Halloween and Wil Wheaton

Crazy Halloween Article
Most blogs that I read have covered this so I won't say much. Its batshit crazy. If your sane and read it, you will understand why I don't really need to say anything about it than "batshit crazy".

Wil Wheaton is awesome. Read his book Just a Geek and its great. You don't have to be a geek to understand it, though it obviously has some things that will make no sense unless you are, however its an interesting look into someone who struggled with his acting success early in his career and lack of acting success later (though he has had a recent thing on The Guild and on Big Bang Theory which is awesome in both cases).

Lastly, I'm a bit depressed that I was at my parents house in Menifee during Halloween night and we had like literally 8 kids. No, I did not typo that. 8 fucking kids. I remember when I was a kid there was a huge amount, like 50 or maybe even more. We would sometimes go all out, set our porch (or one year our garage as a scary little maze and then you would get the candy) and do some cool stuff. Even when I was a teenager and didn't really go out myself, I would still stay at home and scare kids and it was fun. Hard to do that or even imagine that when you, in the same neighborhood 15 years later and its down to 8 kids. Its sad, and I wish I knew whats up with that as it does seem in recent years that it has gone down in kids more and more. However, it could be more people read the first article I posted and buy that crazy. Could be the economy though I think thats not it as its been many years that it gets less and less. Just sad as I used to get into Halloween and its kinda lame (though I did go to a wedding the night before that a lot of people were dressed up in costume so that was cool and it was an awesome though perhaps unusual wedding :p)

Bill Maher and a few other things

Im making this separate cause I think its important. Bill Maher received the Richard Dawkins award. Im not going to really comment too much on this as its already been beaten to death by others on the internet (use the Google if you are curious about the details).

Quick summary: Maher got an award that in theory is meant for promoting science, mainly for his movie Religulous (funny movie but not really promoting science so much as making fun of religion). However, Maher is anti medicine (or at least western medicine as he calls it) and is generally especially against vaccines.

I as many had issues with this, and at least Dawkins helped by saying he doesn't agree with all of Mahers stuff but for his work on Religulous and other things associated he is still happy to give him the award. Fine, I don't really have a huge issue.

My big thing is the last two weeks Maher has brought this up on his last two shows. First he talked to Bill Frist about it, and Frist basically called him out and told him he was crazy. Last night he came up with another thing with his panel to clear up recent comments about his craziness that hes not a germ theory denier (which I would say hes not, but he down plays it far less than what is reality) and also he understands how inoculation works but thinks that all the stuff they put in vaccines is bad so vaccines are bad.

Im sorry, he is wrong. He brings up the fact that some equate his talking out about vaccines the same as denying evolution, and I think it is. He does not want to talk about it. He wants to tell people that they are idiots for getting the flu vaccine for example. He has already made up his mind. Obviously he has not seen the studies that show there is no link between the stuff they put in vaccines (or the actual vaccine itself) and any other major health issue. And the risks associated with the vaccine far outweigh the issues of not getting it.

Now, this is coming from someone who has never (or at least not that im aware of) gotten the flu vaccine. However this is not because that I think they are dangerous, its just that I rarely seem to get sick (though the last couple of years has been an exception). I also generally do not go out looking to get a shot, as needles generally are not something I like. However, I did recently go to the doctors (a few months ago on this trip) and was informed that "Hey you haven't had your tetanus and all the other stuff that your supposed to get every 10 years or so" so they gave it to me. I barely felt the needle.

So, im thinking of going to get the flu vaccine, mainly cause I hate getting sick. Anyways, im done.

Also, one last thing. Work has been killing me. Thats all im going to say as anything more, this will get much longer and ill get more pissed.

Update on things

Haven't posted for a couple of weeks so its probably time. I went to the Atheist Alliance International conference in Burbank, CA. First of all I had a lot of fun. I got to meet and in some cases talk to several people that I admire including Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, PZ Myers, Brian Dalton and some of the others from the cast of Mr. Deity just to name the top ones. Also got to see William B. Davis who was the Cigarette Smoking Man from The X-Files. He gave an interesting talk about his non belief as well as some stuff from the X-Files, how he got the job and his refutation (though this wasn't as long as I though it would be) of Dawkins' criticism of the X-Files at promoting pseudoscience. Bill Maher also gave a decent talk, but more on him later.

