For the Fourth of July Mandar and I found out that the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo was having a special. $2 off admission if you wear red, white, or blue, as well as free admission to the Rainforest and the Dinosaur Exhibit. Hot damn we said!
We had a really fun time. The weather was perfect. It was the first time I'd ever been to that zoo and I really enjoyed it. I feel like I was way closer to the animals than I ever get at the Columbus Zoo.
So anywho, we found...
Oh wait...
OMG!
There was this HILARIOUSLY fun Asian lady who was tempting this monkey with a tasty sammich. You see, there is this thing called Monkey Island. There is no cage or anything. It's just an island with a little river going around the entire island. So there she was, shoving a huge sammich in her fat gob. Every once in a while she'd take a moment to stop eating and wave the sammich around in front of the monkeys! They got so pissed and she just kept doing it. It was great.
I wish the picture I snapped of her was of her waving the sammich but apparently it was so good she couldn't stop shoving it into her face. We saw her eat two sammichs total.
So anywho...
There were three adorable little animal I had never heard of that I just loved. The pictures below are not from the zoo, they're from online.
Chevrotain
Rufous Elephant Shrew
Rock Hyrax
The Rock Hyraxes had lots of little babies who have back legs that look like little human legs. They're such little chub balls and believe it or not they are more closely related to elephants than rodents.
The Chevrotains have such tiny legs that they ran around like they were wearing high heels. The Elephant Shrews looked like tiny little ant-eaters.
I bet they would have loved to take a bite of the fun asian lady's sammich.
So there's a lot of stuff coming out in the second part of this year that I'm excited for. Yeah, I know. I'm a pop culture whore. Some of it's guilty pleasure, some not. Either way, I'm pumped! Recently I was very satisfied with the new Taking Back Sunday CD as well as the new Marilyn Manson CD. Mandar and I are also loving the Sims 3 so I hope what still is to come won't disappoint.
True Blood: Season 2 - June 14th
Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince - July 15th
Wii Sports Resort - July 26th
Julie & Julia - August 7th
New Cobra Starship CD - August 11th
I Can Do Bad All By Myself - Sept 11th
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Holiday Season
In addition I am also looking forward to the new Richard Dawkins bookfor which I couldn't really find a good YouTube video for. There are also new Tarkan, Shakira, and Atreyu CDs slated for release this year!
Gosh. CNN used be to pretty good. So was TIME magazine. What the fuck happened? Below is a shocking headline from CNN!
Yeah and TIME magazine totally failed with the article below.
Yes, if you read the article is all about how Ida is not our earliest ancestor because in the grand scope of things our ancestry goes far further back. The article is mainly about how scientists didn't need to see Ida to have proof of evolution.
But here's the problem. First of all, this article was on CNN which you click on and sends you to TIME magazine's website. But just think how the average person (who just can't accept evolution) will react to this. They'll look at the headline from TIME and say to themselves, "Oh, so apparently scientists don't believe this thing is real." Like a game of telephone it'll translate to, "Scientists don't even believe in evolution. I guess they have accepted that the book of Genesis is the true account."
Originally the title to the article was "Scientists Roll Their Eyes at Ida" but I guess somebody felt that was inappropriate.
It's clear that no matter how much proof there is, they'll never accept it. Especially when they believe the proof is just made-up by those evil and deceptive scientists!!! Religious people once said "there aren't any transitional fossils!" And now that there are hundreds they say, "Fossils don't prove anything!" Way to move the goal posts!
Hehe. I wonder how many people goggle pissed off with the image above. Darwin's birthday logo was subtle. This is just slap in the face to creationists and I love it!
I just finished reading Carl Sagan's 1985 novel, Contact. I saw the movie when I was a teenager and loved it but the book was quite a bit better in some places and not as great in other. It was slow in places. Nevertheless, I still think that Jodie Foster played Ellie Arroway perfectly, maybe even better than Carl Sagan wrote her, lol.
