In defense of Atheism 2

Another post of point counterpoint in the argument over Atheism, we'll explore 3 more questions in approval of faith and blow them out of the water!

Religion is a force for good. Or people do good things BECAUSE of religion.

This is a half truth.  Of course people do good things because of their faith.  People do good things for all sorts of reasons, some of those reason aren't good at all.  The question we should ask is; Are religious reasons the best reasons for doing good things. No. Religion works from a reward standpoint.  If you do good or live by certain tenants you will go to heaven or be in god's good graces.  This leads, if you did not do these things you would not go to heaven or be in god's good graces.  How is this the highest moral objective?  Isn't doing good for its own sake better?  A humanitarian will go to Africa and feed the poor not to proselytize, like all missionary services do, but because feeding people is noble unto itself.  I find the real moral ideal is to do good because it is good. Not for divine reward.

Somewhat conversely we find just as many occurrences of evil and wrong done in the name of religion as good in the same.  I may have just made you think of an instance on your own.  One only need to pick up the news paper and read the international headlines for the latest suicide bombing or the latest mass grave uncovered.  Steven Weinberg said, "Good people do good things, bad people do bad things, it takes religion for good people to do bad things."  There is no other way to describe the suicide bombing cults or the female genital mutilation community (which is 100% religious) not to mention the Inquisition, heresy trials, and modern day jihad.  So what we have hidden in this religious force for good is also a force for evil.

The bible is true because it says so. The bible is true because it was inspired by god.


I hear this all the time and I can't understand how people don't see the logical blunder in the first statement.  Something is true because it says so?!  I can say ANYTHING, especially if its ridiculous then say its true and you would believe me?  I'm telling you now there is a teapot orbiting mars in an elliptical orbit and it was put there by the first people and this is a true statement.  Would you believe me?  What does the evidence say?  There is NO evidence what so ever to accredit this statement.  WE need to base our ideas on evidence and not word play and logic tricks.  I can then stand in front of you and say, "prove me wrong about my teapot."  Certainly we can't for technology has not gotten us to that point that we can detect any possible thing in orbit of mars but this is no argument for the veracity of my statement.  In fact we can use probabilities to guess within a high degree of certainty that it is untrue. Saying it's true only because it says so is a circular argument and by definition is invalid. The onus is not on the unbeliever, it is on the statement maker.

One day I might like to travel to the Vatican and see the Sistine Chapel.  After my visit I may be 'inspired' to write a book or make a painting, directly because of my visit.  My creative works do not have to about the chapel or even represent it in any way.  The works can be about something else entirely.  My small point here is that inspiration is not enough to prove the works have a direct connection to the origins of the inspiration.

But in defense of the bible, it is said that they were inspired by god, which is to say that this is gods word.  Even if we discount all the contradictions, which there are many, and all the inconsistencies, we are told that this, like the koran, is the perfect word of god.  I would tell you now stop and now go read the bible and tell me, is this book perfect or could we improve upon it?  I say we could easily improve on many facets of the bible from the glaring immoralities, single dimensional characters, ideas that can be interpreted in many different ways, and from what we now know, that the early christians edited the bible.  Israeli researchers and archaeologists confirm this.  If the bible, which is actually many books depending on your exact faith, is the perfect word of god, how can it also be edited by terrestrial beings? Besides all this, there is nothing in the bible or koran in which information is any more advanced than that of a 1st or 7th century man.

Entropy: The universe without god violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

This argument usually entails arguing against the big bang model of cosmology.  They make the argument that the universe's energy should be decreasing, a running down towards chaos.  They say "Entropy increases as available energy decreases.  In other words, the purely natural tendency of things is to move toward chaos, not order, and available energy necessary for work is lost (mostly as heat) in this process".  This is true OF A CLOSED SYSTEM.  They purposefully leave that out of the discussion.  The universe is not a closed system.  They are misleading you by giving cherry picked information combined with half truths.

Our solar system from our perspective does seem fairly closed.  So lets run with this for I am attempting at an analogy.  Our Earth is also a mostly closed system.  Only energy waves and some very small bits of metal seem to every leave its surface.  Energy waves are all that is contained in the electromagnetic spectrum. Heat, light, and radar waves all shoot out into space.  But most 'stuff' remains.  IF there was no sun we could imagine how the Earth would eventually cool into a lifeless rock where entropy would increase and concentrations of material in the oceans would dilute and it would become a boring place.  But as the sun sends us energy some chaos occurs and this leads to life rising up, the Earths core being churned up, and weather allowing life to exist on all parts of the planet.  