Some of the other good speakers were Lawrence Krauss who gave a talk about how we know certain things about the universe (such as that its flat as far as its geometry (vs a sphere or an open universe), Mr. Deity doing some episodes live with the cast as well as his Mormon upbrinings, Carolyn Porco who does research about Saturn (and consulted for the movie Contact, and is also at least to a small extent the basis on Jodie Fosters character), as well as the big names I mentioned above. All the talks were good and I would like to go again. Sadly next year they are doing it in Montreal and the only reason I semi rationlized going this year was the fact that travel expenses were pretty low on account of not having to fly anywhere. Even beyond that issue it still cost me about a total of $700, as did The Amazing Meeting earlier this year, so I have already spent enough money on conferences for a while.

My only criticism is the food wasn't all that great (they provided the food through most of Saturday). On a side note, during dinner I was sitting next to a girl who was nice and friendly. She was also the only one at the table that ordered the vegan thing (you only got three choices at dinner; fish, chicken or some vegan dish). Now, I know there are generally two types of vegans. Ones who decide to be vegan for health reasons (though in general we are omnivores so I'm not convinced that pure veganism is healthy, but thats just me) and ones for ethical reasons. Only reason I bring this up is she was eating the food and apparently there was some cheese in it (which according to the original list of food, was not supposed to have cheese). Now whether it did or not (I'm honestly not sure how she could really tell as it was very little cheese if there was any) so she flipped out and decided to inform one of the waiters of this issue. She also didn't eat any of the bread as she was unsure if it had any egg product in it. She then flagged down another waiter and gave her food back asking for a vegan dish. So they gave her from the restaurant there spaghetti (which on a personal note pissed me off to a certain extent as I would have much rather taken that than the chicken I had). She then ate one bite and stopped (I'm not sure why). Still, a waste of time and effort and I'm not quite sure why.

Ill make a separate post about Maher and some other issues I had with the conference.

Long time...

Yes, its been a long time since I posted something. Not really sure why. Been busy but not really that busy. Not much new going on long term.

The only new things are a conference (assuming I don't keel over from yet another infection I have before the end of next week) im going to and my reading Richard Dawkins new book "The Greatest Show on Earth". Ill talk more about the AAI conference after I got (again, assuming I haven't died by then or am unable to go, which is a slight annoyance cause it would be the second conference that I might not get as much enjoyment out of it had I been completely healthy).

The book lays out evidence for evolution. Most of his other books, as he confesses, in general assume you accept evolution and then from that point, follow his book on either how it comes about (Mount Improbable) or how genes propogate (and memes, a word Dawkins coined though most do not know where the name comes from, The Selfish Gene). Im not going to recap the book, as I recommend everyone read it. I am unsure (as I have not read that many books on evolution outside of school, and my High School I don't recall them really even mentioning evolution hardly at all) as to how good the book is compared to others, but it was a good book. Ill lay out the issues I have with the book first, as they are shorter.

First, there are points (and he even in one chapter admits that if its late at night, you might want to wait to read a section) that are somewhat dry and get very much into the science of it. While I like to see some of this, it can be hard to follow and I think might turn some people off (as this section is in the first half of the book). However, it was worth sticking it out and its not too bad.

The other is, and he generally admits this so its not a problem in the book as it is the problem that people are stupid, the ones that need to be smacked for being stupid are not going to pay attention to the evidence he lays out in the book. He dedicates an appendix to what he terms as history-deniers which I think is an apt description, especially after reading the book. 40% of the US believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old and that obviously, evolution is not fact. He labels those the history deniers. Out of I think 33 countries, Turkey is the only one worse than the US. Most of Europe, especially Iceland and Denmark areas are at the top of the list. Don't really have a point here other than that just floors me (as it does Dawkins, who relents that hes "pathetically consoled" by the fact that 19% of Britain think that the earth orbits the sun once a day rather than year.)