The book was strange in a way because it was published in 1985 and it ends in the year 2000. For example, the Soviet Union still exits in the book. I'm not in anyway saying that was a failure in any sense (he couldn't have known) but it was strange and kinda funny at times. Not to mention, the President of America in the book was a Madam President which by 2008 we still have not seen. I bet if Sagan was alive today he'd be surprised that we had a black president before a female. Overall, the ending was considerably better. More detail made it deeper. There was also a very thought provoking thing that had to do with pi at the end.
But while reading there was a very funny part where Ellie was talking to a old man who lived in a retirement home that orbited earth. I would like to share it:
"You see, the religious people -most of them- really think this planet is an experiment. That's what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesman's wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can't say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Why can't the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence. If God didn't want Lot's wife to look back, why didn't he make her obedient, so she'd do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn't made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would've listened to him more. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: the biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business if there was any competition."
I guess I never mentioned why I called this bunnies on the highway. There was a long exposition early in the book about rabbits in New Mexico that see car lights. It was interesting.
Okay, so if I ever wished that I lived in the city where I was born, for only once, it was today. Richard Dawkins visited the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma (the city were I was born) and did a little speech and such. See below the video of a protester being taken out of the auditorium shouting about things like, "Offending my God!" ::Snort:: Total douchebag.
Bobby and someone named JayBird left a couple comments on my blog disputing evolution (hold your laughter til the end of the blog please). They have brought up a couple issues and I'd like to address them at this point, although as a busy student with a part time job, please don't expect me to be doing this all the time.
Before I get to the parts about evolution, I'd like to touch base on some of the things that were said regarding the bible.
JayBird wrote: "The Bible and the accounts within are Historical, Scientific, and Archaeological. Real people in Real places in Real history..."
Responce: I dont' even know where to begin. Historical? No, not even close. Abraham, Moses, Lot, Eve, Adam? There is absolutely not a shred of evidence to show that any of these people existed. There is an extremely small amount of evidence to suggest that Jesus himself existed. Just because it takes place in a real land, like Jerusalem, doesn't make it true. Harry Potter takes place in Scotland, that doesn't make it real.
What amazes me is the fact that even biblical theologicans are willing to admit that nearly all of the bible is probably not actually literal truth (the old testament). They are still Christians, they simply accept the book as alegorical word of God. There's no reason why you must take it as literal. And as for Archaeological and scientific? Have you ever met a scientist!? Please, the bible claims that pi is equal to 3 and that all life popped magically out of nowhere 6000 years ago. Education is a blessing truly.
JayBaird wrote:God making robots and forcing them to love Him, isn't true love is it?...
Responce: What is God... just bored and lonely? Why would an all powerful, all knowing, all present being who (supposedly) exists outside of his own creation (including emotions) create humans because he wanted them to love him. Most of all, why does he only want our love? Shouldn't the bears love God too?
This is yet another example of the fact that Christians are people who cannot grow up. They were children with parents who loved them and protected them and made them never feel alone. Now that they are adults, they long to have that feeling again, so they make up a magic invisible friend so that they don't have to face the harsh reality of the universe. Being a Christian is just an excuse not to grow up. Why grow up and face reality and responciblity when you can just make yourself feel good by thinking that a magical being was looking out for you.
Circular logic strikes again. God created emotions, such as love, jealiousy and lonliness... yet for some reason, against the fact that he created these emotions, he is subject to these emotions. Yet again, Christians try and make God out be a human being with human emotions.
JayBird wrote:That is what Gamaliel thought in Acts 5:34-39: (in responce to me saying that Christianity was a dying religion and would one day be a thing of the past) "I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God".
That was 2000 years ago...
Responce: Of all the religions in the world that you could possibly belief, you just by chance believe in Christianity. If you had been born to be believe in Jupiter, you might be saying the same thing about a belief in him. Christianity will fall, it's slipping little by little every day around the world. To be honest (and unfortunatley), the one religion that is growing is Islam. And no, that's not a good thing at all. This whole thing makes me think about a response Richard Dawkins gave once.