I hope I have made the distinction clear.  That entropy is talking about closed systems and not the cosmos.  Entropy also says that chaos is more probable than order.  If you fling a pile of rocks out the window, they will land 'willy nilly' and not into a nice rock wall.  However correct this may be in relation to gasses and dilutions of salts in water and the like, this is not an argument against life in its ordered form.  Life is made possible by replicators which by definition cannot evolve towards chaos but life observes an order for it to create repeatable processes.  Just like viewing a nice rock wall is not an argument against entropy, entropy is not an argument against life.

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum. Here, this video should say it all:




Remember Rick Santorum said that he wanted to 'vomit' about the principals this country was founded on. Thomas Jefferson said "build up that wall" in talking about separation of church and state.  Jefferson knew, along with the other founders, how dangerous theocracies are and that is exactly want Santorum wants to install.  It is beyond belief how he can talk in front of an audience and they clap for this. I guess this is the result when we spend a whopping 5% of GPD on education.

I really want you to watch this next video on Santorum to find out just what a mastermind this guy is and why YOU don't want him in charge.



I had always thought the argument was over. JFK used this speech the help the civil rights movement in the 60's overcome rampant segregation.  But according to Santorum these works make him throw up!  I get so mad having to hear about this guy over and over and over again on the news as if he is actually some sort of expert on these issues. What is very interesting is how he doesn't want college for you and your kids but he went to college himself! I really don't know what to say because if these videos aren't self evident, I don't know what argument would persuade you.  If your a republican vote for Ron Paul or at the least Mitt Romney. MY GOD!

I will be writing on why we need to fight for a secular state and Santorum gives me a perfect segue on this topic. If you had told me a person said what Santorum says, I would have doubted you, but see it coming from his mouth is just as unbelievable. Santorum is a person who loves having ignorant people give him praise and pandering to uninformed.  How did we get to the point in this country where ignorance is the preferred mode and stupidity trumps knowledge?!  Santorum is the perfect blend of self actualizing lies and ignorance pandering, maybe that makes him the perfect politician?

Just a little more on Jefferson's wall: http://allusionsofgrandeur.wordpress.com/2008/04/23/build-up-that-wall-mr-jefferson/

In defense of Atheism

I would like to post some point counterpoints in defense of Atheism or in the least for anti-theism.

One of the most common things a nonbeliever will hear is; What if you're wrong?

I usually understand this point to be Pascals wager or Pascals Gambit.  Pascal gives a simple cost benefit analysis to defend theism. It states that if there IS a god and you believe, you go to heaven. If there IS a god and you don't believe, you go to hell. Conversely if there isn't a god and whether you believe or not, you have lost nothing.

So that's simple, you must believe right? Well, no.  First on the rebuttle is can you actually fool god?  If a person examines the evidence, eg the bible, koran, ect., and cannot find that to be accurate or true, can he  then say he believes in a vain attempt to enter heaven? Will god not see through this deception? Wouldn't the jealous god of the bible be angry then? Obviously this makes no sense but it gets worse. How about living with self respect. Are you seriously telling me that you can extol the faith when you know it's wrong?! What kind of person would you then become? If god gave us reason and logic, would it not then be wrong to dispose of these?  Wouldn't god want us to search for truth, not settle for self imposed brain washing? It is unhealthy to knowingly believe in a lie.

Pascals wager is really a disgusting attempt at creating self delusion in expense of your self respect, dignity, humanity, health, reason, and all the little things that make us explorers of humanity and the cosmos.  This is "religious hucksterism of the cheapest, vulgarest, nastiest kind that is possible to imagine" AND all this says nothing about believing in the wrong god. Last point here, if this god is so forgiving, so loving, so smart, so wonderful why would he have no room in his 'heart' for honest, decent people who have done nothing wrong at all?

Another arguments goes like this; We would not have morality if not for god or religion.

How long have people been around gives you the easy, fast answer.  If you believe the world is only 6,000 years old, there isn't much I can do here.  If you accept that humanity has been around on the order of 100,000 plus years, it is plain to see that we would not have gotten as far as we did if morality wasn't innate.  Morality also follows cultural development and this usually have a religious element to it but as is also plain religion and the bible or koran have come only in the last 2,000 years. How did humanity get by for 98,000+ years without god? How did the jews who wandered the desert before coming upon MT. Sinai know that murder, rape, perjury, theft were not okay? Of course they knew long before then.

If we could go back say 1,000 years or during the time of the Inquisition, we would see that they followed the bible and its tenets very closely.  They persecuted witches, tortured and killed heretics, endorsed slavery and genocide on an order that would frighten and outrage us today.  We can also read the international headlines and read what most muslim countries offer us in light of gods wisdom.  Cutting off the noses and ears for women who dishonor the family, stoning people for conversing with the wrong interpreters of muhammad, and throwing battery acid in the face of women for attending school. Is muhammad's law just and reasonable, I THINK NOT!

