The Battleship Cerebral

A Skepic and A Hypnotist Walk Into A Bar...

2010-08-31T22:41:00.017-04:00

So I recently watched Mark Irish, a stage hypnotist, perform here at Old Dominion. After the show, I was pretty darn curious about this whole hypnosis thing, so I did some quick research on the subject, specifically about stage hypnosis.

For some kinds of hypnosis, the jury is still technically out, but when they left the jurors were all smirking to each other and winking suggestively. For things like hypnotherapy to get you to stop smoking or lose weight, it's either a giant placebo effect or there is no observable effect.

Stage hypnosis is another beast entirely. It's a combination of factors that add up to the subjects playing along. What I'm going to do is write a description of the show, and below each part I'm going to add an explanation in bold of what I saw happening as far as acting and trickery. I may get things slightly out of order after the first couple of points, and I may have forgotten a routine or two, but the important stuff is the trickery at the beginning and the obvious stuff that I saw anyway.

The show (Irish's, that is) starts with the hypnotist telling the audience to put their hands out in front of them, and to imagine a balloon tied to one and a bucket in the other. The audience closes their eyes and Irish tells them to add balloons to the balloon hand and wet sand into the bucket. After adding sand and balloons for a while, he has the audience open their eyes. Those whose hands are far apart (and those who have been hypnotized before) are allowed to volunteer to be the hypnosis subjects for the show.

The balloon and bucket routine is just a quick measure of suggestibility using the ideomotor effect. From those people he asks for volunteers, but gives priority to those who have been hypnotized before. This ensures that his first draft of subjects is likely to be compliant to the show.

He then spends a few minutes relaxing the subjects, getting them all apparently sleeping. He goes to each one, getting them individually deeper into the trance. He tells them they can't say their names, and individually asks each one. About half of them say their names. Once he's done everyone, those who answered leave the stage as the audience applauds.

It's important to note how Irish does this bit. Once he's got everyone in their relaxed position (with their hands on their legs, sitting down) he engages in a bit of showmanship and very probably some sleight of hand. He goes to each subject individually and picks up their hand, saying that they're "Ten times as relaxed" as he drops it in their lap, then again, "A hundred times as relaxed." Then he takes both hands at once and pulls them between the subject's knees. At this point he is using both of his hands, one of which contains his microphone. This is where he whispers to them; from the front row of the audience what exactly he says is indistinct. This is the point where he is most likely simply telling them to play along. I suspect that he says it so that more than one person can hear it at a time, which then gives him room to say "Sleep" more audibly for the audience to the people who have already received his instruction. He also may have used a plant; one girl on stage had apparently driven him from the airport to campus. Plants are apparently used mostly to help suggest (by example) what the other subjects are supposed to be doing.

When he starts asking the subjects their names, it's basically his last screening to see who's going to play along to fool the audience. We're meant to believe that it just didn't work on some people, and it adds to the illusion if it doesn't appear to affect everyone. Those who remain on stage are now in on it, and Irish doesn't have to whisper to them individually from this point on. Also, now when he wants them to sleep he snaps his fingers and lowers his hand down as they follow it instead of doing anything that would require moving the microphone away from his mouth, and he clearly tells them to sleep. His actual sleight of hand work is done, so there's no need. It might also look a bit suspicious if he kept saying things to them that the audience couldn't hear.

For the next bit, Irish told the subjects that when he said "red" (also read, because they're phonetically the same) their favorite body part would get bigger, and when he said "blue" it would get smaller. Most of the subjects picked something like their leg or an arm, but one girl mimed growing cleavage and one guy just stared at his lap so they were the ones that got the attention.

By this point all the trickery on Irish's part is done and it's up to the subjects to act convincingly. All Irish does now is stall for a little bit of time after he gives them their instructions while "asleep" so they can think of what they're going to do, thus allowing more complex routines. The girl who mimed expanding breasts (known henceforth as Boob Girl) started out acting very convincingly but as the bit went on it started to break down a little. When she started moving her hands in a clearly intentional way (jerking them several inches forward or back) at the "red" and "blue" cues, Irish moved on. The guy staring at his lap was more convincing.

For the next bit, Irish told the subjects that he'd brought a whole bunch of hundred dollar bills, but that he'd taped them together. He produced a roll of toilet paper and had them take the "money" and hide it where no-one could find it. Some of the hiding places were funny, others boring.

The guy at the end in the blue shirt was probably the worst actor of the bunch for this bit, but it was amusing. Whenever he got some "money" he dashed off the stage and hid it in or behind some plants in the corner of the room. When he sat back down after the first or second time, he winked and gave an "OK" sign to the audience.

The next bit was an improvised Jerry Springer show, for which two engaged couples and a security guard were chosen. The fiancees were leaving their fiances (that's the women and the men, respectively) for clown shoes (one each). They were also pretending to be rednecks when they introduced themselves.

This one was pretty straightforward acting and nobody did anything obviously fake, but Irish did give them longer to come up with their redneck names and jobs than he did for the other bits.

The next bit was for the subjects to make faces at the substitute teacher. Funny faces and middle fingers abounded.

Also pretty straightforward and one of the funnier bits of the show.

For the Martian translators bit, Irish assigned some subjects to be translators and others to be Maritans. He had the Martians answer questions about Earth, Earth men, and Earth women. It was only very slightly dirty.

One girl cracked up in the middle of her "translation" and her take on the Martian language was much different than the others because it sounded an awful lot like she was trying not to laugh. After the microphone went to somebody else she cracked up completely and took a minute to regain her composure while the others continued the bit.

For the Raining Men bit, the song played while the (female) subjects imagined that it was literally raining men (around them, not on them). Irish asked them how they felt about it, etc. to some funny responses.

The bits where the subjects imagined external objects around them tended to be less convincing than the other ones, presumably because it's a bit difficult to be a good mime. It also makes sense that these acts were done toward the middle and end of the show, because if Irish had started with this stuff he wouldn't have fooled the audience. It's only once you've bought into the hypnosis act that these things cease to arouse suspicion, which would make it less entertaining.

After the raining men, Irish told the male subjects that they were pregnant, and told the female subjects to coach them. He also told them that at the "labor" signal, they were to go into labor. One guy got really into it and actually went into "labor" before the cue was given. After they gave birth and were holding their babies, Irish asked each guy whether his was a boy or a girl and what they were going to name it.

That the one guy started his "labor" early is a pretty big giveaway that he was acting. Otherwise he was pretty convincing through the show, but he must have missed part of the instructions when they were given. I think it would have looked a little suspicious and been confusing for the other subjects if Irish had told him to wait for the cue ("Wait until I say 'labor,'"), so he let it slide.

The next bit wasn't nearly as funny as the rest of the show. Irish had the subjects asleep and told them that when they woke up, the audience would be holding their heads. He instructed the audience to put their hands up next to their heads, palm-up, and mime doing funny things with them (throwing them around, etc.). When he woke the subjects up they reacted, and Irish also had them catch some thrown heads and then make out with them.

This was the single least convincing bit of the night, probably because it was the most mime-intensive. Again, realistic miming is difficult. The make-outs ranged from confused to overacted. Blue Shirt Guy just held his awkwardly for a moment, awkwardly kissed it, and pretended to be disgusted (he even mimed brushing his teeth afterward). At least one guy basically ignored the imaginary head and made out with his hand. It was pretty hokey.

For the last full-fledged bit, Irish told the subjects that when they woke up, they would be watching a funny movie that kept getting funnier and funnier until the channel changed to a scary movie, and then to a channel that they didn't remember buying (i.e. a porno). When he woke them up, they all laughed at their imaginary screens, then when Irish said the channel changed, they acted scared. Boob Girl even hid behind her chair. When Irish changed the channel to the one they didn't remember buying, reactions varied from confused to disgusted to extremely interested. But he kept narrating the channel and finally said "wait...those people look familiar!" which elicited a cry of "that's my mom!" to much laughter from the audience. He turned the screens off and asked some of the subjects how they felt about it, which got some more laughs.

This was one of the funnier bits, and was pretty straightforward easy acting again. It was also more convincing than the other bits.

For his final instruction, he gave the subjects a so-called gift of focus. He told them that they would be able to pinch their thumb and forefinger together to get "laserlike focus" on anything they wanted. He also told them that when they walked back to their seats, they would strike a bodybuilder pose every three steps. He woke them up after telling them to forget everything they'd done on stage except the focusing thing, and asked them how long they'd been on the stage and would they like to be in a hypnosis show. They answered to the effect that they hadn't been on stage for very long and that they would like to be in the show. He told them to go back to their seats for the show and, sure enough, they struck bodybuilder poses every three steps. The girl who cracked up during the Martian Translator bit even struck a pose right in my face and stared at me for a moment before continuing behind me to her seat.

I'm not sure of the rationale behind that whole focusing thing, but it seems like the kind of thing where the person might already focus just fine but might attribute it to the hypnosis when their friends ask them about it. They (and their friends) also might just forget it completely, or they might still have trouble focusing and also forget it completely. When he woke them up, only one or two subjects commented on or seemed confused about the number of people that had left the stage, remembering that when they "went under" there were a lot more people up there. The poses were a nice touch too. On the way out, we heard some of the subjects talking to their friends, apparently oblivious to everything that happened. The friends, of course, were eager to tell them all about the show, so any future memories of the show won't be suspect to those who believe something mysterious actually happened.

So I've outlined what I think happened, and I may be very wrong about the specifics, but I think it's safe to say that the effect of stage hypnosis is achieved by selecting participants who are extroverted and eager to play along and are suggestible and probably fairly convincing actors. There's pressure from the hypnotist and from fellow subjects to play along, and there's the allure of being able to act all sorts of crazy with virtually no social consequences because, after all, you were hypnotized while you were doing it.

It's still a very entertaining show, except for one or two individual routines, and I recommend going to see stage hypnotists in action if you can because they can be quite funny.

[Editor's note: I switched tenses a few times in here, but it was already taking a long time to write this so I didn't bother to fix it. It's the internet, my writing doesn't have to be impeccable.]

British People Offended By Video Game

2010-08-23T07:44:00.003-04:00

My history with Medal of Honor is limited. They used to be World War II games, and they were fairly good until Call of Duty arrived on the scene and made World War II games interesting again. Now it seems WWII is basically played out, at least for now, and MoH is following CoD in shifting its focus to modern warfare.

Video games have, for a long time, depicted violence and aroused controversy. But games are just that: games. They are there for entertainment just like films and books are. And in this particular game people can play as Taliban fighters and kill American soldiers. Being that some of this game is set in an area currently occupied by British troops, I can see how some would assume that the troops are British instead of American even though they are clearly not. It's really beside the point.

The point is that British Defense Secretary Liam Fox wants to ban the new Medal of Honor game. Why? Because it's insensitive to the dead soldiers. Because you can play as a terrorist. In the multiplayer mode.

Uh, hello?

You can play as a fucking NAZI in Call of Duty's multiplayer!

Why the hell is it controversial to kill an American soldier as an angry Arab but not as an angry German? Is CoD multiplayer insensitive to those who served and died in Europe? Of course not! The Wehrmacht fought the Allies, and when you've got players fighting each other they can't both be Allies or it loses its realism. And you can't have players fighting each other in Afghanistan both playing as American Special Forces because, as a general rule of thumb for most situations, THEY DON'T SHOOT EACH OTHER. In fact, they actually go out of their way to avoid friendly fire. Imagine that!

You can literally use his exact words to describe WWII games and it makes the same amount of sense.

Dr Fox said: "It's shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban [Nazis]. At the hands of the Taliban [Nazis], children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands.

"I am disgusted and angry. It's hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game.

"I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product."

Fox is probably not the kind of person who plays video games. He probably spends his free time doing things like reading. I suspect that some ignorant jackass brought this to his attention because they were offended when they saw footage of a player detonating a bomb with a cell phone, and that he subsequently did absolutely no research (and didn't have any of his staff do any, either) before he condemned this game and called for it to be banned.

If he had done some research, he would have found that the single-player campaign not only doesn't have British troops in it, but is entirely about fighting the Taliban. That's the part of the game that has a story and conveys a message. And so far that message seems to be "The American Army shoots terrorists in the face. They shoot terrorists during raids on their hideouts, they shoot terrorists while rescuing hostages, they shoot terrorists from helicopters, and they shoot terrorists from jeeps. What we are getting at is that they shoot a lot of terrorists."

