on my thoughts and ideals.  So to anyone that cares, I certainly do not plan on quitting updating this blog.