Please don't think we need to be stuck in the bronze age of morality and wisdom of our world.  Is it not apparent that we need to understand our history and moderate our ignorance of issues and topics with care and understanding?  Do you realize modern western culture has moderated christianity to its current standing and the muslin world lags behind us only for the fact that their faith guides their society and not education, science, and reason.  Do not let faith guide your actions anymore.

Y U NO LEAVE COMMENT?

This blog is still a young blog.  June 20th. of 2011 was the first post and after Sept. I almost quit writing at all.  Aiming to forget this blog came the new year. Not quite a resolution but on more of a suggestion that I keep writing, I have been posting new topics and have kept the blog current for about 2 months now.  I have seen a dramatic increase in traffic from before with a lot of traffic occurring most recently.  Total views of this site are not anything to brag about but it has raised the questions; Does my writing reach anyone?  Do people read and care?

I have just relabeled the blog posts into a more concise listing and have come to realize that this blog may lack focus.  My aim is to have a mix of topics and still focus on 3 main issues encompassing Atheism (religion), politics, and entertainment.  After the relabeling I have noticed that many posts are under the philosophy label and this is somewhat of a catch all of coherent ideas and some inane ramblings.  Politics and entertainment both have a high content total and to keep it balanced, I will write more on Atheism; what is it, what it means, and to show its not devil worship.

This posts goal is to generate some level of feedback.  Since I am new to blogging I have no idea on what it takes to get followers or even comments out of people.  As of now not a single person has commented which isn't actually disheartening but it is somewhat like being in the dark.  I have tried to post decent content and make the page look half-well designed.  I have also begun to include more photos and embed more videos for a more entertaining site.

I have searched blog spot posts randomly by using the 'next blog' widget while logged in and many blogs seem very uninteresting.  Sometimes the page that it lands on may have only a tertiary relevance to the blog itself and this single sample is judged for better or for worse.  I can see how some of my older posts are less attractive then my current content.  So then how do I get a person to stick around a little longer?  I can see how a great many people may be put off by the Atheist topics but I try to include enough variety to hook a greater audience.  Is it working?

Tell me what YOU want to see or read about. How do YOU want this blog to look?  Tell me am I relevant to YOU?

An atheist or should I say a human's point of view

At the bottom of this post lies the url for the point of this post.  When you look at a person, what is it you see?  Do you see a baseless individual or something more perhaps?  Do you see a soul or a primate? When you look into the eyes of a child, do you see a muslim child or catholic child or simply a child?

I frequently come across the writings of religious believers and its runs the gamut of reasonable discourse to insane ramblings that seem more akin to the residents of a mental hospital. The worst make flagrant attempts to sway only the most credulous of us into their way of twisted thinking. This gem here was gleamed from the a fore mentioned link: "....anything this side of Hell is mercy. Remember--you deserve to go to Hell."  This is in reference to the 'basic' person; you, me, everyone.  This does not seem fit for a healthy mind to think such of people.

Let us try to imagine our soul, just now infused into the zygoat of our mothers womb.  Did I ask or better yet, did my soul ask to be created and then infused into this biology?  It seems to me that in any event we all came into this world through no choice of our own. Only now many years after our birth do we now have the ability to even question such things. So here we are 'given' life for which we do not deserve for we are immoral, grotesque, sinners.  We are all apparently just a breath away from being evil.  If you thinks this of us, then we do indeed deserve hell. But fortunately for us all, there is no evidence of any sort that leads, either rationally or logically, to these conclusions.  This evidence include literature, science, history, and even other holy books and scripture.

If the theist god who created the cosmos is to be true, he gave us many faculties in which to learn and disseminate how the world really is.  This quote says much:  "....because ''believing on Christ'' means surrendering everything, giving up everything. If you are not willing to surrender everything,..."  I have heard this before and I'm betting you have as well.  I understand this to mean that we are to give up our logic, reason, skepticism, and even our very inquisitive nature.  Why would god give us these things just for us to dispose of them?  This isn't how you treat a gift.

Would anyone argue that we are not, at a base level, explorers. We all explore the universe, our world, ourselves, human experience, emotion, and a myriad of other 'things'.  Even the religious try to get to the truth, even if they incorrectly discount certain information.  So in our very nature to seek religious truth, the above quote seems to be irreconcilable with what the aim of its objective is.

There is racking misery to be found right here on earth. Fortunately nothing in, on, or above this earth tells me there is a hell waiting for us. Nor is there a heaven where god sits waiting for us to commit thought crime to judge us without appeal.  I cannot submit myself to this willful attempt at intellectual suicide and I implore you not to fall for these tricks they would have you fall into. All this talk of humanity belongs in hell seems very hateful to me. Why would god use hate in order for us to conform to his wishes, which seem to me to be mightily terrestrial.