It may turn out that part of the campaign mode does involve playing as Taliban fighters. I don't know because the game hasn't been released and I probably won't get to play it until some time after it is. But seriously, this outcry about the "Taliban game" is just ignorant political posturing on the level of the idiots protesting the "Ground Zero Mosque" in New York. Which is to say they should both get a fucking clue and shut the fuck up about shit they know nothing the fuck about about, pardon my goddamn French.

Catholic Leaders "Refute" Judge’s Ruling Overturning Proposition 8

2010-08-18T08:04:00.003-04:00

A while back, California voters banned gay marriage with ballot Proposition 8. On 4 August, Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional after two gay couples challenged it.

The Catholic Church is well-known for being anti-gay and for thinking they're really smart, so it's no surprise that they've come out with a statement supposedly refuting the judge's decision. I don't think they realize that their "refutation" is basically everything that the defendants of Prop 8 presented in court.

When asked for comment on the judge’s ruling, Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said in an e-mail to CNSNews.com that, “Judge Walker, in his decision, backed his bigotry with errors, including the misstatement that the ‘Catholic Church views homosexuality as sinful.’ The fact is, the Catholic Church sees homosexuality as a condition, an inclination in a person, something not intrinsically sinful.”

“The church calls for pastoral support, not condemnation, for people with this inclination,” said Sister Walsh. “The Catholic Church makes clear that it is homosexual activities it deems sinful, because it holds that all sexual activity belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.”

Sr. Mary Ann defended the Church against the judge’s claim that its religious teachings “harm” gays and lesbians, saying, “the Catholic Church opposes all unjust discrimination against gays and lesbians and abhors violence against them.”

So the Catholic Church doesn't think being gay is a sin, they just think that having gay sex is a sin. See, you can't have non-sinful sex unless you're married, but marriage is between a man and a woman. And you can't change the definition of marriage, because...well, just because.

Fr. Francis de Rosa, parochial administrator of two parishes in Virginia, responded to the judge’s ruling in an e-mail to CNSNews.com. “We are not opposed to the human rights of someone with same-sex attraction,” he wrote. “Rather, we assert that there is no such thing as a special category of ‘gay’ rights. Why? Because homosexuality is a pyscho-sexual disorder that harms the person and society.”

“Condoning such behavior and encouraging people to engage in it by the passage of permissive and protective laws does the real harm, not the position that warns people of the destructive consequences and nature of homosexual acts,” wrote Fr. De Rosa.

Citation needed.

In response to Judge Walker’s statement that, “A state’s interest in an enactment must of course be secular in nature,” Donahue said that the state does indeed have an invested, secular interest in upholding traditional marriage.

The traditional family is the anchor of society and teaches children citizenship, said Donahue. “All the psychological data show that children need a father and a mother.”

Blatantly false. A recent study suggests that children of lesbian parents might actually be better off than other kids. Besides which, I don't see how "anchor of society" is in any way a meaningful phrase or how your parents' genitalia are involved in teaching you citizenship. I suspect Bill Donahue is full of shit. Who knew?

And Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, who chairs the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage, joined Cardinal George in his statement and added, “Citizens of this nation have uniformly voted to uphold the understanding of marriage as a union of one man and one woman in every jurisdiction where the issue has been on the ballot.”

First of all, bullshit on the uniformly voted thing. Five states allow same-sex marriage. In two of those states and in Washington, DC, this is the result of a vote.

Second of all, the majority's opinion doesn't matter when it comes to people's rights. The majority could be wrong.

Fr. de Rosa, also addressed this, saying, “Vaughn Walker’s ruling asserts that the Catholic argument against homosexual acts is without a ‘rational basis,’ yet that teaching is not based solely upon principles of faith. It is certainly possible to argue from pure reason that it is against the nature of the human person to engage in homosexuality.”

“One very obvious point is the manifest lack of bodily and sexual complementarity in homosexual acts,” said Fr. De Rosa. “Furthermore, there is plenty of clinical psychological data to show that same-sex attraction is the result of a developmental disorder. Were one to make an argument from the theory of evolution, homosexuality is most certainly an inferior, dead-end phenomenon.”

Uh, yes it is without a rational basis, yes it is based solely on principles of faith, no it isn't possible to argue that from pure reason, no there isn't evidence that it's a disorder (it was specifically taken off the list, actually), and no it isn't necessarily an inferior or dead-end phenomenon in evolutionary terms. All that aside, this is the naturalistic fallacy. Just because something isn't natural (which, by the way, homosexuality actually is) doesn't mean that it's wrong.

Homosexual unions are totally lacking in the biological and anthropological elements of marriage and family which would be the basis, on the level of reason, for granting them legal recognition,” states the letter. “Such unions are not able to contribute in a proper way to the procreation and survival of the human race. … Society owes its continued survival to the family, founded on marriage. … If, from the legal standpoint, marriage between a man and a woman were to be considered just one possible for of marriage, the concept of marriage would undergo a radical transformation, with grave detriment to the common good.

1. What the hell "biological and anthropological elements of marriage and family" are they talking about?

2. Why would such things be the basis for granting same-sex marriages recognition anyway? This is actually much more about a host of other legal rights that come with marriage, not the least of which are hospital visitation and power of attorney.

3. If not being able to contribute to procreation is a legitimate criterion for barring same-sex marriage, why can old people get married? Why can infertile couples get married? Why can normal couples get married and not procreate? Could it be that marriage actually isn't just about pumping out babies?

4. Did you know that the definition "marriage" once precluded interracial marriages? That's right, it used to be illegal for black people to marry white people. Now it's perfectly legal, and they had to change the definition of marriage to make it that way. Can you sort of see the parallel between the two arguments, there?

The Catholics, or at least these Catholics, are just bigoted assholes trying to keep things the way they are because they thrive on the idea that human nature is bad, something that you have to be forgiven for.

Mormons: Upon Further Consideration, Still Weird

2010-07-14T01:33:00.004-04:00

A while back a friend of mine had a visit from some Mormon missionaries. And, for some reason, he invited them back to talk with him again. He also invited me, but I missed that day. So, in the past two weeks we've met the missionaries at the local Mormon church twice to discuss things.

Frankly, I still think Mormons are weird.

The first meeting was standard fare; introductions followed by a few readings from the Book of Mormon. They gave me a book and one of the missionaries (they call themselves "Elders" but I find that weird, especially when they're not much older than me) recommended a chapter for me to read. I was unimpressed after the first meeting; it was a bunch of "wouldn't it be really cool if..." and "we believe that..." talk, interspersed with bits of the Book of Mormon. I was interested in the same way that I might be interested in any other mythology, but they did nothing to convince me that it was anything more than mythology.

The thing that struck me the most was when I brought up their seeming reliance on the Book of Mormon as an authority of some sort. I told them that they seemed to be relying on the book too much when I hadn't accepted the book yet, and the missionary doing most of the talking responded with an enthusiastic "that's an excellent point!"

A point which he promptly ignored. No attempt to bolster the credibility of the Book of Mormon or anything.

The second meeting was even less productive. We talked about prayer, which for my money is one of the dumbest things to discuss with someone who doesn't believe that there's anything out there to pray to. There's a story in the Book of Mormon about a bunch of people who make a big show of it when they pray, and emphasize their belief that they're going to Heaven and everyone else is going to burn in Hell. And then the good guy promptly prays for the strength to show them that they're wrong. I guess the point was to teach us how to pray.

I raised the same point I did in the last meeting, and I summarized the Star Trek Rule for them (in short, don't quote the Bible unless that quote would carry the same weight if it had been Captain Kirk who said it instead). They said it was a good rule. Then the one missionary drew a diagram that amounted to some bastard love child of circular argumentation and appeals to emotion, the point of which was something about if you read the Book of Mormon and seriously pray about it the right way you'll realize that it's the word of God. I think.

They invited us to a noon church service on Sunday, and at first I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go to it. For one thing, I hate getting up that early during the summer, and for another I don't see how going to church is going to do anything but further convince me of the weirdness of Mormons. Luckily (sort of), I'm going to be with my dad this weekend, and we're going to West Virginia for a pig roast. I'm not at all looking forward to that because I dislike such social events and I don't particularly care for pig meat. I can't leave my sister to suffer through it alone, though, so I'm going. And I'll probably choke down some pork, wishing it were chicken. Maybe a couple boring hours at church isn't so bad, after all...

Texas GOP Platform: An Excersise In Stupid

2010-06-20T10:29:00.004-04:00

To be clear, I'm cherry-picking in this post. There are several things about this platform that I haven't considered enough to form an opinion on, so I won't comment on them. There are, however, things that you'd expect a bunch of idiot rednecks to support, which I know exactly why nobody should.

4. The sanctity of human life, created in the image of God, which should be protected from fertilization to natural death. [translation: no abortion! death penalty: fine by us!]
...
6. Self-sufficient families, founded on the traditional marriage of a natural man and a natural woman. [translation: arrest teh gays! details below.]
7. Having an educated population, with parents having the freedom of choice for the education of their children. [translation: more homeschooling, fewer requirements that they actually learn facts that might offend their sincere belief that God made everything in 6 days about 6000 years ago.]

My translations haven't just been pulled out of my ass; this is based on Texas's track record so far. The Republicans have always opposed abortion, and they still want to outlaw it despite a Supreme Court ruling (Roe v. Wade) that protected abortion rights. They also execute a lot of criminals, which would seem a bit contrary to that "natural death" thing.

Number 6 there is blatantly religiously motivated and should be a non-starter because it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This is still Texas, though.

Number 7 is an attempt to protect the rights of homeschooling parents to teach their kids whatever the fuck they want without being held to any standard of being right about things like evolution. The vast majority of homeschoolers are creationist Christians who don't give a damn about science and still want their beliefs to be respected.

But wait! There's more!

Free Speech for the Clergy – We urge change of the Internal Revenue Code to allow a religious organization to address issues without fear of losing its tax-exempt status. We call for repeal of requirements that religious organizations send government any personal information about their contributors.

The problem with this is, again, the Establishment Clause. The government has to remain neutral with regard to religion, because to do otherwise would be favoring one religion over another (or religion generally over nonreligion) would be religious favoritism, which violates the rights of those not being favored. The way the government stays neutral is by not giving money to religions, and by this logic churches should not be tax-exempt in the first place (not paying taxes is basically free money that the government would otherwise have). They still are, because they are listed as 501c3 nonprofit organizations. Such organizations lose their tax-exempt status if they show political bias. The Texas GOP want to allow churches to keep their 501c3 status and be politically active, which would either allow all such organizations to be politically active or grant an unconstitutional exception for churches. There's more to say about this, but in the interest of brevity (ha!) I'll save it for another day.

Ten Commandments – We oppose any governmental action to restrict, prohibit, or remove public display of the Decalogue or other religious symbols.

Establishment Clause. Unless you'd like to have everyone be allowed to put up similar crap right next to it, including a Buddha, a Shiva statue, that nifty American Atheists atom thingy, some Islamic symbol, etc.

Family and Defense of Marriage – We support the definition of marriage as a God–ordained,

Hold it! Establishment Clause, dipshits.

legal and moral commitment only between a natural man and a natural woman, which is the foundational unit of a healthy society, and we oppose the assault on marriage by judicial activists. We call on the President and Congress to take immediate action to defend the sanctity of marriage. We are resolute that Congress exercise authority under the United States Constitution, and pass legislation withholding jurisdiction from the Federal Courts in cases involving family law, especially any changes in the definition of marriage. We further call on Congress to pass and the state legislatures to ratify a marriage amendment declaring that marriage in the United States shall consist of and be recognized only as the union of a natural man and a natural woman. Neither the United States nor any state shall recognize or grant to any unmarried person the legal rights or status of a spouse. We oppose the recognition of and granting of benefits to people who represent themselves as domestic partners without being legally married.

Wow. In short: If we can't git them fags outta the state, we might as well make 'em miserable if they decide to stay!

Seriously, that is fucked up. But that's just the opening of this section. It goes on to say:

Marriage Licenses – We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such.

So if you even try to help out a gay couple trying to get married, it's a felony. Which usually means jail time. I wonder if you could get away with it by claiming that you had no idea they were a same-sex couple.

Homosexuality – We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.

They're trying to paint this as protecting society, using absurd excuses that any jackass who sits down and thinks about it for five minutes could debunk. "Tears at the fabric of society?" A meaningless phrase used to create fear. "Contributes to the breakdown of the family unit?" Demonstrably false; homosexual couples raise kids just as well as straight couples in the same circumstances. "Leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases?" They say that like straight sex doesn't spread diseases! In short, it's a bullshit excuse for a bullshit position.

Texas Sodomy Statutes – We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.

They want to keep teh gayz from having sex, and they want to keep the federal government from keeping them from keeping teh gayz from having sex.