So now onto Bobby. First of all, he thinks that DNA is proof of god. He states "Let’s talk about DNA. Like a computer disk, DNA has no intelligence. The complex, purposeful codes of this “master program” could only have originated outside itself. In the case of a computer program, the original codes were put there by an intelligent being, a programmer. Likewise, for DNA, it seems clear that intelligence must have come first, before the existence of DNA."
Okay, first of all, there is no intelligence needed. For example, sulfuric acid is produced when sulfur, oxygen and water make contact. Sulfuric acid is produced by mixing all three without divine intervention. No intelligence needed.
The fact that you think DNA is proof of God show's how inconceivably ignorant you are when it comes to the theory of evolution. I suggest reading Richard Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale" (heck, I'll even direct you to the audio book for free online). I can be sure by the stupid comments you make that you have not even a rudimentary understanding of evolution by means of natural selection. Educate yourself please. If your God is true, it won't fuck with your faith. But unfortunately I'm sure you realize that it will fuck with your faith, and that might make your life less than comfortable. And in the end that's the American dream, right? Comfort, no matter what!
DNA is the absolute proof of evolution. Period.
Okay, so Bobby also goes on to give me a bunch of bullshit quotes from the following people; I.L. Cohen (creationist), "Chemist" Dr. Grebe (creationist who founded creation research society), and even calls Michael Denton an evolutionist, which he isn't, he's a supporter of Intelligent Design (which is creationism in a neat hat). He also brings up creationist Sir Fred Hoyle, who never accepted that the universe is expanding, which is something else we have librarians of books of documented proof on.
Bobby even falls back to the worst argument ever, The Boeing 747 arguement (which I'll address below). The problem with bobby is that he goes so far as to call god the "programmer" which totally undermines his belief. He refuses to belief that life can form naturally, but prefers to think that magic is how it happens. That's exactly what it is. Magic. He believes that God just always existed for no good reason, magically popped things into existence ... and then eventually decided to give things a more natural look I suppose. It's childish. It's silly. It's sad.
I'm not going to argue with you on this because you and I will never see eye to eye for two reason. We both have up walls. I once had faith in God and Jesus, but my reason mind got the best of me, and now today I allow evidence and proof to guide me to what is closest to truth. For example, I have several walls that stop me from becoming a Christian. If you want me to become a Christian, you're going to have to break down some walls. First, you must get around my extensive knowledge of world faith and most specifically Christianity. Second you must get around my knowledge of science, evolution, physics, and astronomy. Although I do profess myself to be very well versed in world religion, I will admit that I am not an expert on science, because not even Einstein was an expert. There is most certainly stuff I don't know in science, but I am always learning. You must also break down my wall of human experience of multiple cultures. There are no atheists in foxholes but there certainly are Christians. The problem with Christianity is that it teaches you to accept anything a old books says without proof and for no good reason. It teaches you to accept ignorance.
For me to break down you, I need only brake down one wall. Unfortunately it is the greatest wall of all: brainwashing. You've been brainwashed to accept anything Christian, no matter what. You have been taught to accept the Bible no matter what. Why? Because it's pretty, bubbly, and gives you a warm feeling inside... but that doesn't mean it's true.
I do envy you Bobby. Ignorance is bliss. You live in fantasy world where everywhere is made easy. Things are either good and of God or bad and of the Devil. The world is only 6000 years old. There's only one book to read, instead of libraries of hypothesis and theories. Your happy because no matter how much this life might suck, you think a magical one is gonna come later, and for those people who did you wrong, only bad things will come.
However it's not perfect. You've only got one life and you lose it to childlike magical belief. When you find out that a member of your family is gay, instead of accepting that it's simply a variant in nature and is a completely healthy lifestyle, you see it as sin. If you ever horribly lose one of your children in a car accident, you'll think it's part of God's plan, instead of the truth which is that random shit happens and you have no control over what other people do. And when you find out that your wife has an addiction to online pornography, instead of accepting that she's having psychological issues that can dealt with through a professional, you turn to prayer, which solves nothing.