There is nothing in the bible or koran or any other holy text that suggests they have any special knowledge.  There is nothing in these books that have any information any more advanced than that of a 1st or 7th century man.  A modern wheelbarrow would have been the invention of a lifetime and yet we should listen to them on the creation, workings, and death of the universe? No sir, I will not let this happen. I will not subscribe to ignorance in the face of knowledge. I will not let my mind fall victim to irrational discourse. I will not let my country fall victim to theocratic politicians. And I beg that you will not either.

http://freegracepreacher.blogspot.com/2010/07/letter-to-awakened-sinners.html

HEYYYYYYYY Jackboot!

History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by  controlling money and its issuance. -James Madison

Lest we fall victim to the civilizations of old. Lest we pass into the dust of time. We are quickly nearing the apogee of victory or the knife edge of defeat. Why must we be brought to this point in time? Why must it be us and this next generation of people who decide the fate of the future.  Indeed it always has been this way, but this time, there is an urgency which will not wait for us.  We are facing problems on a scale unprecedented and our systems of governance make sure, that all remains the same to keep the gears working. Not a single system is untouched. Some are damaged many in total disrepair.

Not even the earth itself goes untouched by our consumption. We have it lucky locally but a quick search will bring up many areas who are suffering ecological damage unheard of, even 20 years ago.  Anaerobic lakes and waterways are becoming common and like the oxygen starvation of these biomes, our politics seem to represent fewer and fewer of us while they control more and more.

People will look back at us as we are now and will exclaim in utter disbelief in how backwards we were, as we do now on peoples past . The trick which we must accomplish is avoiding history exclaiming how we were a nation that had everything, and squandered it all away in pettiness.  Our disputes are not beyond reproach but it is the people we have let come into our charge that are.  These people, our elected officials, have wrestled away control of our arguments from us.  They form the debate topics and they put sound bites over the air as truth.  They have taken a hold of us and its time we recognize this so we may begin to push back.

We can start with campaign finance reform.  Does anyone here not see the conflict of interest of having business give money to our elected officials?  Does anyone here not recognize how our votes are diminished when our corporations give millions of dollars each to our hopeful representatives? Our votes have been largely replaced by dollars often times ranging in the hundreds of thousands. Corporate controlled news agencies owned by these same money donators only discuss politics with two parties in mind.  They keep the horse race alive. With the power of the internet we can have a free choice again.  Our candidates can get their message heard at minimal cost and with minimal molestation.

We can start with state primaries occurring at the same time.  As it is now we have states like Iowa and South Carolina deciding for us.  They vote first "weeding out" the less preferable candidates, giving their vote far more weight.  As some of you can attest, those who follow politics, many candidates have fallen away from the "top tier", so called by the popular media due to a minority vote.  We can easily make it a choice to vote for candidates who matter to us, not for the party.

We can start with ourselves.  We have become entrenched in our ideologies in total disregard for the ideas of a new generation.  There are good ideas out there and there are bad.  We can engage in rational discourse, separating out the bad ideas from the good, refrain from pure opposition, and embrace views and policy that benefits everyone. My friends, I ask you to break free of your shackles that they have put us in, free you mind, free you choice, and don't listen to them, listen to your heart, your intuition, not their hate, not their propaganda, not that which will bind you servitude.

Lastly, we can start with refusing to treat money as a commodity in and of itself. Thomas Jefferson had this to say; “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”  Since when did the creation of an item out of nowhere, give that item an intrinsic value.  We need to look at our monetary policy with a critical eye and ask; Is this a system geared towards abuse and control or simply altruistic? In case you haven't noticed, the owners and architects of these financial institutions which set up our system to crash in 2008, have gone completely without legal notice.  How many people have they harmed and how much pain have they caused without a single summons being issued?  You can rob a bank for $100 and spend 20 years in jail and yet crash the western worlds markets and get away with record bonuses! They are protected by our so called elite who have no interest in us, beyond pushing our dollars up the pyramid. They do not care about us. They do not care about us. Their greed is insatiable. 

Issue of currency should be lodged with the government and be protected from domination by Wall Street. We are opposed to…provisions [which] would place our currency and credit system in private hands. – Theodore Roosevelt

I don't always know what to do, or what exactly to say but I do know that I can make an impassioned plea for your rationality. To unbind you and myself from fear.  I implore you don't let them decide for you. There is still hope yet. All is not lost. We can still pull out from this !IF! we pay very close attention. We need to join hearts in unison and exclaim "If we are not free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" We will throw ourselves onto the gears. We will revolt with our very existence.

Speech Time!

The video below is from the movie "The Great Dictator", which was made a little over 70 years ago. Charlie Chaplin took a big risk financing this himself as well as acting in it.  The music track is from Inception, made by Hans Zimmer.  I urge you to read about this movie further for this post is only a portal for more information.