There follows a lengthy anti-abortion section; the particulars are boring but there's one thing that stood out:

Morning After Pill – We oppose sale and use of the dangerous “Morning After Pill.”

Dangerous? It'd be nice if they could describe how it's dangerous rather than simply asserting that it is. It's not like it even kills anything. Ethically speaking, it's the same as a condom. PZ Myers can explain better than I can.

Conscience Clause – We believe that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, any employees of hospitals and insurance companies, health care organizations, medical and scientific research students, and any employee should be protected by Texas law if they conscientiously object to participate in practices that conflict with their moral or religious beliefs, including but not limited to abortion, the prescription for and dispensing of drugs with abortifacient potential, human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, eugenic screenings, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration.

In other words, if you don't want to do your job because it conflicts with your religious beliefs, go ahead and not do your job.

Controversial Theories – Realizing that conflict and debate is a proven learning tool in classrooms, we support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories, including evolution, Intelligent Design, global warming, political philosophies, and others. We believe theories of life origins and environmental theories should be taught as challengeable scientific theory subject to change as new data is produced, not scientific law. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.

There's no such thing as "scientific law" in the sense used here; only facts and those who refuse to accept them. I'd have no objection to this bit if they meant it honestly, but all they want is to launch what are actually baseless attacks on evolution in the classroom. Republicans hate science, pure and simple.

Private Education – Parents and legal guardians may choose to educate their children in private schools to include but not limited to, home school, parochial schools, without government interference, be it through definition, regulation, accreditation, licensing, or testing. We encourage competition and cooperation between public and private schools in academic and athletic extracurricular activities.

I'm not sure about this one, but it looks like "without government interference" includes testing, which would mean that they want to exempt homeschoolers from being tested. Again, I'm not sure about this one.

Tenure – We support the removal of the system of tenure in Texas state colleges and universities.

What? Why?

Judeo-Christian Nation – As America is a nation under God founded on Judeo-Christian principles, we affirm the constitutional right of all individuals to worship in the religion of their choice.

Safeguarding Our Religious Liberties – We affirm that the public acknowledgement of God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom, prosperity and strength. We pledge our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and toward dispelling the myth of separation of church and state. We urge the Legislature to increase the ability of faith-based institutions and other organizations to assist the needy and to reduce regulation of such organizations.

A big, steaming pile of bullshit. Just buzzwords and bullshit here.

Equality of All Citizens – We deplore all discrimination. We also deplore forced sensitivity training and urge repeal of any mandate requiring it. We urge immediate repeal of the Hate Crimes Law. Until the Hate Crimes Law is totally repealed, we urge the Legislature to immediately remove the education curriculum mandate and the sexual orientation category in said Law.

"We don't discriminate! Unless you're gay! Then we're going to prosecute you for sodomy!"

And I guess that's all I care to comment on for now. Texas sure is one fucked-up place. And I'm going to move there in three years!

Jack-Assery In My Backyard

2010-06-16T11:42:00.005-04:00

It seems that a couple nights ago, a group of nine- and ten-year old kids in Norfolk, Virginia (the same city where I go to school) broke into a church and vandalized it. Why? Well, they didn't say. Presumably for the same reason people vandalize other places, whatever that reason may be. Personally, I think they're probably just a bunch of assholes. It certainly doesn't appear religiously (or anti-religiously) motivated.

What strikes me about this story are the comments on the article. Some of them are along the lines of corporal punishment followed by a massive dose of church-going, and I have problems with both of those. I'm much more in agreement with those saying the kids should have to clean up the mess they made and the parents should be held financially responsible. Hopefully, the parents will squeeze that money back out of the kids somehow.

Forcing the kids to go to church more? I think that runs the serious risk of making them actively hate the place, which seems counterproductive. I know if I were forced to sit through church services as punishment for something, I'd seek retribution. I can handle the occasional thing, where I'm bored for a while and only stay out of politeness, but being compelled to go against my will is another story entirely. Now that's child abuse.

Corporal punishment, though. It seems to be an old stand-by of self-righteous assholes with a "back in my day" mindset. "Get out the ol' belt and whup some sense into them there kids," they seem to think, and they always come off as assholes. The thing is, corporal punishment has several things going against it, and only one thing going for it, i.e. immediate compliance. In the short term, sure, a good smack will get a child to do what you want. In the long term, corporal punishment is actually associated with less compliance, and it can lead to things like more delinquency. Of course, if you try to tell Joe Red-Blooded American that, you're likely to get a haughty remark about the "proper" way to raise kids, sissies, liberals, or some combination thereof ("You sissy liberals don't know how to raise kids to be anything but sissy liberals!"). Because Joe Red-Blooded American is, generally speaking, a complete asshole whose parents also thought corporal punishment was a good idea.

Of course if you say something, you also run the risk of being smacked by a redneck, and then it'll take weeks to get the stench of stale beer and housewife tears (Did I mention that kids who receive corporal punishment are more likely to beat their spouses? They are.) off of you. And nobody wants that.

A Good Freshman Year

2010-04-21T18:31:00.003-04:00

I've been lazy with the posting because the semester is finally drawing to a close here at Old Dominion, and I'm gearing up to get out. I've got exams coming up to study for, and I've been caught up somewhat in Eve Online, where I've just purchased a really pretty spaceship to pew-pew pirates in.

My Freshman year at college has gone well. I made the Dean's List (should that be capitalized? I don't know) last semester, and we'll see how things pan out this semester grade-wise. I must admit I did slack off more than I should have this time around; I now have to take my final exam in Math because I didn't do any of the work for the chapter on statistics and skipped the test because the F wasn't worth my time. The good news there, though, is that I can get a 50% on the final and still get a B in the class.

Both of my English classes went relatively well, which is good considering my major. Despite some setbacks in my composition class I think I'm doing well. The fact that my classmates have complained about the assignments and grading tells me that whatever my grade, I will have done very well overall. I also seem to be the only person in my Literature class who could identify Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night as a villanelle, or at least the only one who cared to speak up as we went over that particular quiz.

Art History is where I really slacked off, but luckily I can afford it; it's extremely easy to do well on the tests with just an hour or so of studying the night before. There's a test in there on Friday, and the final is sometime after that. I haven't checked my final exam schedule.

Asian History was a great class; it's interesting material but there is a lot of it to cover. It doesn't help that we only have two tests, two quizzes and a paper to be graded by, but I think I'll do well enough on the final that I'm not worrying about my grade.

Next semester, I'll be finishing up my general education requirements so that the semester after that I can start on my major requirements, which means English, English, English. In the meantime, however, I've got summer vacation. Except I'll probably have to find a job, which I'm not looking forward to.

Validation

2010-04-02T13:47:00.004-04:00

Ever since my English teacher showed up at school one day wearing a sweater which read, "Prepositions are not words to end sentences with," I've always thought that it was a stupid rule. I mean, people end sentences with prepositions all the time, and not just conversationally. Take, for example, the sentence, "This is one thing I can not put up with." If "with" can't go at the end, how would you phrase the sentence? "This is one thing with which I can not put up?" "Up" is also a preposition.

So as I was thinking about this, Googling the old joke as I did so, I came across an about.com article explaining this strange rule of grammar (and citing plenty of sources). Turns out, it's not actually a rule at all! It's a convention from Latin and a recommendation for rhetoric, not a hard-and-fast rule of English grammar.

Also, apparently it's bad grammar to use "they" as a third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun. Screw that.

Oh, and that sentence from earlier: legend has it that Winston Churchill wrote “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” Wikiquote says he probably didn't say/write that, but it's still a nice quote that demonstrates the absurdity of the rule.

Singh Wins Libel Case

2010-04-01T10:26:00.005-04:00

Back in '08, Simon Singh wrote an article in the Guardian criticizing chiropractors who claim they can treat things like ear infections or colic. So the chiropractors decided to sue him for libel. Well today, he won that case, at the expense of £200,000. That's a heck of a lot of money to spend defending reason, but Singh's victory is being hailed as a landmark decision and a great consciousness-raiser for the need for libel reform in the UK.

So, more power to him.

Purpose Driven Life Day 13: Worship That Pleases God

2010-03-27T23:14:00.004-04:00

God wants all of you.

That sounds like something a douchey guy would say to a girl in a parked car at night in the dark.

Douche: I love coming here at night. It's so peaceful and there's nobody around.

Girl: Yeah, it's nice.

Douche: There's something I wanted to tell you...

Girl: What is it?

Douche: I don't want just a part of you.

Girl: Um...

Douche: I want all of you.

Girl: You know what, it's only a mile and a half to my house. I can walk from here. Don't follow me.

Eh, you be the judge. Honestly this chapter isn't very interesting; it's Christian babble about how other Christians are doing it wrong, which is frankly less interesting than a discussion of the proper procedure for a Klingon military tribunal. And I only watch Star Trek casually.

There are only two things I wanted to comment on, and they're both right in the beginning of the chapter.

God is pleased when our worship is accurate. People often say, "I like to think of God as...," and then they share their idea of the kind of God they would like to worship. But we cannot just create our own comfortable or politically correct image of God and worship it.

Huh. You know what? I agree!

That is idolatry.

...hm. Not quite the direction I was going to go with that. I was thinking that you can't just arbitrarily say what God is and then expect it to compare accurately to any god that might actually exist because there are so many different and contradictory ideas that if there were a god its nature would be contrary to most of them. But yes, I suppose it is also, technically, idolatry.

The second bit is this:

God gave you emotions so you could worship him with deep feeling- but those emotions must be genuine, not faked. God hates hypocrisy. He doesn't want showmanship or pretense of phoniness in worship. He wants our honest, real love. We can worship God imperfectly, but we cannot worship him insincerely.

What I want to know is, why even bother? What's the point of making the pretense if your god is omniscient? Would it be better to not worship at all if you know that you don't really mean it? I suppose at that point it wouldn't really matter much anyway.

Point to Ponder: God wants all of me.

We've been over this, douchebag, and I told you not to follow me home.

Question to Consider: Which is more pleasing to God right now- my public worship or my private worship? What will I do about this?

Well since you spent the whole chapter complaining about not really meaning it, I guess the correct answer is "private." But I think I fall under the "insincere" category, so since whatever I say will be insufficient I guess I'm exempt from worship.

The Free Will Excuse: A Tale of Bullshit

2010-03-26T09:24:00.003-04:00

Theist: God does exist.

Atheist: Then why doesn't he come down here and prove it?

Theist: Because it would take away our free will, and God doesn't want a bunch of robots with him in Heaven, he wants a real relationship with us.

Atheist: Wha...How does...what are you talking about?

Oh, free will. Theists love to hide behind this excuse whenever they're pressed for evidence for their god's existence. The theist's reasoning is that if God were to come out and tell everybody he was there, then we'd have no choice but to believe in him. If we didn't have that choice, then we wouldn't have free will.

But if you take a moment to think about it, this makes no sense. The free will excuse it bunk. I have no choice but to believe that grass exists because of the overwhelming evidence for the stuff, but I still have free will. An omniscient, omnipresent skydaddy wouldn't hinder my ability to make choices any more than my front lawn does. It might be a factor in certain decisions, but those decisions would still be mine.

Besides, there are Christians out there who believe wholeheartedly that every single person in the whole world knows that God exists, but use their free will to either deny him or disobey him. And on top of that, there are characters in the Bible who speak to God directly, and it doesn't seem to impact their free will one bit. Add to that the story of the Exodus, where it says specifically, right there in the book, that God hardened Pharaoh's heart and kept him from freeing the Israelites, and you haven't got a leg to stand on with this argument. The idea that free will is this all-or-nothing deal where we lose it forever if God manifests himself is patently absurd.

You're Not (Necessarily) An Idiot

2010-03-05T14:45:00.006-05:00

Often, during religious debates, religious folk will get the impression that atheists think they are stupid. We don't. Well, sometimes we do, but usually we don't. Sometimes we'll throw around phrases like "you're an idiot," or "no, that's the opposite of true," or "you're so far beyond wrong that I can't even tell you how deep your fundamental lack of understanding of this subject is, but suffice it to say that the things you just said ranged from merely wrong to concentrated liquid stupidity."

But all this, despite the perceived (and sometimes very real) mean-spiritedness, is not to say that we think you are stupid. No, we're referring to the statements you're making, the beliefs you hold, and the justification you present, but not you yourself. You might very well be an idiot, but you could just as easily be a brilliant architect, or engineer, or mathematician, or astronaut, or large intimidating United States Marine. It is important to understand that.