If I haven't totally pissed you off already, please continue. You bring up the Boeing 747 argument and I know why. Because it's sounds good. It's been answered again and again and again but you creationists never give up on a dead idea. You see, when you say to a person, "supposing the first cell originated by chance is like believing “a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.” It perks up some ears, and people remember such a little ditty. But unfortunately for you, there is an answer. But no, it's not all butterflies and unicorns. And even more unfortunately people today with their short attention spans and one-liners love to stick to something short and simple. It comes up again and again not because it hasn't been answered, but because every 10 years there is another generation of people to fool with it.
It's so easy to just think, God created the world in 7 days, humanity with two people, and if you belief Jesus is the son of God, you'll get another life that's paradise after you die. Considerably easier than reading the libraries of books on philosophy and science that turn out truer answers.
Richard Dawkins once again explains the Boeing 747 argument as well as expands on evolution a bit. Now can we please put this one in the ground?
By now, I'm sure I'm simply speaking to the choir, as I'm sure most creationist have shut off their computers and decided to watch something on PAX-TV. If your still here, the video below do a great job expanding on my beliefs. It's such a good video, I've just had to add it to my sidebar.
Now there may be some apologists out there who might say, "Oh, your version of truth is science and Bobby's version of truth is Christianity. What makes yours more truer than his?" Well, I could go on, but since people do love on-liners, here's a go at one. Bobby's faith in Christianity will only allow him to marvel at the moon from a far, while my embracing of science will get to me the moon itself.
Final Thought: In short, Bobby and JayBird. I do not believe that you are stupid or evil or anything like that. I believe that you are uneducated, misinformed, brainwashed, and close minded. The tree of knowledge contains fruits most sweet, but they come at a cost. You, and so many others, are stuck in the garden of ignorance, while I, and so many others, are in the world of harsh reality. And I wouldn't go back to being ignorant for all the bliss in the world.
Sometimes at work I long to be around smart people. Like today, a girl named Tiffany said faggot. She then caught herself and asked if I minded if she said it. I told her, "I'd rather you say faggot than nigger to be honest." She laughed and replied, "Why?" I said, "Because there is more history and hatred behind the word nigger." Laughing even harder, she replied, "Yeah right. Nigger is just fun to say!"
This next thing might seem trivial but it got under my skin. This guy named Josh told me that he didn't know how to view his own myspace page. He knew how to see new comments, but didn't know how to see his own myspace page. Really? Yeah, I know, it's silly. But it amazed me that somebody that age who actually had a myspace didn't have the knowledge to view it.
Later I overheard Josh and Bobby talking and complaining about their homework. I don't know what led to it or what the conversation was about, but I did hear bobby say, "I swear, people are just stupid. I mean, if we evolved from monkeys then why are there still monkeys. It's that simple. And besides, science has proven that all humanity came from two people and that's exactly what the Bible says. As if we needed science to tell us that."
I didn't even say a word because I would have been there all day. I wouldn't even know where to begin with that statement. But then again, Bobby was the one who thought that President Obama was going to be kicked out as soon as they realized he was born in India and that Former President Bush would come back to fix everything he messed up.
And then there's my manager. Yes, I know it's fucky fried chicken... but this guy is an idiot (and is a head manager of a money making franchise!). He cannot spell anything worth a shit. The other day he posted a note about a meeting ... oh i'm sorry, it was actually a meating. A mandantorry meating at that. Apparently if we have any reazon why we cannot attend said meating, we are reqiered to talk to the mangement.
So perhaps I'm being picky. Either way, I thought it was funny... especially since it said that everybody had to be thier (yes, not only did he use the wrong form, he spelled it wrong too). So being the funny guy I am, I wrote a little note on the paper in the office that pointed to the misspelled words and read, "Spellcheck is a blessing. Use it."
Apparently he was so fumed when he saw it that he was seconds from calling me up on my day off and firing me. I guess he calmed down and decided to "have words" with me instead. He told me that he knows that he isn't the best speller, but that I needed to bring these things to his attention because calling them out by writing on the paper makes him look stupid (as if spelling the words horribly wrong didn't already). He also said that "not all of us went to school for computer techonology and know how to use spell check." He's 29 years old people. He's only six years older than me!