 I'm sorry but I don't want to be, an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others' happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the good earth is rich, and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world. Millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men---machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

flight

Sail above the earth
dance around the clouds
on wings of flight
and engines of power

Wings of an angel
keep me safe in steel
give me feul
to soar forever

A dream of flight
to own the sky
sail towards the stars
found my home in heaven

Don't want it to end
my dream of flight
keep watch for the ground
To land is to end

Unbelief IS an option.

"I didn't know unbelief was an option." I once heard this, I can't remember where, from a person who formerly believed in a religion.  One of the other statements I have heard was "I didn't realize that there were people that had read my holy book or had looked at religion with an open mind and found no proof. I thought it was simply Christians (or any other religion) and people who haven't yet found god."  Statements of both these kinds are from people who have had little or no contact with a person of non-belief or perhaps a person of another faith, in an open and non confrontational atmosphere.

I wanted to define Atheism and what it means or does not mean.  The dictionary would say:
a·the·ism/ˈāTHēˌizəm/  Noun:  The theory or belief that God does not exist. But this is not quite right. Atheism is not a "belief" that god doesn't exist, it more means that a person can find no evidence to believe in god.  The difference may seem subtle but it is important.  Think of Atheism as a zero point expression.  A baby would be Atheist for they no more believe in god, a religion, or Santa Claus *yet*, for how could they. They can't read or speak!  Atheism is akin to NOT believing in alchemy or astrology.  If you do not believe in these two things, we don't have a word for it!

More often than not, a person who 'invokes' Atheism usually has a good grasp on not only his countries popular religion but also of the other minority ones as well. What is also interesting is that many studies have been conducted, where an Atheist or a person who discounts a religion will actually possess more information of that religion than the general population or even that of the layman's of that religion. I will reference the Pew study here: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1745/religious-knowledge-in-america-survey-atheists-agnostics-score-highest

This is a basic framework for Atheism but like all things, there are shades of colors. For example there are 'strong' Atheists and 'weak' Atheists. A strong one will say god is false versus a weak one will say it cannot be proved true.  This is not contradictory to the above framework.  A weak Atheist should not be confused with Agnosticism, a person who says god may or may not exist and may or never be proved.  Now to muddy the waters a little an Atheist may say, without being an Agnostic, that one day god can be proved to be true, if the evidence proves it to be true.

Even if god were to be proved true it would not prove a specific religion was true. This gives us Deism which many of our nations forefathers were. Others were ambivalent on religion and still more were christians and catholics.  Thomas Jefferson was a Deist but today when it is more sociably acceptable to invoke Atheism but still not politically so, may have called himself an Atheist, along with James Madison, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin.

"Atheists have no morals, since they don't believe in God". This is true in part.  There is nothing in Atheism that says anything on morality or politically or anything besides god. You can be a communist or mad psycho killer and be atheist (which you can be part of any religion and be a psycho killer as well).  More often than not what you will find along with Atheism is being a Secular Humanist. Humanism is for another topic but I can most assuredly tell you, it is not devil worship or the like.  I can pull up many parts of scripture in the bible or koran, which by my western sensibilities are indeed IMMORAL and repugnant. It is undeniably interesting to find out what most religions texts find to be moral but many practitioners of said faith find to be abhorrent behavior.

 I would like for you to view your faith from a critical eye, actually read your holy book, and then challenge your beliefs with debate, either in person or watch debates on youtube, Fora.tv or anywhere else.  I must applaud many christians who would say, "If my faith cannot stand the test of scrutiny, I should not be believing in it."

On closing I would like for you to watch this video. A search on youtube on this video will bring up 3 different parts. Please search for them.

Great by Tony Rogers

http://tonyrogers.bandcamp.com/track/great



Found this little nugget of a song. Normally I hate (read loath) TV commercials for many reasons but every once in awhile one shows up and a gem is to be found within. This song on the above track was featured in a Purina dog food advertisement and the sound hit me just right.

For me this is a tragedy and not a comedy. I'm fighting the notion that the song is talking about pets and will continue with the assumption we are talking about people. For me the singers voice doesn't convey bliss or contentment but a sense of what is wrong. Someone else can see what I could be but I still cannot. I feel within that I have the energy to accomplish, but have no outlet. The person who can see these things remains as a icon, to keep striving for greatness.
At the end though it seems that the feeling remains but its almost a resignation has set in. Or maybe I feel that at the end because the song ends, who's to say?