Many if not most atheists used to be religious people. They did not suddenly become smarter when they stopped believing. They weren't simpering buffoons just because they believed in God, either. They just held a belief that was unjustified, that's all. This seems especially hard to grasp for those atheists who, like myself, were not raised in a religious setting. Having never held these beliefs ourselves, it's understandable that our first reaction is "wow, that's really stupid." And it's also understandable that we then make the logical leap to "you're really stupid for believing it." However, it is incumbent upon both sides of the argument to recognize that merely disagreeing with someone does not make them "stupid."

What does make someone stupid is the refusal to acknowledge that which has been clearly demonstrated to them. For instance, people have attempted to tell Ray Comfort that populations evolve, not individuals, but he keeps making absurd arguments along the basic lines of "If a male X suddenly evolved from Y, what would it mate with? Where's the female X?" It would be fair to characterize Ray Comfort as "stupid." He quite obviously has no idea what he's talking about when he discusses evolution and is either unable or unwilling to learn. Most apologists do something very similar, but few as obviously as Ray.

On the other hand, the average Christian on the street is probably not stupid. They will almost certainly make a stupid argument, but if we refute something they say, they will probably accept that that particular thing is wrong and move on to another. The point is that they learn. Now, most times theists will retreat behind "faith" when they realize that they can't argue their side with reason, but to admit that they hold their views on faith and faith alone is much more intellectually honest than anything an apologist will say.

But when it comes down to it, this is still an argument and tempers can easily flare. After all, we're talking about people's deeply ingrained religious beliefs here. Theists don't want to give them up and atheists don't want to put up with them. Things will inevitably be said without thinking, and it's important to identify these things and recognize them as simple expressions of frustration rather than personal attacks. We don't think you're stupid.

Usually.

Purpose Driven Life Day 12: Developing Your Friendship with God

2010-02-23T20:20:00.004-05:00

Wow, it's been a while since I cracked this book open. For once, I don't have any comment to make about the stupid one-liner at the beginning of the chapter, so I'll skip to something weird.

If you want a deeper, more intimate connection with God you must learn to honestly share your feelings with him...

And here I thought this god was omniscient. What's the bloody point of telling people to be honest if the old man already knows the truth? If you believe in an omniscient deity, why would you lie to it, ever? It's just weird.

There's some blathering about being honest with God, even if it's not what he wants to hear, and then this gem:

Bitterness is the greatest barrier to friendship with God: Why would I want to be God's friend if he allowed this? The antidote, of course, is to realize that God always acts in your best interest, even when it is painful and you don't understand it.

Translation: Follow blindly. Don't question all the horrible stuff that might be happening to you; it's for your own good. No, really, just trust me. Have faith.

I must choose to obey God in faith. Every time you trust God's wisdom and do whatever he says, even when you don't understand it, you deepen your friendship with God. We don't normally think of obedience as a characteristic of friendship; that's reserved for relationships with a parent of the boss or a superior officer, not a friend. However, Jesus made it clear that obedience is a condition of intimacy with God. He said, "You are my friends if you do what I command."

In the last chapter I pointed out that the word Jesus used when he called us "friends" could refer to the "friends of the king" in a royal court. While these close companions had special privileges, they were still subject to the king and had to obey his commands. We are friends with God, but we are not his equals. He is out loving leader, and we follow him.

We obey God, not out of duty or fear or compulsion, but because we love him and trust that he knows what is best for us. We want to follow Christ out of gratitude for all he has done for us, and the closer we follow him, the deeper our friendship becomes.

Unbelievers often think Christians obey out of obligation or guilt or fear of punishment, but the opposite is true. Because we have been forgiven and set free, we obey out of love- and our obedience brings great joy!

What strikes me while reading this is that it's incredibly dishonest to talk so much about the carrot while completely ignoring the stick. This is a religion that threatens nonbelievers with Hell. So I don't care how much Rick says he loves God, because the whole thing is underscored by a huge "or else." Sex at gunpoint is rape, and love at Hell-point is, too. The difference is that Christians have convinced themselves they deserve to be shot, which maybe makes it something like Stockholm Syndrome. Either way, it's repugnant.

More uninteresting crap, punctuated by two things I'm going to quote out of context just because that's how they stood out.

The dearest thing to the heart of God is the death of his Son. The second dearest thing is when his children share that news with others.

I'd like to see someone try that nowadays; something tells me they'd be locked up.

...wrestling requires personal contact and brings us close to him! It is also a passionate activity, and God loves it when we are passionate with him.

When you were in school, did you ever do a Freudian reading of some completely innocuous children's book? Because I think a Freudian reading of The Purpose Driven Life would be very interesting.

Anyway, back to context:

You may have been passionate about God in the past but you've lost that desire. that was the problem of the Christians in Ephesus- they had left their first love. They did all the right things, but out of duty, not love. If you've just been going through the motions spiritually, don't be surprised when God allows pain in your life. [emphasis mine]

Pain is the fuel of passion...It is God's way of arousing us from spiritual lethargy.

"Hey. You. Yes, you, with the wavering commitment to your faith. Your wife now has inoperable cancer. Pay attention to me! HEY! Dude! Fine, a drunk driver's going to total your car on the way through your house. GET BACK TO THE WORSHIPING!"

Point to Ponder: I'm as close to God as I choose to be.

But if God wants me to be close to him and he's also planned out every detail of history, then won't that happen whether I want it to or not? Or is this book God's way of doing that? Couldn't he have picked a better way? Or was his plan for me to be an atheist? Does that mean he planned to send me to Hell all along? That's not very loving.

Question to Consider: What practical choices will I make today in order to grow closer to God?

It's almost 9:00 PM, so I think that's out of the question for today. Maybe tomorrow I'll talk to some people about how this dude killed his son by nailing him to wood and letting him sit there. I hear God's into that kind of thing.

Thong Shopping In Saudi Arabia

2010-02-14T18:41:00.003-05:00

In what may be the most ironic twist in the history of Islamic law, Saudi lingerie shops are having trouble doing business. Not for lack of customers, however, oh no. They are staffed with male salespeople. See, it's a problem because this inevitably requires the customers to give men their underwear sizes. Men they don't know.

Saudi Arabia's Labour Ministry has previously said it would require that women were employed in lingerie shops, but the law has not been enforced.

Ms Asaad says the law is deliberately ambiguous and allows religious clerics to effectively uphold a ban on saleswomen.

The Wahhabi strain of Islam, which dominates the country, requires absolute separation of unrelated members of the opposite sex.

Parts of Saudi society are still very traditional and do not like the idea of women working - even if they are just selling underwear to each other.

Because of the strict segregation laws barring physical contact between the sexes, women also cannot be properly measured for their underwear.

I can't help but be amused.

Purpose Driven Life Day 11: Becoming Best Friends With God

2010-02-02T20:18:00.002-05:00

God wants to be your best friend.

With benefits. Tee hee.

There's not a hell of a lot to talk about in this chapter, but there is something of note right off the bat: Warren mentions such figures as Moses and Abraham as friends of God in the Old Testament, saying that back then it was rare for someone to become friends with God. But then, apparently Jesus made it so that anyone can be God's friend.

The problem is that Abraham and Moses talked to God directly, literally face-to-face. Where's that gone? Now it's some watered-down telepathic communication. It's like the way miracles work. It used to be stuff like parting the Red Sea, or walking on water. Nowadays a sports team wins a tough game, or someone's cancer goes into remission. Hell, why aren't any Christians in Africa multiplying fish and loaves to feed all the starving children over there? I certainly don't know.

Oh, just in case you still had doubts about where Rick stands on free will:

God deeply desires that we know him intimately. In fact, he planned the universe and orchestrated history, including the details of our lives, so that we could become his friends.

So, no free will.

Of course, it is important to establish the habit of a daily devotional time with God, but he wants more than an appointment in your schedule. He wants to be included in every activity, every conversation, every problem, and even every thought.

God sounds like a nosy jerk, to be honest. If a human being were like this, they would have no friends. Why is it okay for this guy just because he's God?

Point to Ponder: God wants to be my best friend.

I was going to make a second joke about this, but I forgot what it was when I started writing this post. I think it was going to be funnier than the "with benefits" line, but I can't be sure. Oh well.

Question to Consider: What can I do to remind myself to think about God and talk to him more often throughout the day?

Suffer brain damage?

Purpose Driven Life day 10: The Heart of Worship

2010-02-02T00:02:00.002-05:00

The heart of worship is surrender.

Surrender is an unpopular word, disliked almost as much as the word submission. It implies losing, and no one wants to be a loser. Surrender evokes the unpleasant images of admitting defeat in battle, forfeiting a game, or yielding to a stronger opponent. The word is almost always used in a negative context. Captured criminals surrender to authorities.

As it happens, that's not why I dislike the word surrender in this context. I dislike it because it implies tyranny. But hey, that's just me.

This chapter is a bit twisted, ethically and logically. As far as ethics go, it's basically a call to give up your freedom. Logically, it's just full of contradiction.

God is not a cruel slave driver or a bully who uses brute force to coerce us into submission. He doesn't try to break our will, but woos us to himself so that we might offer ourselves freely to him. God is a lover and a liberator, and surrendering to him brings freedom, not bondage. When we completely surrender ourselves to Jesus, we discover that he is not a tyrant, but a savior; not a boss, but a brother; not a dictator, but a friend.[emphasis mine]

It's not tyranny unless you disobey. That's basically what this means. Because if you're not a Christian, then you're disobeying Jesus by not submitting yourself to him, and obviously you're going to Hell. It amazes me that anyone can see this as not being tyrannical. "We're not saying you have to, but if you don't you'll be shot." The threat of Hell is brute force, it is coercion. It is most certainly not freedom.

But wait, there's more:

Surrendering is not for cowards or doormats. Likewise, it does not mean giving up rational thinking. God would not waste the mind he gave you! God does not want robots to serve him.[emphasis mine]

Okay, let that sink in, because a couple paragraphs later, he contradicts both of those:

Surrendering is best demonstrated in obedience. You say "yes, Lord" to whatever he asks of you. To say "no, Lord" is to speak a contradiction. You can't call Jesus your Lord when you refuse to obey him...Surrendered people obey God's word, even if it doesn't make sense.

See? He did it in reverse order. First, he tells you to be a robot by blindly obeying everything God says, and then he tells you to ignore your rational thinking and obey orders even if they don't make sense.

Ain't paradox a bitch?

Also, if you're surrendered you apparently "don't edge others out, you don't demand your rights, and you aren't self-serving...[emphasis mine]" What the fuck? So Christians shouldn't be demanding their rights? I repeat: What the fuck? If that's true, then can we tear down the Saddleback church buildings and erect legal brothels in their place? Because I think they'll serve society much better than the Godbots currently occupying the real estate.

As if this crap wasn't enough, there's a shot at non-Christians a bit later.

Surrender is not the best way to live; it is the only way to live. Nothing else works. All other approaches lead to frustration, disappointment, and self-destruction.

Well, I know about 4.5 billion people who would beg to differ. As it happens, most people are not Christians, and they're not all living frustrated, disappointed, self-destructive lives. In fact, many of them are living very happy, fulfilled lives and are helping to make the world a better place.

Warren closes with a story about Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.

I once asked Bill, "Why did God use and bless your life so much?" He said, "When I was a young man, I made a contract with God. I literally wrote it out and signed my name at the bottom. It said, 'From this day forward, I am a slave of Jesus Christ.'"

Point to Ponder: The heart of worship is surrender.

Yup. Pretty much. But it's still surrender, submission, and the acceptance of tyranny, no matter how you try to spin it.

Question to Consider: What area of my life am I holding back from God?

Again, all of it since I'm an atheist. But really, if this god wanted access, couldn't he just take it? Bear in mind that Warren's theology still doesn't seem to have much of a place for free will.

The Invention of Lying

2010-02-01T23:27:00.003-05:00

A few days ago, a friend told me I needed to watch The Invention of Lying. I watched The Desert Rats instead. Then he told me a bit about the plot, and I immediately understood why he'd suggested it.

In a world where the human race has never developed the ability to lie, Ricky Gervais' character suddenly does. The result? Religion, among other things. Also, some interesting pre-first-date conversation.

The film is ostensibly a romantic comedy, but the message you walk away with is a commentary on religion. The romance becomes something of a subplot, but it's just as comical as the rest of the film. Plus, it features Jonah Hill, AKA that ubiquitous comedy actor whose name you probably don't know.

Four and a half pizza boxes out of five, and a recommendation from yours truly.

"I was just masturbating."
"That...makes me think of your vagina."

Purpose Driven Life Day 9: What Makes God Smile?

2010-01-30T00:53:00.002-05:00

The smile of God is the goal of your life.