Apparently I'm dangerous at fucky fried chicken. I'm a whisteblower! There was this new policy about using paper liners on chicken. The big manager told everybody that liners cost five cents each and that for each one we waste he is taking five cents out of our paycheck (he was being dead serious). I got bitched at for blowing the whistle on this because I knew that these things couldn't possibly cost that much and all I had to do was look up in the cost book to find that per sheet that he claimed was five cents was actually a cool four hundreths of a penny each. So apparently they aren't five cents each sheet... they're 5 cents per 125 sheets.
I talked to big man manager Dan about his lying to crew members about the cost of product (cups, paper, chicken, etc) and told him that morally I found it abhorring (had to explain that word to him). I told him that in the end people will not respect him for lies and that if he wants to lower paper cost that he needs to tell the truth about how it hurts the company and not to lie about it. He told me that he did not agreed and he didn't care if people respected him or not and that the ends justified the means. Whatever. (Oh and big shocker here. This guy who makes his own shedule actively shedules himself to work so that he can get out of church but is apparenlty a devout Christian. Nothing says hypocrite like a Christian actively avoiding followers of his own faith in devotion to God by skipping church every week).
Oh and today, new rule! Apparenlty now we need to have a manager with us with their special manager key before we can clock in or out because we can't be trusted to clock in and out by ourselves. On top of that, we need the manager to issue 10% senior citizen discounts on food. Wow. When I critized this I mentioned how we were told if we clocked in early we would be wrote up and that nobody has been wrote up. I went on to expose the fact that all their threats have proven to be empty as nobody has been fired or wrote up for the miriad of rules that we were warned about (and that everybody breaks on a daily basis). I told them they had empty threats and I was told to "try them." *Rolls eyes*
So anyways, the point of my rant is this. I wish I could say that these were isolated instances of stupidity but they're not. I know this is fast food and these are teenagers but I assure that little chances as these people grow up and branch out. I wish I could say that stupidity was uncommon but it's not. I know there are smart people out there and I know there are educated people too. All three of these people voted in the 2008 election (2 for McCain, 2 surprisingly for Obama). It's days like this that I say to myself that democracy doesn't work. A democratic society cannot flourish and prosper when it's voters are fucking stupid. I would actively support a McCain/Palin presidency if it meant that all the stupid people in America magically became educated.
Usually talk at work does not go past sex and annoying customers. But every once in a while it does and on these days nihilism seeps into my brain like never before. It's like there are forty people all telling me the pen is blue when I can clearly see that the fucking pen is red! There used to be a girl named Kelly who was so smart and so well read. She was my clear thinking oasis and I miss her a lot. Even her boyfriend who volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, spending six months in Hungary building homes for low-income families, was smart. They broke up and he now works at Pizza Hut and she attends university.
I want my clear thinking oasis back. I want somebody to come to my work who can exchange intelligent statements and hypotheses.
Jesus freaks and religious nuts are so lucky. When they are surrounded by people who do not share their beliefs they can simply write it off as evil, sinful, or the AntiChrist. When we intellectuals are surrounded by people who don't understand science, religion, philosophy, psychology, etc etc etc, all we can do is take a pencil to our face and stab stab stab!!!
I often float between this strange dissonance in my desire that I was born during a much more simple time, like the 1400s. Sure I wouldn't have modern medicine, science, or a worldwide view of humanity... but boy would I be at bliss. Knowledge is a burden and sometimes I wish I was just stupid (but not really). Because then the next wish floats in, that I was born in another universe.
In this universe, I like to call it my Madam Butterfly universe, there is no religion, bullshit ideas, or mental laxity. When people want to get philosophical and ponder life and existence, they open up a book or watch a documentary about the natural processes like deep sea life, rain forest diversity, quantum mechanics, or philosophical futurism. They might read Bible tales, but not to take them seriously, but to learn more about primitive beliefs and the human experience. They would read from the Bible, the Koran, Hindu texts, Greco-Roman faith, and more to achieve a sense of man's strange path to understand himself. When they want to get out of the house, they wouldn't go drinking or clubbing. They'd go to museums of art of history or to the local Denny's to discuss literature.