To a point I was good
Tried to do stuff that I should
Tried to do what you said
Tried to sleep in my own bed
But my bones wouldn’t rest
‘Til I put me to my test
And I remembered what you said

That I could be great
So so great
(let it right out)

Being good isn’t tough
But it’s also not enough
What’s the use enduring birth
If I can’t find what out it’s worth
I need dreams, I need plans
I need you to understand
And I remember what you said

That I could be great
So so great

I can bite off more and I can chew
We may never know what I can do

I could be great
So so great

Early Bird

This image was take by me in Spokane, WA on July 19, 2011 4:18 am.  It is of the Upriver Dam.  This dams purpose is to provide water for a large portion of the city of Spokane. Down river, perhaps 750 ft or so, is the second portion of the facility shown here:

 The electricity generated from the turbines is used to power the water pumps from the regional aquifer.  A Google search will clearly show the 2 damns and how they are arranged.  This third image shows the main spillway section in brighter conditions:

The last two images were also taken by me at approximately 6am.  The images are free to use but please credit my blog if you use the them. 

All we have to do, is get rid of the pulse

This is an excerpt from the March 2012 edition of Popular Science:

Regar and the Central American patient proved that humans could survive, indeed thrive, with no pulse.....Rather than augmenting an existing heart...they would replace it entirely with two turbines, one to do the work of the left ventricle and one to do the work of the right. 


Last March, they got their long awaited chance. A 55year old man named Craig Lewis showed up at the Texas Heart Institute with a case of amyloidosis....Lewis had slid form perfect health to death's door in less than a year.


The doctors attached him to a heart lung machine, and another device took over function of the kidneys. He kept going into cardiac arrest, though, and staying attached to the machines was no longer feasible in any case. "That's permissible for only 5 days, and he was on day 14,"
Cohn says...."There was no way he was going to survive a heart transplant; the amyloid would have attacked it."..... Cohn removed Lewis's disceased heart and replaced it with a pair of Heartmate II's.


Two days after surgery, Lewis sat up in bed and spoke with his family. An aspiring engineer, he even sketched ideas for how better to hook up the heart....The patients liver failed so bad that within 5 weeks, he lost consciousness and his family asked Cohn to witch the heart off. But he'd gotten those 5 weeks time to say goodbye. And he'd left a legacy.......


This excerpt is taken from a larger story on how they have already replaced in part or the total function of the heart with a small turbine.  It is a continuous pump that produces no beat.  The article talks about 2 people on this planet who walk around not with a thump thump of the heart rhythm but flatlined, with blood flow and pressure. Wild.

What moved me about this article was the time this "heart" gave to Craig Lewis.  It is interesting how we live our lives and what amounts to a large part of our awaking time, is spent on focusing on moving time along. By not being at work or some function or with boredom. Or doing all the things that we MUST do and not spending time on whats important or worse yet, wasting time in the worst possible way.  It is an interesting dynamic that when we are out of time, what would would give or do for just a few days or even hours more.

There have been many a philosophical tale or story devoted to what would you do in your final days and that notion usually brings a great swell of emotion. Depending on various factors some people would think to engage in extreme sports, skydiving or base jumping, or getting a Corvette.  Nearly everyone would make it a priority contacting loved ones, cherished friends and reconnecting with people lost to time and commitments.  What might you do dear reader?

Book review in less than 100 pages.

Sam Harris (author) often seems amused but possibly 'unenthused' about being part of what some have called him and his compatriots "The Four Horsemen".  Of course I am referring to Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett and Sam Harris, a quartette of godless heathens.  In a review of his book, A Letter to a Christian Nation,  Sam Harris nails several arguments home with a basic and thought out candor that would make a fan of political correctness shudder. But thank our lucky stars we don't really care for "pc" here.

I don't mean to insult unnecessarily but I can see how both a book like this and reality as we Atheists put it, is indeed very insulting to those whos beliefs we attack here.  People who put faith before reason would find this a very hard read undoubtedly because Sam along with millions of others find that faith should be the last ideal to be propagated through ones mind. But faith is the ideal held foremost to these peoples minds so there is very little common ground with which to begin to converse on these matters in the most polite way.

All that aside this book is in the format of an open letter. Its roughly 100 pages is an easy read not loaded with overblown rhetoric but it is fairly simple and to the point.  Some have chastised it as being  "fundamentalist atheist" while attacking christian fundamentalists.  It attacks the bible. So how can you believe in being christian but not believe in the bible is beyond me but I digress.  It makes strait forward points that get to the heart of the matter and it WILL get you thinking. I give it a 9/10 only for being short even though that was the goal.

A couple of the arguments which I will highlight here is: Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture, and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of six billion human beings. The same statistics also suggest that this girls parents believe - as you believe - that an all powerful and all loving god is watching over them and their family..........One wonders just how vast and gratuitous a catastrophe would have to be to shake the worlds faith. The holocaust did not do it. Neither did the genocide of Rwanda, even with machete wielding priests among the perpetrators. Five hundred million people died from smallpox in the twentieth century, many of them infants. God's ways are indeed inscrutable......Of course people of all faiths reassure one another that god is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that god is both omniscient and omnipotent?