I actually sat and thought about this for about two minutes. For a moment I thought about why you would dedicate your life to something completely immaterial whose existence you can't verify. I couldn't come up with anything, but then I remembered that this book is for Christians and they're already supposed to be doing that.

But the theme of this chapter is how to make God happy, or in layman's terms, the proper God-wanking technique. I hate to keep beating this dead horse of divine masturbation, but it just keeps coming up. Rick's very good at repeating himself.

Anyway, the shining example that Warren writes about, the pinnacle of living a life that God loves, is Noah. Now, anyone who's read the usual Bible stories or has heard someone talking about them knows the basic premise of Noah's story: God was pissed at the human race except for Noah and his family, so he told Noah to build a giant boat with all the animals on it to keep them safe while he flooded the entire planet.

What many people don't realize is that the story doesn't end with Noah and his family living happily ever after to repopulate the Earth. Here's the end of the story, from an NIV Gideon Bible I picked up in a hotel in England (it's my favourite one), starting at Genesis 9:18.

The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth...Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backwards and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.

Noah then wakes up, figures out that Ham saw him naked, and then curses Cannan (Ham's son) to be "the lowest of slaves" to his brothers.

Hardly an exemplary end to the story, eh? To the person who knows how the story ends, Noah seems like a pretty bad example of the ideal moral life. Warren talks about how he loved God even though everyone else on Earth was sinning and whatnot, and that right when they found land Noah built an offer and made a sacrifice to God. Of course, all of that's in there, but it's a little dishonest to leave out the other stuff.

Also, when he talks about this stuff, it becomes pretty obvious he regards this as literally true: he mentions that Noah had never seen rain because, until the Flood, God just made the water come out of the ground to water crops and stuff.

About halfway through the chapter, he throws in some emotional blackmail.

Often we try to offer God partial obedience. We want to pick and choose the commands we obey. We make a list of the commands we like and obey those while ignoring the ones we think are unreasonable, difficult, expensive, or unpopular. I'll attend church but I won't tithe.[emphasis mine] I'll read my Bible but won't forgive the person who hurt me. Yet partial obedience is disobedience.

I don't understand why anyone would tithe, but hey, it's their choice. But Warren's basically saying that if you don't tithe, you're disobeying God. Now, I don't know if it's commanded anywhere in the Bible that you pay tithes, but even if it is this makes Rick kind of a douchebag.

Speaking of emotional blackmail, Warren then quotes the Bible: "If you love me, you will obey my commandments." Now, this stood out to me, and I want you to try and guess why. Ignore for a moment who's saying it, and instead of "obey my commandments" just insert whatever you might want someone to do that they might not want to. For example, "If you love me, you'll have my baby." Yeah. Emotional blackmail. God is good, all right. Perfectly moral. And probably suffering from borderline personality disorder.

But then it's right back to God watching you do everything, enjoying every detail of your life, including the sex. The hot, steamy, sweaty sex. I have to wonder whether God would, then, approve of pornography. Since he likes watching, and all.

Point to Ponder: God smiles when I trust him.

That just means you're playing into his hands. I wouldn't trust him if I were you.

Question to Consider: Since God knows what is best, in what areas of my life do I need to trust him most?

The same ones I trust to a coin toss? I dunno.

Purpose Driven Life Day 8: Planned for God's Pleasure

2010-01-27T23:16:00.004-05:00

You were planned for God's pleasure.

Anyone else getting tired of these one-liners at the beginning of every damn chapter? I know I am, but I'm keeping them in partly because I'm venting this irritation at you, and partly to illustrate Rick Warren's style of writing. He comes off as quite smug, to me. Anyway, I made jokes in the last Purpose Driven Life post about divine masturbation, and it turns out I pretty much hit the nail on the head: you're here to stroke God's cock. This chapter is the first in a section of the book called "Purpose #1: You Were Planned for God's Pleasure." This will become somewhat important in a moment.

The moment you were born into the world, God was there as an unseen witness, smiling at your birth. He wanted you alive, and your arrival gave him great pleasure. God did not need to create you, but he chose to create you for his own enjoyment. You exist for his benefit, his glory, his purpose, and his delight.

Three notes:
1) I should have mentioned this earlier, but when I blockquote something with italics, those are Rick's emphasis. If I'm going to add emphasis, I'll bold it, and make a note that it's my emphasis.

2) Read over the part where God was watching your birth and smiling. Does that conjure images of some sick old guy peeking through the window at your mother's spread legs while you're crowning? It did for me, and it makes me wonder if Rick ever discussed this with an editor, and if so, what he said to make it stay in.

3) As I first read this, I immediately wondered if all this applied to all those babies born horribly disfigured. Does that sort of thing please God? Does he enjoy seeing a baby born without skin, only to die shortly thereafter? I'm not taking this idea and running with it sarcastically because of the fact that this is in a section devoted to one of (presumably) many purposes that Rick will outline here. So perhaps birth defects fall under a different purpose. But I'm not sure, so I'm mentioning it now. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would get brought up in a book like this, so just keep it in mind.

Warren goes on to make a claim that I find somewhat peculiar:

Anthropologists have noted that worship is a universal urge, hard-wired by God into the very fiber of our being...Worship is as natural as eating or breathing. If we fail to worship God, we always find a substitute, even if it ends up being ourselves.

That last part was, I suspect, aimed at atheists (at least in part). As for worship being innate, well I beg to differ. I grew up without religion and I never felt the need to worship anything. It certainly didn't have the same effect as not eating or breathing. True, all cultures have developed some kind of religion, but that just proves we're very similar. Besides, all these cultures have extraordinarily different religions, so the very best this argument could possibly do is establish that we are inclined to jump to supernatural conclusions, which to me at least seems self-evident. It doesn't establish that these conclusions are reasonable, and it certainly doesn't establish that Yahweh programmed your brain to make you want to worship him. But of course, we must keep in mind that Rick's audience is already Christian, so he doesn't care.

It's interesting that Warren cites the authority of anthropologists, by the way, because shortly thereafter he begins talking about music and how worship is more than just music.

Actually, worship predates music. Adam worshiped in the Garden of Eden, but music isn't mentioned until Genesis 4:21 with the birth of Jubal.

I'm not so much concerned about whether worship does indeed predate music (I'm inclined to think it didn't, but I can't be sure) as I am about the basis for Warren's claim. He's citing the Bible as if it were a history book, accurately describing the creation of the universe and the chronology of music versus worhsip. And even if it were, isn't it possible that the music simply didn't warrant mention until later on? I realize this isn't Rick's point- he's trying to establish that worship encompasses more than just music- but this is deeply flawed reasoning.

The rest of the chapter says that you aren't the point of worship, God is. And that you have to be worshiping constantly, by doing everything as if you were doing it for Jesus. He also compares loving Jesus to falling in love with his wife; it's supposed to be similar. Which sort of reinforces the cock-stroking thing from earlier.

Point to Ponder: I was planned for God's pleasure.

Do I need to say it?*

Question to Consider: What common task could I start doing as if I were doing it directly for Jesus?

I'm curious as to Rick's opinion of masturbation. Because if he's okay with it I wonder how he'd reconcile that with "as if I were doing it directly for Jesus."

*Yes, yes I do. Stroking God's cock.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

2010-01-23T21:45:00.005-05:00

So here I am, finally writing a game review. I got this game for Christmas and now that I've finished I'd have to say I'm very satisfied with it. This is one of the Mario RPG games, with turn-based combat and action commands. The first such game I played was Paper Mario, for those unfamiliar with what I mean. Anyway, this one's got several things going for it:

First, the whole premise of the game. At the beginning (without spoilers), Mario and Luigi end up inside of Bowser. So you alternate between playing as the Mario Bros. and as Bowser. They've each got very different play styles, which mixes up the combat quite nicely in a way that the Paper Mario games, for example, never did. To be fair, though, things in the Paper Mario games never got monotonous. The variation in combat is a perk, not a fix, because it wasn't broken to begin with.

Second, the minigames. There is one area where Bowser can practice his special attacks, and several areas inside Bowser where the Mario Bros. can play various minigames. Bowser's minigame isn't necessary to finish the game, but the Mario Bros. minigames frequently play into the story, as the Bros. have to do things inside of Bowser which affect him on the outside. For example, at one point the Bros. are controlling Bowser's legs as he tries to push a heavy object. The minigame has the Bros. one on top of the other, head-to-head, jumping left and right from one leg-muscle-control-pad to the other. The key is to perform the jumping action command corresponding to the Bro who is stomping on the pad; if Mario's landing you press the A button, if it's Luigi you press B.

Third, the writing. This game is written superbly. Humour abounds in this game, ranging from Bowser's rash decision-making to the Goomba Squadron's motto to Fawful's quirky Engrish ("I HAVE CHORTLES!").

There are few criticisms I can muster against this game.

The first deals specifically with one minigame the Mario Bros. have to complete two or three times. The game involves controlling the Bros. by sliding them with the stylus. The first part is tame enough; you have to knock particles into pads on the walls on either side as they rain down from above. The second part, however, makes you ram the Bros into protrusions from the walls while dodging falling particles. That wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that you can only get hit 3 times before you have to start the whole game over. It was hard, but not in a this-is-a-good-challenge kind of way. It was hard in a please-just-let-me-fucking-get-past-this kind of way. It was the only time that I felt like I was fighting against the game itself, just to get it to work right. It was the only thing that ever jerked me out of the game and made me swear at it.

The second criticism is much more minor, and I suppose it may not apply to everyone. But of all the many special attacks you can find and use in the game, I only ended up using about five. The rest were just not worth the effort to master. Those I used did more than adequate damage and had a reasonable cost to use. If there had been a greater variety of enemies that were vulnerable to different moves, or if some of the attacks had taken less time to master, the other moves would have been relevant to the gameplay.

The third and mildest criticism is of the badge system. More specifically, the badges themselves. Through the whole game, I only used the badge combo that you're given for free, which just restores some HP to both Bros. I felt absolutely no incentive to buy or use the other badges that were available. If the badge system was more akin to the Paper Mario games, I think it would have worked better.

Overall, I give Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story a 9/10. It was a great game, but it was just barely flawed enough that it didn't wow me. Definitely worth buying.

Purpose Driven Life Day 7: The Reason for Everything [spoiler alert!]

2010-01-20T23:25:00.004-05:00

It's all for him.

The ultimate goal of the universe is to show the glory of God.

Oh.

Glad to have that one cleared up. About that glory of God stuff, though. Huh?

Basically, the glory of God is God expressing just how amazingly awesome he is and everything. So, the divine equivalent of jacking off, essentially. So blah, blah, blah, God's glory is super-cool, blah blah Jesus, blah blah...

We cannot add anything to this glory, just as it would be impossible for us to make the sun shine brighter.

There are, however, stars that already shine brighter than ours. Does that count, Rick?

Since God made all things, he deserves all the glory.

Again, this is basically divine masturbation. He made people so they could stroke his cock for him, is all. Guess his arm got tired or something.

Oh, also there are only two things in the entire universe that are fucked up with regard to God's glory and whatnot. Demons and people. Yeah, it's that sin thing. Sucks that his plan had to go that way, because I'm pretty sure he's punishing some of them forever in Hell. Which would mean that he put them there on purpose. Which is kind of a dick move. Just sayin'.

Also, everything that does what it's supposed to (which means not you) is bringing glory to God. So, you heard it here first: leprosy, bubonic plague, HPV, influenza, HIV/AIDS, MRSA, SARS, Ebola, West Nile, Polio, Herpes, shingles, and many many more. All fulfilling God's purpose and giving him glory every minute of every day all around the world.

Warren goes on to talk about how we have to worship God. Apparently it's our first responsibility to him. Go figure. He quotes C.S. Lewis: "In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him." That actually makes no sense to me, because the way I read it it means that in commanding us to glorify him, God is commanding us to enjoy him. Sounds an awful lot like rape with happier language.

But anyway, worship God, love other believers, become like Christ, and tell your friends. That's how you bring glory to God. I feel like I have to share the notation I made above the phrase "We bring God glory by becoming like Christ." Ready? I wrote "I've got wood and nails. Who's first?" I know, I'm a genius. But really there's something more interesting in this part, specifically under "We bring God glory by telling others about him."

God doesn't want his love and purposes kept a secret.

If this is the case, then Warren's God is impotent. What the hell kind of deity can't use his Godliness to, you know, tell people he's there? If this god exists, is omnipotent, and wants people to know about him, his love, and his purpose, then there should be only one unambiguous religion in the world. Which there isn't.