I remember the first time I went to Richard Dawkins' website and saw the subtitle, A Clear Thinking Oasis. Something about it made me feel like I could sense the breeze through my hair as a stood on top of a great mountain overlooking a gorgeous natural scene (perhaps because next to the subtitle happened to be a picture of him doing just that).
Alas, the closest place to get to this is to pull up my ipod and listen to the sweet English voices of Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward as they tell me stories about Abraham, and Moses, and the grasshopper, and the platypus as well as mitochondria and genes of a selfish nature.
In celebration of Darwin's 200th Birthday, I'd like to suggest that we all read, "The Ancestor's Tale" by Richard Dawkins. It is one of the most interesting books I've ever read in my life. If this eye opening book doesn't make you make you marvel at the processes of evolution and the accomplishes of science, nothing will.
Ever ponder the strangeness of the platypus and think, "How does this fall into the evolutionary tree?" Ever wanted to know what science has to say about racism and the differences between the human races? Ever thought, "I understand how life evolved and evolves, but how did it start in the very first place."
This book will change the way you think about life, sex, racism, reproduction, and the animal kingdom. Dawkins takes a backwards step from today to the beginning of life on earth a little bit at a time, describing how changes in evolution that created what we are today.
Here's a consciousness raising fact. We are all the product of winners. All of our ancestors were winners because they all succeeded in passing down their genes to the next generation. None of us have any ancestors who were failures, because if they failed, they wouldn't be our ancestors.
If you're poor you can download the audiobook here for free. It's elegantly done by Richard Dawkins and his wife Lalla Ward. If you can afford it, pick it up. My own copy is in the mail right now from Amazon.
Because making at least general sense doesn't matter anymore, I've decided to redo some things. What I mean is since the idea of dinosaurs ruling the earth after the ice age of mammoths and sabor-tooth cats is okay, I figured this was alright too.
The New "The Tudors" The New "Zoey 101" The New "Passion of The Christ" Okay okay, get it? My news story was featured on Hermant's Blog and people seem to care little about a kids movie that depicts dinosaurs ruling after the rule of mammals. They say, "oh it's a kid's movie" or "oh, lets not forget that they talk too." Okay here is the thing. Sure the animals talk but you don't have to sit down and explain to children that animals really don't talk. They understand fine. However, this is why kids in America will fail in science. Because they are depicting evolution backwards and nobody seems to care.
So if this is gonna fly as okay, you know 65 million years of difference. Then why not have Jesus eating at McDonalds or Henry VIII surfing the internet for his next wife. At least with the last two items the difference is only hundreds of years as apposed to MILLIONS!
Okay, so I haven't been focusing on my other writing because I've been on my deathbed for the last three days. I usually get about there colds a year. Two of them are very mild. One of them is deathly. This year the deathly cold came on Thanksgiving day, which sucks because I had my deathly cold at the exact same time last year. The only silver lining is that because it came during the holiday I have only so far had to miss one day of work.
So while texting Pandora the subject of Airborne came up because her boss swears by it. Well she's a dumb bitch (the boss, not Pandora).
Now, Airborne marks itself as a "dietary supplement" that stops you from getting a cold. They actually don't specifically say that because for them to do so they'd have to prove it to the FDA. They market it as a "dietary supplement" because that's all it is. It contains vitamins and that's it. All it does is provide the taker with an extra boost of vitamins that their normal diet wouldn't have. However, if the person taking the Airborne usually takes a multivitamin already, then the effects plateau. You would have just as good of a result with a Flintstones vitamin.
But here is the underlining problem. Airborne, in general, isn't dangerous. However, it can be. It has dangerously high levels of Vitamin A and Vitamin C which can cause dizziness and diarrhea. By the big problem is not the diarrhea you might get. It's the fact that people are not only taking, but "swearing" by fake medication (that cost way to much to boot!).