Even if you don't accept that as a valid argument, as seen in genesis god wiped out the population of the earth himself or in revelation god will do it again, to the point of god doesn't care about death. It should at least set the stage for further arguments and get a person thinking.

If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures.....we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the bible (and the ten commandments [mine]) with a single sentence: Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.


Sam goes on to say which makes my point for my follow up: Imagine how different our world might be if the bible contained this as its central precept.


Reading the comment section of another review of this book, the commenter had this to say "Hasn't the 20th. century taught us anything?  People like Hitler (who said he was christian but was not), Stalin, or Mao suppressed religion and murdered people who practiced it".  Sam Harris says reason should win out but a government that murders its people, does that seem reasonable?  SO, it should seem apparent but if not immediately so we should strive for building up that wall of separation of church and state that Thomas Jefferson fought so rightly for.

It is a secular state that atheists, anti-theists, and the like should and overwhelmingly do strive for but they usually don't get that point across. They, I, would like to see a world where reason wins out but that thinking is set aside for the singular, personal mind.  The conversations we have should reflect this in that criticizing religious beliefs should be like criticizing any other fact or idea but that in no way means one should adopt a totalitarian view against such religious ideas on the scale of government.  To separate church and state does not say to DISALLOW the building of a church or similar.

So go out and buy this book and get some neurons firing. In ending ↓↓↓ abraham going to kill his son on orders from god.  Fortunately for Isaac god either changed his mind or figured he temped abraham enough.

http://graysprovocation.com/

Title of the post is the topic. Beware this website has nudity.  I would not want you walking into a place or website and having your sensibilities damaged.

This picture above is a sample on http://graysprovocation.com/ and I first became aware of this site when I found one of his videos here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKfl94x3ptg Titled "Ode to 2011".  The content on the official site is slightly different and I recommend going there instead of youtube. The way I found this was, I was browsing through a genre of music called dubstep.  Dubstep is a take on electronica music which features a driving heavy bass beat with the possibility of "glitch" included.  Here is an example of another dubstep song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7-XLL3nbYU . The first video is a remix of Massive Attack's Paradise Circus by Zeds Dead.

I rather enjoy the music alone but I find the video to be extremely attractive and I believe it falls under "art" and not pornography. That being said it is a super sexy video which the author seems to label as a short compilation.  The cinematography seems to capture the feeling of the music, at least for me, and the bass effects.  Not really having a story line does not detract anything for it has more than latent sexuality about it, that it should fire off enough endorphins to keep you interested.

It appears this artist works along the west coast featuring models from Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. On his site are a mixture of tasteful stills and videos. A preview of a new video appears that may have a little more of a violent edge mixed with sexuality titled Gun Metal Grey and only gives a hint at the music which appears to be of another dubstep song. I feel this is an artist who could use a little attention and I give him the "Sine Deo" endorsement.  He does sell some videos at a nominal price and I'm sure that helps to keep bringing these sexy models to the "stage", if you will.

Vanity Fair

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/06/hitchens-proust-questionnaire-201006

Christopher Hitchens (13 April 1949–15 December 2011) has died of esophageal cancer. He admitted in part that, staying up too late with friends smoking, drinking to keep the conversation going may have been the reason that cancer formed. Not a whole lot I can say here about this 'demigod' that has not been said before but he may not been a teacher in the classical sense but he is one to learn a great deal from.

Having a female friend who gets Cosmopolitan, I see they have many surveys but they are a little too female oriented.  Combining these two threads is the topic of the link above. It is safe for work and life. If I may, in defiance to ACTA/SOPA,PIPA and take this survey myself to enjoy a mental exercise:

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Pain, misery, hunger, sickness when these things are so easily fixed in our community and world by sheer economics of needing to maintain a society where profit rules supreme.


Where would you like to live?
The future; I would like to know more about the universe, the sciences of the mind, and where we were going as a civilization.  Do we prosper or something worse?


What is your idea of earthly happiness?
non-contingent happiness.  Some sort of intrinsic happiness.


To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
To my appetite and sometimes to my listlessness


 Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
The characters of Star Trek.


Who are your favorite characters in history?
That's more difficult to nail down for history usually has a lens on it.  I would say the writers of our constitution, or the many unnamed, often times soldiers, through time who stood up to tyrants, theocratic leaders, and despots AND who knew they were doing a moral right.


Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
All those women who wrote under male names or anonymous


Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Evey in V for Vendetta, Star Trek Heroins especially Uhura for a female character in a technical role that commanded respect and not subservience. 


Your favorite painter?
If I can abuse the openness of the question I would say Bill Watterson, even though he may be more of an animator.