Of course, Warren wants you to believe that this is part of your purpose, and compares the reader to Jesus as such:

Jesus stood at a fork in the road. Would he fulfill his purpose and bring glory to God, or would he shrink back and live a comfortable, self-centered life? You face the same choice.

Of course, Jesus had the distinct advantage of being God. More on the stupidity of Jesus' "sacrifice" in a later post, which I'll try to remember to link to here.

Warren closes this chapter by inviting you to say a little prayer: "Jesus, I believe in you and I recieve you." And if you're sincere, you get to learn what your real purpose in life is. Which Warren somehow knows. Notice the caveat that you have to be sincere; this way, if it doesn't work, he can just say you didn't really mean it. It's something Ray Comfort would do, which is sort of depressing because I really thought Warren would be at least a little better than that.

Point to Ponder: It's all for him.

Well, I'll have to disrespectfully disagree.

Question to Consider: Where in my daily routine can I become more aware of God's glory?

Considering I'm starting from zero, I'd say everywhere. I can haz evidence nao?

Purpose Driven Life Day Six: Life Is a Temporary Assignment

2010-01-19T21:49:00.004-05:00

Life on earth [sic] is a temporary assignment.

I would just like to state, for the record, that it bothers me that Rick Warren is too lazy to capitalize the word Earth. This chapter really has nothing to offer except this phrase:

compared with eternity, life is extremely brief.

Which is true. But not particularly relevant to an atheist. Warren goes on to make metaphors about how your life life is really short, and you'll live for eternity. One of these metaphors involved the phrase "spiritual green card" and had something to do with foreign countries.

Oh, and if you get caught up in the material world, you're a traitor to Jesus. Here's the thing that really stood out to me, though:

the pursuit of happiness is not what life is about.

Yup. That's right. According to Rick Warren whether you're happy or not doesn't count for jack shit, especially since your life is so short compared to eternity. What's more, God often deliberately makes people's lives suck, just so they don't get too attached to them. Loving, I know.

Point to Ponder: This world is not my home.

I'll say, Rick. You are definitely not at home on Planet Earth. That's "Earth" with a capital "E," by the way.

Question to Consider: How should the fact that life on earth[sic] is just a temporary assignment change the way I am living right now?

Fact
–noun
1. something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.
2. something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact.
3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth.
4. something said to be true or supposed to have happened: The facts given by the witness are highly questionable.

Rick's obviously using the fourth definition, and the example sentence (from the Dictionary.com page directly to you) is oddly appropriate.

Shameless Self-Promotion

2010-01-14T21:27:00.004-05:00

Really, all I did was include a link to this blog in the blog on the other Blogger account I made for my English class on the off chance that I'd get a hit or two. But it still feels like shameless self-promotion.

I think I'll follow myself on that account, too. Devious.

Purpose Driven Life Day Five: Seeing Life From God's View

2010-01-12T17:19:00.004-05:00

The way you see your life shapes your life.

Mmmaybe. Maybe it's the other way round and your life shapes the way you see it. Or, more likely, it goes both ways. Done giggling? Good. Warren starts this chapter with some solid(ish) thinking, only to throw the Bible at it and muck everything up. The first part of the chapter discusses what Warren calls "life metaphors," the things you come up with in response to the question "how do you see your life?". Things like a race, a roller coaster, a rock concert, a buffet, etc. [Did you know that "et cetera" is not recognized by the spellchecker, but "etc." is? Weird.]

Anyway, he's saying that your life metaphor reveals something about your outlook on how life works and whatnot. Which I suppose could be true, but it's about as subjective as dream analysis. Warren says that if you see life as a race, "you will value speed and will probably be in a hurry much of the time." But it could mean that you aim to win. Or that it's really tiring to get what you want out of it. Or that finishing first will kill you. Or that your feet hurt.

But no. Warren wants you to toss out the metaphors you've probably thought of and replace them with biblical ones.

To fulfill the purposes God made you for, you will have to challenge conventional wisdom and replace it with the biblical metaphors of life.

Specifically, a test, a trust, and a temporary assignment. I get the feeling he contrived that a little to get three T's. But this piques my interest: if you don't listen to Rick, don't fulfill the purposes God made you for, are you foiling his plan? Or is that in itself part of the plan? And if it's impossible to not fulfill the purposes God made for you, what does that say about free will? Oh yeah, Warren doesn't seem to believe in that one.

The good news is that God wants you to pass the tests of life, so he never allows the tests you face to be greater than the grace he gives you to handle them. The Bible says, "God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm; at the time you are put to the test, he will give you the strength to endure it, and so provide you with a way out."

Read that again. He's saying that God will never give you a test you can't pass. Which means that you can't fail. But he says earlier that Adam and Eve failed their test, and that David failed several tests. Is God just an asshole, or is he a fuck-up? And if he won't give you a test you can't pass, then is it really a test at all? Or is it God just poking you in the back for his own amusement? Warren says that tests are meant to reveal things about your character. Presumably to yourself and those around you, because God's supposed to be omniscient. Well that's fine if you already believe, but for the rest of us it looks like God stealing the credit for the bad things that happen to people and still managing to look like the good guy.

But what gets me is this:

Our culture says, "If you don't own it, you won't take care of it." But Christians live by a higher standard: "Because God owns it, I must take the best care of it that I can."

I have multiple problems with this. First of all, he's separating Christians from "our culture" as if the two are mutually exclusive. But the fact of the matter is that most of our culture consists of- you guessed it- Christians! If this is indeed what our culture says (which I doubt, considering how much we disagree with each other all the time), then Christians are contributing greatly to it.

Second, what about Rep. John Shimkus, the Christian kook who believes that people won't destroy the Earth (through climate change) because God decides when the world ends? Prime example of a Christian who clearly doesn't give a damn about taking care of Earth the best he can. But I suspect Warren would pull a "No True Scotsman" fallacy were he confronted with this; something along the lines of "Shimkus isn't living by that standard, so obviously he's not really a Christian."

In a bizarre turn of events, this time it's the Verse to Remember that makes sense, while the Point to Ponder and Question to Consider are both meaningless. So this time I'll post all three but only respond to the verse.

Point to Ponder: Life is a test and a trust.

Verse to Remember: "Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won't be faithful in large ones." -Luke 16:10a, NLT

Well, my three Bibles (all from hotels and all different colours, by the way) are the New KJV, old KJV, and NIV, and they have this verse in the third person and say something along the lines of "trustworthy with little" instead of "faithful in small matters," but I actually like this verse regardless. It's one of the comparatively rare parts of the Bible that offers good advice. Of course, it's really nothing you couldn't figure out on your own.

Question to Consider: What has happened to me recently that I now realize was a test from God? What are the greatest matters God has entrusted to me?

I Haven't Posted In Weeks Now

2010-01-09T21:56:00.004-05:00

I've been on semester break since mid-December and I haven't made a single meaningful post. Every once in a while, I'd think "wow, it's been a while since I did a blog post." And then I'd unpause my video game and keep playing. But tomorrow it's back to the ol' college dorm, complete with late nights and little to do but read, so I'll be getting back to that Purpose Driven Life series. I also got some new video games for Christmas (which I celebrate partly just to confuse Christians) that I'll be reviewing when I've finished them.

On the Off Chance That You Noticed

2009-12-21T14:17:00.002-05:00

I haven't done a Purpose Driven Life post in a few days. I haven't given up or been converted, I've just taken a few personal days. By which I mean that I'm on vacation and I have the right to be lazy. I'll get back to it soon enough. The reason I'm actually writing this post is because I made a point of saying that I was only going to read one chapter a day to give the book a fair chance by reading it as intended.

Well, it's possible I've fucked that up, but I think the major thing was not reading more than one chapter in a single day, rather than reading one a day every day. The point of limiting one chapter per day is ostensibly to allow time for the message to sink in, and frankly I think an entire day is more than enough time for that because the book is so shallow you couldn't drown an ant in it.

But I will still read no more than one chapter a day, and the posts will be up the same day I read the chapter, and I think that's still playing by the rules.

Purpose Driven Life Day Four: Made to Last Forever

2009-12-17T22:34:00.006-05:00

This life is not all there is.

Prove it. Otherwise, you're talking out of your ass.

But of course, once again, this book is written with the assumption that you're already a Christian and believe in that particular afterlife. Since I don't, there really isn't much to say about this chapter. There are only two things.

The first is a brief revisiting of the canard that atheists are immoral because we don't believe in an afterlife:

If your time on earth[sic] were all there is to your life, I would suggest you start living it up immediately. You could forget being good and ethical, and you wouldn't have to worry about any consequences of your actions. You could indulge yourself in total self-centeredness because your actions would have no long-term repercussions.

Of course, by "long-term" he means "eternal," so anything you might consider long-term that still fits within the confines of your life or the lives of those around you don't count. Which is convenient for him, because the phrasing implies that Hell is the only reason to be moral.

Which, if true, would mean that atheists would be running around doing all sorts of immoral things, not caring about the consequences because they didn't have to worry about a lake of fire. Of course, Warren ignores the fact that this is not only not the case, but is the opposite of the way things are. I'll make a point of writing a post on godless morality sometime in the future, after the Purpose Driven Life series.

The second bit to comment on is another snippet of rationality, almost lost amongst the babble:

The only time most people think about eternity is at funerals, and then it's often shallow, sentimental thinking, based on ignorance. You may feel it's morbid to think about death, but actually it's unhealthy to live in denial of death and not consider what is inevitable. Only a fool would go through life unprepared for what we all know will eventually happen.

With the exception of the word "eternity," which I would replace with "death," this is an important thing to think about. It's stupid to live your life ignoring the fact that you will eventually die. It's why you should write a will, for one thing. It's a damn good reason not to abuse drugs.

The rest of this short chapter just stresses the point that you've got to think about eternity, not just your life on Earth, and isn't worth addressing because I don't believe in an afterlife. So, let's wrap this up.

Point to Ponder: There is more to life than just here and now.

Pondered, and determined to be completely unsupported in the sense that it's intended. But, even if you don't believe in an afterlife, it's still true unless you're about to die. So plan for the future you can be reasonably sure you have, instead of the one that some people just tell you you have.

Question to Consider: Since I was made to last forever, what is the one thing I should stop doing and the one thing I should start doing today?

Well, in light of the fact that the whole "lasting forever" thing is completely unsupported, nothing. Sorry. I'm not even going to spin this into a rational question by omitting the first bit.

Purpose Driven Life Day Three: What Drives Your Life?

2009-12-16T22:20:00.006-05:00

Everyone's life is driven by something.

Hey, finally a statement I can get behind! This is pretty much true. In fact, I have little argument with the first part of this chapter, in which Warren lists some (but, and this is important, not all) things that drive people's lives.

Guilt: "We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it." Great quote, except it's shortly followed with some God stuff. Basically he's saying "don't be driven by guilt, because that's not God's plan." Which, really, is a bad reason not to be driven by guilt. Especially when there are real, tangible, practical reasons not to be driven by guilt. Like the fact that it's depressing.

Resentment and anger: "Your past is your past! Nothing will change it. You are only hurting yourself with your bitterness. For your own sake, learn from it, and then let it go." Another good sentiment, but the next sentence begins with "The Bible says..." and that sort of detracts from the significance a little.

Fear: "Regardless of the cause, fear-driven people often miss great opportunities because they're afraid to venture out. Instead they play it safe, avoiding risks and trying to maintain the status quo." Again, great idea followed by a stupid Bible quote.

Materialism: Not the kind that demands evidence for claims, the selfish kind. I could quote, but really the whole three paragraphs are good except for the last sentence:

Real security can only be found in that which can never be taken from you- your ~~education~~ ~~personality~~ ~~hopes and dreams~~ ~~self-worth~~ ~~happiness~~ relationship with God.

Oh. Uh, too late for that one, actually. Never had one of those "relationship with God" thingies. Does that count as having it taken away? I mean, it's not there...oh, well. < /sarcasm> < /sarcastic inserted strikethroughs> [Blogger makes those disappear without the spaces. html is weird like that.]

Next, the need for approval: "I don't know all the keys to success, but one key to failure is to try to please everyone." Definitely.

Now, unfortunately Rick stops here and proceeds to explain why you have to be purpose-driven. I say unfortunately because he didn't address the thing that I would say drives me most: my happiness/life goals. Now, I realize exactly how absurd it is to be driven by wanting to do something specific with my life, but that's how I feel and Warren doesn't address it here. I suppose he may have covered it in chapter 1 when he said that nothing I want actually matters, but I'm still not the least bit convinced that any part of that isn't complete bullshit.