They are minor issues and don't cause any issues with someone with a brain that thinks for itself. Again, not wanting to spend a huge amount of time I won't recap everything however there were a couple of interesting things. One, Cheetahs are awesome. I knew they were fast but never really knew how fast or how fast they could get going. Cheetahs have been clocked as high as 70 mph though more typically around 60mph. Even more incredible is they can get that speed in around 3 seconds, which makes them on par of acceleration with a porsche. Two, theres a flower that has evolved in such a way that when a small bee that needs the nectar type stuff for a scent that it uses (its more complicated than that, but work with me for brevity) it finds itself trapped by the flower with only one way to get out. That way causes it to hold the bee while it deposits the pollen on it as well as knocking off any pollen it already had off. Then it lets the bee go on its way. Similar, theres a specific type of flower that in order for something to get its nectar, it has to have an unusually long tongue. A specific moth has that tongue, therefore allowing that flower to target the thing that bests gets its nectar from to go to the same type of flower. The third (last but only cause this is getting to long as most of my posts do) a flightless bird called a Kakapo in New Zealand has no wings. Apparently Douglas Adams (a friend of Dawkins when he was alive) commented once that "Sadly not only has the kakapo forgotten how to fly, but it has forgotten that it has forgotten how to fly. Apparenly a seriously worried kakapo will sometimes run up a tree and jump out of it, whereupon it flies like a brick and lands in a graceless heap on the ground". While that sucks, that cracks me up and reminds me of the Kiwi which will always remind me of this video I saw long ago http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs.

Point is, go get the book. And ill try to post more often.

Why do we suffer?

My first post on this little series will be "Why do we suffer?" The What does the Bible really Teach book has this to say about it.

"Do you know why people make the mistake of blaming God for all the suffering in the world? In many cases, they blame Almighty God because they think that he is the real ruler of this world. They do not know a simple but important truth that the Bible teaches. You learned that truth in Chapter 3 of this book. The real ruler of this world is Satan the Devil.

The Bible clearly states: "The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one." (1 John 5:19) When you think about it, does that not make sense? This world reflects the personality of the invisible spirit creature who is "misleading the entire inhabited earth." (Revelation 12:9) Satan is hateful, deceptive, and cruel. So the world under his influence, is full of hatred, deceit, and cruelty. That is one reason why there is so much suffering.

A second reason why there is so much suffering is that, as discussed in Chapter 3, mankind has been imperfect and sinful ever since the rebellion in the garden of Eden. Sinful humans tend to struggle for dominance, and this results in wars, oppression, and suffering. (Ecclesiastes 4:1; 8:9) A third reason for suffering is "time and unforeseen occurrence." (Ecclesiastes 9:11) In a world without Jehovah as a protective Ruler, people may suffer because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Now, as Chapter 3 is referenced in this bit, I suppose it fair to say something about Chapter 3. The two parts that are referenced is the second reference that Satan (ie the serpent, who apparently was Satan) tempted Eve. This is a semi common interpretation of the serpent, so not a surprise. However, the first part refers to Satan as being the real ruler of this world. In Chapter 3 of the book, paragraph 5 it says

"Since all of Jehovah's creations are perfect, however, who made this "Devil", this "Satan"? Put simply, one of the powerful spirit sons of God turned himself into the Devil. How was this possible? Well, today a person who was once decent and honest may become a thief."

Interesting as I didn't know that God had spirit sons. I certainly didn't know that one of them turned into Satan. Not sure if this is only an interpretation that the JW's hold or of some others denominations of Christianity hold to this as well.

Now, and I suspect most of these questions and answers will have this same flaw, but this section seems to be purely based on the Bible. If the Bible did not exist, there would be no reason to hold to any of this. So, in order to basically believe in this, you must accept that the BIble is correct and true.