So you might be saying, "What about when my doctor proscribes a placebo?" Well the biggest difference is that when the doctor prescribes a placebo, he knows it's a placebo. Furthermore, a placebo is cheaper than Airborne. A placebo is not something to take over the counter. It's something a doctor proscribes knowing that the disease that they are fighting can be improved by the work of a placebo.
My finer point is this. It's a scary world we live in today when a fake pill can be sold over the counter that claims to stop people from getting a cold. What's truly scary is that people continue to take this because of anecdotal claims of it's effectiveness rather than tried and tested scientific double-blind tests which has shown it to be ineffective. Before you know it, all the tested medicine will be replaced by bullshit concocted by school teachers who just "swear" by it.
Which leads me to my last point. It was created by a school teacher!? I daresay that nobody, NOBODY should ever take a pill created by a fucking school teacher. Are you kidding! I wouldn't dare ingest any medicine that was not created and tested by chemists and medical professionals. What on earth possessed this crazy bitch to think she could make medicine. An article for further reading can be found here.
PS: A class action suit has been filed against Airborne for it's false claims.
It's time to express my love for a certain man on this earth who really has changed my life. I think about him quite a lot and he's provided a great deal of inspiration for me. If I was only 40 years older and he was gay or I was a female, I'd be all up in Richard Dawkins.
He's a no bullshit maverick who rides the straight talk express. No not Cranky McNasty. Dr. Clinton Richard Dawkins has written eight books on evolution and one on religion, all of which embracing the ideals of many which find the earth, universe, and reality to be far more marvelous without god.
He has also created seven amazingly brilliant documentaries on the fact of evolution as well as his abhorrence for organized religion (including Christianity which holds a special place in his heart).
Several years ago he started what is known as the atheist moment urging atheists to 'come out' and profess their godlessness (which, believe it or not, is 20% of the population on earth, nearly all of which are the elite and educated).
Check out this horrible video where Bill O'Riley attempts to make Dawkins look stupid (in farness, O'Riley always sucks at interviewing)
In the spirit of equal play, here is how CNN interviewed Dawkins.
That black guy asked where do atheists get their morals from? He says that he gets his morals from God and the Bible which is funny because if that were true he would have stoned those women to death for attempting to be his equal.
So that is my quick boast of love for Richard Dawkins, which I must add does him no justice, there is a plethora of better interviews, speaches, and debates from him on his own website and on YouTube. I encourage everyone to luster in his glory.
This week's boob of the week is the left boob of the Venus of Willendorf. This busty beauty is from Austria and is around 23,000 years old. It was discovered in 1908 by Josef Szombathy. Very little is known about it's origin or it's synificance. It is believed by paleontologists to be a symbol of the ideal fertile woman at the time (clearly we have a different idea today). By creationists, it is believed to be the workings of the devil, seeing as the world is only about 6000 years old, right? Hmm, Bible says the earth is 6000 years old. Venus of Willendorf is 23,000 years old. Hmm...
First of all, I'm an atheist. By atheist, it means I don't believe in God because I see no evidence for the existence of a magical invisible friend and father. At heart, I'm a scientist. This means that I accept things that can be proven by math or by means of reproduction. Today science and atheism are becoming swear words in United States. Most people say to me, "If you don't believe in God then why do any good?" Well, like nearly all other atheists, I embrace altruism. I do not need a greater power to tell me what is good and what is bad. If it is only religion and God alone that make a person do good things, then isn't that deeply depressing. I certainly hope that there is something more stopping a preacher from murdering than simply that somebody is watching.
When I was much younger I regarded myself as atheist rather quickly. I went to church with my grandmother and the Sunday school teacher told me that the earth was only 6000 years old and that all of us came from Adam and Eve. What race were Adam and Eve? If there were only two people who started life, and they had three boys (Cain, Abel, and Seth), then how did more children come?