So the rest of the chapter basically tells you to commit your life to whatever God's purpose for it is, though he hasn't yet explained how exactly you're supposed to figure that out. Oh, and there's a pullquote in there that's really inspirational:

You weren't put on earth[sic] to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity.

Not to pick nits here, but that's the second time I've noticed Warren not capitalize "Earth" and it kind of bothers me because it's a proper noun in this context. It's the name of a planet, and a pretty damn important one at that.

Finally, Warren tells us that God is going to ask us two things when we get to the afterlife: "What did you do with my Son, Jesus Christ?" Not literally asking what you did with him, because obviously God's omniscient and would already know wherever you put him and wouldn't ask. No, it's more like the standard accepting him into your heart stuff. Which is still weird, because wouldn't he already know the answer? Oh well.

The second question is "What did you do with what I gave you?" That is, all of the talents, opportunities, resources, etc. that he gave you to work with. Like, did you spend them on yourself, or what God wanted? I would like to point out again that Warren has yet to give us a means of finding out what God wants us to use them for, though I have an idea or two.

Then he's got this clever little thing he says after that:

The first question will determine where you spend eternity. The second question will determine what you do in eternity. By the end of this book you will be ready to answer both questions.

Yeah. Okay.

Point to Ponder: Living on purpose is the path to peace.

Maybe if you decide that peace is your purpose...or did you mean inner peace? Well, okay, but why can't that purpose be something that people decide themselves?

Question to Consider: What would my family and friends say is the driving force of my life? What do I want it to be?

Wh-huh? What about the entire first chapter where you said that it doesn't matter what I want to do with my life? I guess the right answer is "make myself a slave to God to fulfill his purpose," but man, what a loaded question that is. Anyway, they're the same: the driving force in my life is to live a happy life doing what I want to do for a living. There something wrong with that?

Purpose Driven Life Day Two: You Are Not an Accident

2009-12-15T23:37:00.005-05:00

You are not an accident.

Well, I hate to play the contrarian, but I rather think that one's for my parents to decide. The first chapter also started with a one-liner like this, and if they all open this way I'll probably keep beginning these posts with them. These may wear on my nerves, but hey, it's Rick's book and he isn't making me read it.

If you'll cast your mind back to day one, you'll recall that I summed up Day One with the phrase "God's plan." Well, day two is a continuation of this theme, this time with emphasis on your birth.

Warren tells us here that nothing, absolutely not a single thing, down to who your parents were, was an accident. Even your birthday and lifespan. Now this one intrigues me; what about, say, the babies who are born without skin? Their lives are quite short, and if they tell us anything about Rick Warren's god, it's that he's a pretty sick bastard. What about Josef Fritzl's kids? Do you really think a loving God created Elisabeth Fritzl specifically so that she could be locked in a basement for 24 years and repeatedly raped by her own father? For that matter, what about anyone else who's forced to live their life in fear of being raped, or beaten, or killed? If that's the plan of a god, it's an evil one, and to say that we simply don't understand its motives is a weak cop-out.

But let's continue.

While there are illegitimate parents, there are no illegitimate children.

Huh? If by that you mean, "it's not the kid's fault that their parents were married to other people," then sure, you're right. But what Rick's saying is "God made these two people, who were married to other people, have this baby." Why? Shhhh. Here, have a Bible quote.

Now might also be a good time to point out something I just noticed in this chapter, but which also happens in the first. Warren isn't capitalizing "he" when he refers to God. Now, I usually don't do that, either, but I'm an atheist; I don't have any respect for the God of the Bible. But Warren's a Christian, aren't they supposed to do that? It just struck me as a little odd.

But here, Rick actually attempts to make an argument for the existence of God. Sort of. Obviously it's still a Christian book, so he's not using this to establish the existence of a god, just to make his point. This argument is the anthropic principle, basically that the universe was made specifically to make human life possible. He even quotes Michael Denton, author of Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:

All the evidence available in the biological sciences supports the core proposition...that the cosmos is a specifically designed whole with life and mankind as its fundamental goal and purpose, a whole in which all facets of reality have their meaning and explanation in this central fact.

Now, being that Denton is a biochemist, it's telling that he's quoted talking about something that isn't biochemistry. It's rather like what Answers in Genesis did when they compiled a list of scientists who were creationists; few if any of those scientists were biologists, and as such were not experts in biology. Likewise, Denton is not an expert in cosmology, which makes him even less credible when he tells us that the universe was specifically designed with human life in mind.

Now, Warren is a creationist and I can see why he thinks this. But go back and reread that quote. How can the biological sciences say anything about the whole cosmos? They're two different subjects. Biology deals with life; how it works, how it evolved, and how it is still evolving. And, until the point of abiogenesis, its origins. Notice that nowhere in there does it say anything about the whole entire universe. Astrophysicists can say things about the entire universe, like that every single bit of it we've ever seen except certain parts of the Earth would quickly kill us, but not biologists. The rest of us are consulting the experts, or in Denton's case, pulling things out of our asses.

Okay, one more stupid quote to rant about before the ending points:

If there was no God, we would all be "accidents," the result of astronomical random chance in the universe. You could stop reading this book, because life would have no purpose or meaning or significance. There would be no right or wrong, and no hope beyond your brief years here on earth[sic].

This is one of those things, like Pascal's Wager (which I may or may not bother writing a post about sometime; it's been thoroughly trounced everywhere else), which really fucking bothers me when I hear it. Forget the random chance bullshit. You and I both know that evolution isn't random chance. My life does have a purpose: mine. I want to learn things, I want to move to Austin, Texas. I want to become a game designer. My life does have meaning. I have a family and friends who love and care about me. My life does have significance. I intend to help people, by giving to charity at the very least. Someday I will be able to point to a good game and say, "I helped make that." I may or may not raise children, but I can say already that I've been a significant part of my little sister's upbringing.

And of course there are right and wrong. It doesn't take a divine revelation to realize that, merely a functioning brain and a desire to survive. We have to work together to get ahead. As for hope beyond my brief years here on Earth, well, I suppose that's arguable. I'll have certainly impacted some lives along the way, but eventually that will fade. So what? I'm going to do the best I can to leave the world a bit better off than I found it, in my own little way, and that's all I need.

Day Two:

Point to Ponder: I am not an accident.

I'm sure my parents would agree, but I'm here now so I don't see how it's relevant.

Question to Consider: I know that God uniquely created me. What areas of my personality, background, and physical appearance am I struggling to accept?

Well, that first part's a tad off the mark, but the actual question is a legitimate one. So to answer: as for my personality, I'm a little more introverted than I'd like, and I do sometimes really wish I was better at talking to people. My background I'm completely fine with. My physical appearance is iffy, to be honest. I have acne, I'm not particularly fit, and I'm too lazy to shave more than once a week. And I have a sneaking suspicion that I don't dress well. For the most part, none of that bothers me, but occasionally I'll feel bad about it for a few brief minutes. These and the introverted thing contribute greatly to my being chronically single, and that gets to me sometimes, but I don't think that's something I really need to accept anyway.

Well, there you have it. I was surprised when I saw that the question was actually worth considering, too.

Purpose Driven Life Day One: It All Starts With God

2009-12-14T23:49:00.006-05:00

It's not about you.

Aww.

I can tell already that this book is going to suck. You know why? Because it's written for Christians who don't know what to do with their lives. Neither of those things describe me. The whole way through this book, I'm going to be annoyed every time Warren simply asserts that this or that is what God wants. But on with the analysis.

Now, The Purpose Driven Life is meant to be read one chapter a day for 40 days. I'm assuming that the introduction doesn't count, because if it does I've already broken the rules. But I'm going to do it the way Rick recommends, just so nobody can tell me the only reason it didn't work is because I did it wrong. And, I suppose, to give the book a fair chance, because it needs every advantage it can get against a skeptical mind.

The first chapter of the book can be summed up with the phrase "God's plan." Warren's theology seems not to give a damn about free will, since the central idea is that God has a purpose for you. The first chapter focuses strongly on telling you that what you want or care about just doesn't fucking matter, because God made you for something specifically and if you don't devote yourself to it then you've wasted your life, no matter how happy it may have been.

You were made by God and for God- and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.

Too late, Rick. Life pretty much does make sense to me. I originated in my mother's womb, or if you want to go further, in the heart of a star. My identity is Ryan, the me I've always lived with. My meaning and purpose are my own until proven otherwise. My significance is yet to be seen for the most part, but eventually I'll probably have my name in some credits on some video games. As for destiny, I'm skeptical, and even if it's real, how could it possibly be revealed without risking me violating it?

By the way, Warren quotes frequently from the Bible, and I can tell already that it's going to get really annoying.

Warren goes on to say that there are only two options for "discovering the purpose you were created for." Speculation and revelation. Well, already I disagree. Aside from the obvious "I don't see any reason to think I was created for a specific purpose and you've done nothing to convince me," There is a third option that he just doesn't seem to like: I get to choose. So far, all he's done is just say that I don't get to choose, because what I want doesn't count.

The ends of the chapters end with three things: a point to ponder, a verse to remember, and a question to consider. Since I frankly don't give a damn about Bible quotes, I'll only address the other two in each post.

Day One:

Point to Ponder: It's not about me.

I rather think that, for the most part, it is.

Question to Consider: In spite of all the advertising around me, how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself?

A reason to believe in your God would be a good start.

A Happy Occurrence

2009-12-04T16:24:00.003-05:00

As I mentioned before, one of my professors is an intelligent design creationist. Unsurprisingly, she is also conservative. Her husband, it seems, gets large quantities of a particular book on the cheap.

What book is this, you ask? One of her very most favorite books, "second only to the Bible, no lie." It is Rick Warren's masterpiece, The Purpose-Driven Life. She offered it to us, voice quivering, as though it held the key to our very salvation, which I suppose she probably thinks it does. Given that she holds Expelled in high regard, and based on what I've heard about the book elsewhere, it's a pretty safe bet that this book will be chock-full of fresh, steamy bullshit.

Fortunately, mass quantities of bovine feces, at least in print, means lots of material to write about. Now, apparently it's recommended that one read a single chapter of this book every day. According to my professor, this is because "it's so deep." Frankly, I think it more likely that it's to 1) keep people reading the book longer by not making them throw it down in disgust, and 2) allow the bullshit to seep in slowly instead of piling it all on at once.

Now, for a moment I was concerned that she was peddling this book in a public university classroom. But really, I don't mind it for two reasons. The obvious one is that I got a free copy of the book and now I can tear it apart without giving Rick Warren any money. But the people who will be swayed toward woo by reading this thing (if, indeed, they read it at all; these are college students, remember) are pretty much a lost cause at the moment anyway. And frankly, it's easier to argue with those who believe the more ridiculous things (of which I suspect this book will be a good example) than those who believe wishy-washy postmodernist crap. So while the simultaneously bored, literate, and gullible of the class will be taken in by this book, it's just setting them up for some intelligent person to pull the rug out from under them later on. And that's something I really don't mind, provided they don't have to pay money for it, which they didn't.

So, coming soon, I will be posting about The Purpose Driven Life. I don't know how long the chapters are, so I may do posts with single chapters, or several. I probably won't be posting every day, because there are other things going on here, but once I've finished the book I will probably start a page on Iron Chariots about it.

Switzerland Bans Minaret Construction

2009-11-29T22:22:00.003-05:00

Switzerland has passed a ban on the building of new minarets. The bill was proposed by the Swiss People's Party, that parliament's largest party. In case you're wondering, minarets are the towers from which the Muslim call to prayer is, well, called. The Swiss People's Party seems to think that minarets are a sign that Islam, presumably the fundamentalist sort, is becoming too powerful. "Islamisation" seems to be a growing concern in Europe as more Muslims are emigrating there.

The concern over Islamisation is that Muslim culture is sort of infiltrating Western culture; usually this boils down to conflicts over women wearing head coverings or special Sharia courts where Muslims can essentially enforce Sharia law amongst themselves.

Frankly, this is a stupid move on the Swiss parliament's part. What will this accomplish? So far, it's only pissed off the Muslim community, and rightly so; this is a pretty clear slap in the face. What if they'd passed a law outlawing bell towers or big crosses on top of churches? The Christians would get pissed, that's all. It wouldn't diminish the Christian influence on their society and government, though it would certainly take an already diminished influence to get such a law passed in the first place.

Supporters of a ban claimed that allowing minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system - Sharia law - which are incompatible with Swiss democracy.