Now, it gives three reasons why we may suffer. First, Satan done it. Satan tempts humanity to do hateful things. He rules this world so to speak. However, the way it explains this is that Satan is full of hate, deceit, and is cruel and thats why theres so much of those three things in the world. And while it may be true that there is a decent amount of hate, cruelty and deceit I would say theres an equal or perhaps moreso of love, generosity and truthfulness to combat that. Does that prove Satan does not exist? Perhaps not, but it does prove that even if he did exist, hes not the only force (and therefore not the only ruler if there were one).

THe second reason is that ever since Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden of Eden, humans tend to struggle for dominance which causes wars and oppression. Now, while I reject the premise that this has to do with Adam and Eve (as again, only real evidence of the Adam and Eve story is the Bible) I don't completely disregard this. Humans do tend to (at least as current and past events have seen) have power struggles, which lead to wars and oppression. However, I would argue two things on this. One, that could in fact be human nature. Two, religion tends to be the root at much of this. However, its hard to tell that if there wasn't a religion aspect (such as the crusades, however they were fighting for the HOly Land, which if there was nothing that said it was Holy, its hard to imagine why they would be fighting over it) that other things would be caused.

The third I think is the most telling aspect of this question. The book, states (and either im crazy and misreading this or there is a tiny aspect that they admit they could be wrong) that "A third reason for suffering is "time and unforeseen occurrence." (Ecclesiastes 9:11) In a world without Jehovah as a protective Ruler, people may suffer because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." Ecclesiastes 9:11 can be looked up http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%209:11&version=31

This third reason why there may be suffering seems to state that in a world without God as a protective ruler, people may suffer because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now to me, this happens to actually be the case. Good people sometimes have bad things happen to them and on the flip side bad people have good things happen to them. And sometimes, and perhaps most times, good people have good things happen to them and bad people have bad things happen to them. From an objective outside observer, it seems to be random chance in some cases or modified that if you are good, people will be good to you and if your an ass (bad) they will be bad to you. So this third reason seems to be the most likely reason why there is suffering, as reason 1 requires assuming a lot (bible = true, Satan = true and that Satan rules the world). Occam's razor in general would pick reason 3 over 1 as reason 3 assumes far less. Reason 2 can be read either its Adam and Eve's fault or human nature tends to lean towards power grabs. I don't agree that all humans have that nature, but it may be human nature (alpha males in other animal species is seen as well, not far off from this concept. We are just more clever and getting the alpha male part).

I tend to agree with reason 3. Sometimes you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, sometimes you are in the wrong place at the right time and so on. There is an aspect of luck to much of what humans do. Some are luckier than others. However, probability says thats more than likely the case.

This all assumes that we, as the human race, do suffer in the religious sense. Most religions have a reason why we suffer. Either its cause we are all evil, or because we are not seeing the correct reality, or because what we see is an illusion to be seen through is common in many parts of religion. However, not everyone "suffers". Some are born into a situation where they suffer very little, and some suffer more. However, again it seems to be completely random as there are believers, many of which I know, who suffer far more than those that don't (and of course the opposite exists as well.)

One thing I did notice that it doesn't really answer how we can stop suffering. In fact it does say, it just suggests that we can't stop it, God can by Jesus coming back and taking all suffering, past and present away. However, not sure what the wait is. One thing I did notice, and to finish this long ass post up, is what it does say about this subject.

Apparently its good that he has waited so long, as it helps us all apparently server Jehovah. Whatever, an assertion based on the Bible again. However one thing I read that makes me angry (as some might be surprised, most of this post has not really provoked any emotional response till now.) is one of the things that it says will happen when Jehovah comes to "break the works of the Devil." From page 112-113 "Therefore, he can and will undo the effects of mankind's suffering. As we have already learned, the ruining of our planet will be undone by the turning of the earth into Paradise." Ok, so what that tells me is "Fuck up the planet, its ok. No problem at all. Cause at some point, God will make it all better." Sadly I don't believe that Jehovah's Witnesses are the only denomination to hold to this idea. Who cares if all life on the planet dies as God will make it all go away.