I have to give a small amount of credit to my father who at a very early age instilled in me a love of science and history. By age twelve, I was extremely well informed on the subjects of evolution, biology, computer technology, and animal life preceding the cretaceous–tertiary mass extinction. I recognized that there were libraries of books and documentaries filled with scientific evidence and that only one dusty old book contained anything about Adam and Eve. I became an atheist because religion was silly and science was fascinating.
When I became a teenager I learned quite quickly that the word 'atheist' was a bad word. I knew that for sure Christianity was bullshit, but perhaps there was more in the world of religion and spirituality. From age fourteen to age twenty, I explored everything. Mormonism, Scientology, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Wicca, and every little sect in between. I found that Judaism was not as bad as Christianity and that Islam was a hundred times worse. I found that Mormons and Scientologists worshiped aliens from documents written by fiction authors. I found that half of Buddhists or Wiccans were only trying to seem different or exotic, and that those who were honestly Buddhist or Wiccan were just lovers of nature, earth, and mythology. When it came down to it, they were far more agnostic.
After all this searching, I found not a single shred of proof for god outside ancient writings and hearsay on miracles. It started to make sense to me. The only reason I thought God might exist was that the universe was complicated and surely there must have been something to create it. However, this is really only circular logic. If there is a God who created such a uncomprehendingly vast and complicated universe, then surely God must have been created by something even more complicated and so on and so on.
One day, I got fed up. I was so tired of Christian bullshit. So tired of the Christian community fucking up people's lives because they think god wants it to be that way. I went online and wanted to join a Christian bashing club. I figured, surely there must be some people who want to bash Christians as much as I do. What I found were not angsty teenagers, but extremely intelligent scientists, philosophers, and educators who were fed up with the amount of power and credit given to organized religion. I came across a really smart man named Richard Dawkins who had just published a book called The God Delusion. I went straight to my local library and read it in less than half a fortnight.
It opened my eyes up to what I was and what I knew I was underneath it all. I am an atheist. You've always been told that being an atheist is a bad thing. But in truth, we are all atheists when you think of all the religions of the world, I just take it one god further. Being an atheist means that I believe that all people diserve help in the world, not just those who have the same beliefs as me. It means that I believe that man and animal are equal and should be treated as so. It means that I use science and discovery to choose what I think about the universe. It means that when I do something good, I'm doing it because I want to do it, not because I'm trying to appease a god.
So does that mean that I think life is bleak existence with no purpose. No, it means that I believe life is teaming with beauty and elegance. You can look at the complications of protein synthesis or to the simple fact of evolution by means of natural selection. It is far more awe inspiring than any 'miracle' that is been claimed in the name of God. The purpose of life is to enjoy the one you have; to make it your best. After all, your mere existence is shockingly rare. Most people never get the chance to exist at all. A truly wasted life, is one wanting and hoping for a more perfect second life, when so few actually get one.
When it comes to God, I'm not 100% he does not exist. I am also not 100% sure unicorns don't exist, but I operate my life under the belief that they do not. Christians and Muslims claim that God is all knowing and all powerful. If he is this, then he surely cannot be that concerned about whether or not I eat pork, work on Saturdays, or what I do with my penis. I operate life in the idea that it does not matter whether or not God exists. If he wanted us to know he is there he would have proved it and cast away all doubt. My god is the god of universal constants such as gravity, evolution, physics, biology, chemistry, etc. It's funny, a friend of mine once said, "It makes me laugh that you know so much about Christianity and religion yet you don't believe a single word of it." It's precisely because I know so much, that I don't believe.
In a later post I will go into further detail on why organized religion is wrong and why it is far more destructive than productive to the future and existence of the human species. I end this post with a very short clip of The God Delusion's author Richard Dawkins' response to a question I have received time and time again, "But what if you're wrong?"
I am a black rainbow. I am an ape of God. I've got a face that made for doing violence upon. I'm a teen distortion. I survived abortion. I'm a rebel from the waist down.
"People are always going on about, how did September 11th change you? Well here's how it changed me; lets all stop being so damned respectful." ~ Richard Dawkins
"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes." ~ Gene Roddenberry
"Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave." ~ Prophet Muhammad