Your favorite musician?
How do I pick just one? In my teenage years the one group that was most influential for me was Korn.


The quality you most admire in a man?
Not being afraid to fail, while not possessing arrogance but still not being submissive to the thoughts of others.


The quality you most admire in a woman?
The same as above but with the seemingly innate sense to take care for one another.


Your favorite virtue?
Honesty, in life and in truth


Your least favorite virtue, or nominee for the most overrated one?
Like Hitchens', faith. and piety.


Your proudest achievement?
I'll Let you know when I find one remarkable.


Your favorite occupation?
One that you can earn money on your owns terms. I have not found it yet.


Who would you have liked to be? 
The US president after Sept. 11th 2001. I would hope I would have had the strength to differ in the course we took for this nation in nearly every regards. Especially so in how we have wasted our respect in the world that took so many years to build up.


Your most marked characteristic? 
Internally; question everything. Externally; my height.


What do you most value in your friends? 
The will to challenge me in a positive way.


What is your principal defect?
 Intolerance of bad ideas or perceived stupidity


What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
Living a life not worth dying for.


What would you like to be?
Free of daily physical pain in the chronic sense


What is your favorite color?
Clear


What is your favorite flower?
The tulip or possibly the Iris


What is your favorite bird?
The Mallard


What word or expression do you most overuse?
Expressions of frustration and/or disbelief, although  feel I may not be at fault.


Who are your favorite poets?
Song writers. Vague I know but the marrying of music with words moves me the most. Pink Floyd for instance.


What is it you most dislike?
Myself sometimes.  The monetary system.


Which historical figures do you most despise?
The Stalins, Pol Pots, Maos and Che Guevaras, the REAl bastards


Which contemporary figures do you most despise?
The Jerry Falwells of the world, Pat Robertson


Which events in military history do you most admire?
The desperate ones in retreat. The English Expeditionary Force in WW2 for instance. Its history combined with an emotion.


Which natural gift would you most like to possess?
Oration in front of many strangers.


How would you like to die?
At a ripe age and with as little pain as possible.


What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I'm balding with glasses and fat which makes it hard to choose


What is your motto?
Paralysis through analysis




How would you do?


Thank you.

Some inane ramblings......

.....which may have a semblance of an actual point.


"When the poet stands at nadir the world must indeed be upside-down. If the poet can no longer speak for society, but only for himself, then we are at the last ditch.”— Excerpt from, The Time of the Assassins

By what measurement, in what amount, would we have, what constitutes free will?  By what paradigm do our brains occupy, that would be an indication that we have such a thing?  Is our free will injured?  It would seem to me that free will also falls under the umbrella as free choice as well as free thought.

Lets take a classic example of a duality which interferes which such notions; capitalist vs communist.  At their most elemental neither are necessarily evil. Certainly in the practical workings one may be "better" than the other but is it really this way?  We can talk about poor leaders and abuses in the system but that is not the core argument I'm trying to make.  How much do these systems interfere with our ability to be "free" of coercion is. Coercion defined as the act of compelling by force or authority.

Authority seems to be a central part in an institution or systems ability to function.  The more authority over a person or group the more power it possess for its own purpose.  Every systems central function would be to hold authority over, in the least a !part! of your mind and the larger the piece the better.  "If it were not for Democracy, you would not have freedom and then you'd be a communist."  A small example on how insidious and how innocent even, a comment can begin to control your thinking. 

How many times in your life have you taken one of your most closely held beliefs and questioned it?  Have you ever sought out a person who held an opposing belief?  Have you ever questioned American exceptionalism?  Maybe you didn't know there was such a thing? Political party, religion, monetary systems, governmental policy ect, have no such thing as an objectively correct basis with which to declare an authority.  Take time to ask yourself; The ideals that I hold true, have I actually agreed to them or acquiesced to them?  I see that there is a massive and detailed difference between those two states we inhabit.

Another way we can look at how vulnerable we are to various states and level of indoctrination we're under is a game of word association to emotion.  What is it you feel emotionally when I say the words Muslim, Christian, Atheist or Democrat, republican, occupy wall street.  How guarded do you feel when someone else wants to vote for Obama or Mitt Romney.  Politics is easy to counter; we can argue all day who is better or what candidate is repugnant but step outside of the insane hurricane and we can all agree that there is something very, very wrong with the system as a whole.

I guess my point is that "Is this the best we can do, only if it is only for our self?"

We would like to call it objectivity but I do not envision on how we can have such a thing. The world is so insidious in its indoctrination's from birth, not to mention our inadequacy to have all the facts at hand how can we have free thought at all? Being a contrarian may not be so bad after all. 

In ending: “In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay.

And unless it wants to break faith with its social function,

art must show the world as changeable.

And help to change it."

~ Ernst Fischer