I would like to say that in some ways, it would be interesting if I held a book and an ideology based on it to be true. I just can't. I have read a shit ton of books in my life, and many books more than once. Dune from Frank Herbert is a favorite of mine. However, I don't not believe that its real. I do not, understand, at all, why people take the bible to be literally true (though very few take the entire things to be literally true, only certain parts which is a conundrum in itself). What this part shows is that its ok to fuck up the planet. Sorry, its not. Ill take the evidence that at some point (perhaps soon even in my lifetime but certainly some point in the future) the planet will be void of huge chunks of life, including humans, if we don't change how we do things. I do not have the faith, and I don't understand those that do, that because a book and some people who believe in that book tell me that its ok, the planet will be fine cause it will be reborn when god shows up. I think ill err on the side of caution and try in at least some small parts of my life not to fuck up the planet anymore than I have to, and encourage others to do the same.

As always, feel free if you want to talk more about this to message me or whatever.

The Visit and updates

So yeah, I know I haven't posted in a long time. Been really busy, and from what I found out at work today thats going to remain the same. However, now that I have a computer that doesn't piss me off most of the time (Go Apple) im going to force myself to update this more often.

Beyond the typical, had to work this last weekend which sucked. Stupid on call. Beyond that, really haven't done much. Just kicking it at the house, loving my Mac.

So Saturday, right before I had to go to work, I got a visit at the house. Jehova's Witness. First time ever that I was at home and was the one that answered the door. She was a very nice older lady with her granddaughter behind her (who sadly, was visibly bored beyond belief. She was only 10ish, so most of the discussion was uninteresting to her as it would have been when I was 10.) The nice lady and I had an interesting discussion for about 15 minutes.

Now, anyone who knows me well enough knows that while I like to talk about religion, its very rare I do so with a stranger. Usually if its a situation like this, I would just say "Sorry, not interested" and keep walking. However, in recent months and years I am more and more compelled to talk about it, especially if someone comes to me. She was pleasant to talk to and I believe that I was quite cordial with her.

We really didn't talk about many different topics. She started giving her speech and asked how I felt about it. I told her I was an atheist and didn't believe in it, and she said "Oh you need more faith" which I thought odd is more implies I had some. Anyways, she started talking about the bible and asked if she could read just one passage thing from a book she had thats titled "What does the Bible really teach?".

The part that she read I thought was quite interesting. She decided out of the entire 200ish page book to read the part where basically it says that the wife of a family should be subservient to the husband. The Bible "says" that the husband should listen to the wifes input, but ultimately its his way that gets done. I told her I had a few issues with that and I disagreed with the original premise.

First of all, she said that for the most part, a family could not function well unless it was that way. She likened it to a business where theres a CEO. I disagreed that it was the same as in a business, a CEO is usually hired by a board or is kept in place by such. The CEO can be fired or removed if he doesn't do a good job.

Now in a family, say for arguments sake its just a husband and wife, thats the board. Im sure families could work if the husband had the ultimate say. However, it could also work with the wife having final say. Or, like my family (or they hid it well) its a shared thing between both. No one was the ultimate decision maker. Yes, there may be disagreements but there would be disagreements either way. Personally, I would think there would be resentment if the husband always made the decisions even if the wife didn't agree with some of them, and there was no working it out.

The lady I was talking to (sadly, I don't recall her name) even said she had an issue with being the submissive to the husband, but thats what the bible says so thats what it should be. I then asked why she thought the bible was a good source for that, and she said "well we have the gospels which were eyewitness testimonies of Christ" which I then attempted to explain to her that those gospels were not written till at earliest decades after Christ's life. I didn't even go into the fact that many of the gospels pull from the other gospels as she was adamant that the gospels were indeed written down during Christ's life.

The last thing her and I talked about was one of the issues I have with the Jehova's Witness way of looking at the bible in reference to the passage (of which ill make another post about this later with some more specific info I find in a little research project im going to do) in which "taking in" (or eating or whatever) of blood is a sin, which leads to many JW's not getting blood transfusions. I mentioned to her that I had an issue with this as it flies in the face of good scientific evidence that getting a blood transfusion which may save your life and that not getting one could end it.

The thing she told me, of which I have heard this exact same thing from others, is that not only does the bible say that its wrong (which is very much open to interpretation as the Bible was more than likely talking about eating blood as back then it was not very healthy to do) but that even in modern times, blood transfusions have a very high risk of getting infection like hepatitis and other blood transfered diseases.

Now, I believe that to be patently false. Its very rare these days for that to occur, as blood is checked a bunch of times for bad things, you can't give blood if you have had like a piercing for a year and a bunch of other rules. I suspect that the incidence of infection by transfusion in modern faciities (read, not Africa or off the grid clinics were some of the rules on who can give blood are not followed) is stupid low. This is one of those things in a future post (in the next month or so) im going to do some research on statistics associated with what the likelyhood of getting an infection is these days.

At about that time my roommate had to go outside and informed the nice lady as hes walking out that I was a tough nut to crack which I thought was funny. At that point we pretty much ended the conversation, said our thanks for the discussion and she asked if she could give me the What does the Bible really teach book to look over, which I said sure.

The book came with a little paper that basically poses general life questions that people may ask themselves (or God, same thing).

Why do we suffer?
How can we cope with life's anxieties?
How can we make our family life happier?
What happens to us when we die?
Will we ever see our dead loved ones again?
How can we be sure that God will fulfill his promises for the future?

In future posts, and im going to try real hard to do one a week, im going to take each of these questions and look at the answers to them and post about it. Another question thats mentioned in the book but not on the little paper that ill also write, mainly cause it amuses me is "How do we know which religion is the correct one?" (or something to that effect).

In addition to putting what the book says and my thoughts about it, im also going to put how I would answer those questions (however the last one from the paper I can't as I don't care about supposed promises for the future). Partly I want to put what I would say to those questions as recently, by a few people who I talk to from time to time about religion it has been brought to my attention that while I may rail on religion and what I think is wrong with it, I rarely bring up or mention what I believe in. I happen to think this is a valid point, therefore ill put my personal beliefs and thoughts when I reply to those questions. As I go through the book, I may also put some more questions on the list (the paper has those 6 original ones but the book 19 different chapters, mostly written as responses to a question it poses).

Also in between these I'm going to try to get some info on blood transfusions. We shall see how easy that is as time goes on.

omg it happened

So this will be a bit different. I recently got a new laptop. Been wanting a laptop for a while, as I miss having a second machine to use when my other computer is taken up, and also wanted a laptop to use for work (a laptop I know that works and has the tools I want).

I fought over how much I wanted to spend, and what kind of laptop. I finally decided to get a Macbook Pro (partly cause I wanted a laptop that would last a while as my other laptop did). And yes, a Mac.

I have always been a PC person. Old school Macs were pretty much useless. They really had no benefit over PC and since most things did not work on Macs, and most made Windows stuff, it seemed silly to get a Mac. However, once Apple switched to Intel, it changed quite a bit. You can now run Windows on a Mac, the computers are much faster.

That being said... Macs are better. Its odd to say that. But after having my laptop for a couple of weeks now. Mac OS X is better than Windows. Its easier, better laid out and faster. Now, I still like Windows XP. Very solid and generally fast. Vista on the other hand, crap. Major crap, even after SP1 its still far slower than it should be. Windows 7 better kick some major ass. Otherwise, I can see Mac OS X taking over. And good. Im highly considering when I buy my next Desktop (which won't be anytime soon, as my current one is still pretty damn good) depending I may end up with a Mac.

Beyond that, haven't really been up to much. Heard something interesting today about the group I used to be a part of, however Im not going to repost it here. Makes me wonder though. Been playing Counterstrike more lately. Oh, and my car is almost finally paid off. Anyways, back to watching a debate that Hitchens was in.