Banning minarets is the wrong way to combat Islamisation, and allowing them wouldn't represent anything but the presence of a mosque. That does not in any way equate to fundamentalist Islam. Now, I'm as much against Islam as I am against Christianity, but this is a clear act of bigotry, and it's just wrong. If the Swiss don't want their democracy to become an Islamic state, the only thing they have to do is not oppress people or condone oppression. Don't necessarily force the women to remove their head scarves, just make damn sure that the asshole Muslim husband can't force his wife to wear it if she doesn't want to. Don't permit a parallel legal system for Muslims, either, because the unwilling will be forced to follow it. It's not that fucking difficult to not pass legislation.

Perhaps this could be excused if it were for a real reason, like if the minarets were prone to collapse for some reason or another, but it's not. It's about singling out a segment of the population and saying, "we resent your presence and your influence here." It's a blatant act of racism, and it's contemptible.

I Am Not a Hedonist

2009-11-22T00:32:00.000-05:00

As any active atheist knows, there are many apologists out there who will begin their arguments with the phrase, "I used to be an atheist." We've all seen it at some point, and frankly it's quite annoying because these people usually end up painting a perfect picture of a strawman. Well, not too long ago I was stopped on my way to class by two evangelists, students here on campus inviting me to some religious event. When I told them I was an atheist, they told me something I wasn't expecting.

Apparently, the man who leads the prayer group or whatever it is used to be something of a partier. He smoked, drank, did drugs, and had sex with a different girl just about every weekend at college parties. And he was miserable. That is, they told me, until he started reading the Bible and going to church. He then sobered up, stopped smoking, entered a committed relationship, and became a happy person once more.

Now, I have no reason to think these two ladies were lying to me. For all I know, they could have been downplaying just how seedy a life this guy led. But if we take a closer look, what exactly were they telling me? This man was a virtual hedonist until he found God and became a Christian. They were implying that this guy's stupid behavior was due to him not having God in his life. They seem to have assumed that I was the same way.

You see, they didn't ask me any questions about my personal life. They asked if I was an atheist, and I told them yes. They asked if my parents were atheists, and I told them that my mother is an ex-Catholic and my father was raised by a Quaker and a Unitarian and is now an atheist. Then they sprung this guy's story on me. They assumed that because I am an atheist, I must be some sort of degenerate. Some hedonist, going through women, drinks, and joints like so many used tissues.

They were wrong, and I find it offensive that anybody would jump to that conclusion. It's a bit like saying, "Oh, you're studying to become a Catholic priest? I knew a Catholic priest once who raped young children until he lost his faith, left the church, and found a girlfriend." It's just as wrong to assume every priest is a child rapist as it is to assume every atheist is a sexaholic binge drinker.

I have had, in my eighteen years orbiting the Sun, the rough equivalent of a pint of beer. I can count on one hand the number of times any alcohol has crossed my lips, and one of those was in a church. I have not once smoked, snorted, or injected any controlled substance. I have never been inebriated, nor do I find the idea appealing. I have never had sex at all, let alone with a different girl every week. And you know what? I'm relatively happy with most of that.

You see, it was this other man who did these things, not me. And it's a good bet that, while he was living this lifestyle, he would have professed a belief in the Christian god. To assume that I have no reason not to live like this, and to conclude that that must then be the way I live, is as despicable as it is hypocritical. After all, this is the God who will forgive anyone's sins if they simply believe in him and accept his sacrifice, right? If you think about it, it's the Christians who have little reason not to live a life of sex and drugs. They can have all the fun they want, and as long as they've repented before they die they can still get to Heaven, according to their theology.

So, apologists and evangelists, don't assume anything about my personal life. All it's going to do is expose you for the ignorant pricks you are when you get things so blatantly, stupidly, horribly wrong.

Movie Marathon Weekend

2009-11-21T00:20:00.000-05:00

So, it's currently 12:21am, or 0021. I've just finished Dr. Strangelove on a whim after that last post on Dracula, and I've decided that, screw it, I don't have anything better to do this weekend than watch movies. So this weekend I'll be watching and posting my impressions. I'll review Dr. Strangelove here, then go watch The Seventh Seal. If I'm still awake, I'll go watch and review something else, and tomorrow I will continue regardless.

So, Dr. Strangelove. It's quite a good film; the theme is very serious (it's about a nuclear doomsday scenario), but it does manage to be quite funny quite unexpectedly. Peter Sellers is phenomenal. Also, James Earl Jones is in it, and his voice is soothing as ever, even when he's checking the safety switches on a nuclear bombing run that will destroy the world.

Quote of the day/night/morning/whatever:

"Gentlemen you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

UPDATE: Seventh Seal was a no-go, so I'll have to watch something else tonight. Oh well.

Dracula: Dead and Loving It

2009-11-20T18:56:00.000-05:00

Not long ago, a friend of mine was in a stage production of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Dracula, for those of you who don't know, is about a vampire. A real vampire. Not the subject of interminable drivel amongst young girls. Not some sparkling twat. A vampire. From when they were actually cool. Dracula is like the Pokemon Yellow Version of vampires. (Twilight is, oh, My Pokemon Ranch or one of the other shitty spinoffs.)

Anyway, the stage production was very good. And since it was so recent, the story of Dracula was still fresh in my mind when I sat down to watch Dracula: Dead and Loving It, the 1995 Mel Brooks film. So I figured I'd review it, because not many people seem to watch old movies nowadays.

Yes, old movies. '95 is old for me. I was four then.

Anyway, the film was great. There were British jokes, sex jokes, word jokes, jokes based on Dracula's plot, and good old physical comedy. One scene in particular made me laugh so hard it hurt a little. It was very well-written, which is no surprise from Mel Brooks. It was, in short, an excellent piece of cinema. I recommend it for all comedy fans.

By the way, I don't do the stars thing. I rate movies on a pass/fail basis.

Scientology in Australian Parliament's Sights

2009-11-18T09:51:00.000-05:00

An Australian Senator (which I suppose they have in Parliament) recently attacked the Church of Scientology, based on letters from some of those poor folks who managed to get out of the organization.

The Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has said he would consider an inquiry into the Church of Scientology after a senator tabled allegations against the organisation including forced abortions, assault, torture, imprisonment, covering up sexual abuse, embezzlement of church funds and blackmail.

Many European countries have already revoked Scientology's tax-exempt status, and I sincerely hope Australia will follow suit. And I damn sure hope they bring somebody up on charges, because the sort of things Scientology does are pretty horrific. I've always said that if an organization has an entire Wikipedia page devoted to its controversies, it's probably an evil organization and should not be trusted.

And how has the Church of Scientology responded to these allegations?

The Church of Scientology issued a statement accusing Xenophon of abusing parliamentary privilege. "Senator Xenophon is obviously being pressured by disgruntled former members who use hate speech and distorted accounts," the statement said. "They are about as reliable as former spouses are when talking about their ex-partner."

Yeah. Obviously. Just like this guy's using hate speech and distorted accounts, about as reliable as former spouses talking about their ex-partner as he talks about what happened to him at the hands of Catholics.

Scientology is an evil religion. It sickens me to hear what they've done to people, but it sickens me even more when the Church issues a statement like this, blaming and demonizing the victims of their atrocities.

One Hell of a Weekend

2009-11-16T16:57:00.000-05:00

"How was your weekend, dude?"

Shut up. Last Wednesday, we had a crazy Nor'easter blow in, but it wasn't enough to cancel classes until Thursday. So Thursday and Friday, I had off. Which would have been great if it weren't for 1) the fact that the power went out Thursday night, followed shortly by the wi-fi; 2) the fact that I hadn't had a chance to dry my laundry before the power went out, thus rendering my clothes nice and musty by the time the power was restored; and 3) the fact I went 48 hours without showering and still went out in public.

Friday night my roommate and a friend did find an open outlet in the main campus building, and we sat there for a while plugged in to my power strip enjoying the internet while we could. The power, thankfully, was back on when we got back to our dorm around 10:00pm.

So Saturday was spent doing laundry and showering, and I made some semi-anonymous friends in a chat room. I also gave a whole new meaning to "Chocolate Rain," but that's another story and frankly it's probably better as an inside joke.

Sunday, I procrastinated until I finally finished some work for Public Speaking. About half of what was due today, as a matter of fact. Then I fell asleep for an hour, woke back up, and wasted some more time until 12:30am when I went to bed. I estimate that I fell asleep around 2:00am, and I woke up at 7:00. Today was not happy.

We Came, We Saw, We Kicked Its Ass!

2009-11-05T09:29:00.000-05:00

Now, I've already made it known that I love cinema. In fact, over the last couple of days, I took the time to watch Lawrence of Arabia and Spartacus. Now I'm a bit disappointed that we no longer have movies which require intermissions because of the modern consumer's damnably short attention span.

However, a friend directed me to this amazing video, whose song has been playing on repeat for some time now.

Gooble gobble, gooble gobble!

Turns Out I'm A Decent Student

2009-11-02T17:28:00.000-05:00

Today was something of a trifecta of academic accomplishment for me.

First, I got back the rough draft of an essay in English Composition class. Before we received the papers, the professor made a few remarks about the common problems he saw. Among them were a poor understanding of the subject matter (any of several TED talks he selected) and weak theses. I had neither, and in fact got positive comments on both counts. There were points to improve on, but they were minor and easy to change. This made me very happy, seeing as I'm an English major and writing is a matter of some importance to me.

Then, after a whole 20 minutes of studying, I took a World Religions test covering Buddhism and Chinese Religion. If I was confident about my score during the test, then the comments I heard afterward made me doubly so. I feel comfortable saying I got an A.

And finally my dreaded persuasive speech in, of all places, Public Speaking. Today was the first day of presentations, and this is supposed to be the most difficult speech of the class. I was the third and last speaker of the day, and my topic was space exploration. By which I mean that my speech was intended to persuade people to support funding NASA. The first speech was well done. The second person's was about government overspending. And I followed it by asking for money for NASA. His speech, though, was pared down from 15 minutes to meet the 6-8 minute time limit. As such, it was a bit disjointed and awkward. So I do think I looked good by comparison. Irrespective of my actual grade, I had my speech memorized, improved on the mistakes I made in my last speech, and now it's over and done with. Now I just have to sit back and watch other people speak for the rest of the week in that class.

Mostly Because I'm Low On Material

2009-10-29T15:05:00.000-04:00

I've decided to add "college" to the list of subjects to cover on my blog. I attend Old Dominion University here in stab-happy Norfolk, Virginia. I'm an English major (Go ahead, laugh. I don't care.).

The reason for this addition is, as the title of this post suggests, a lack of material to post. It is also in part because of something that's happened recently in my Public Speaking class. It turns out that my teacher is an Intelligent Design creationist. She lent me a copy of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. That's a link to a site debunking the film.

I was excited to finally see this dreck and get to weigh in on it myself, but at this point it's kind of redundant. I took notes as I watched anyway. In short, the film makes two main arguments:

1. This person talked about Intelligent Design. Then, they got fired. Science does not tolerate dissent.

2. If you believe in evolution, you are an atheist and support eugenics. Hitler practiced eugenics. Watch and be convinced as Ben Stein tours a concentration camp, saddened by the atheists, who all support this kind of thing.

Obviously, these are not very compelling arguments. Especially because, when you dig deeper, they turn out to be bullshit. Argument 1, for example, is misleading. In fact, if you go back and look into the claims these people make, they range from lies to, well, lies.

Argument 2 is even more ridiculous. There are theists who support evolution, because they're not complete morons. Most people (and just about every atheist I've heard of) are against eugenics. Furthermore, it was not atheists who performed Hitler's Final Solution. It was a horde of Christians, led by, wait for it, a Christian! Their belt buckles said "Gott mit uns," for fuck's sake! The rest is shallow, emotional bullshit.

So there you have it, Expelled gets zero stars out of five for being completely fucking stupid.

To Those Who Argue On the Net, Take Heart

2009-10-28T17:33:00.000-04:00

No matter what side you're on in an internet argument, you can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the task of beating down the other guy. Maybe so much so that you take a look around and see that you're the only one who seems to agree with you.

Not so.

If my recent experience is any indication, sometimes the only reason you don't see anybody else up there is because you've taken the lead. This goes double for really long threads you haven't read all the way through. Often, it's the same people in one thread who not only refuse to concede a point, but refuse to make an argument justifying this. So the argument you're having with them may already have been had, it's just that this time you're the one speaking for your side. Your supporters are there, trust me. If they're not vocal, it's probably a sign that you've inadvertently taken charge.

I'm Gonna Go Ahead and Say It:

2009-10-25T11:58:00.000-04:00

Sean Hannity is a Poe.

How else could you explain this?

Quoth Hannity in response to atheist subway ads:

Can you imagine the outrage if a Christian group put pro-God ads in the New York City subways? What outrage.

And without a hint of irony, either. In case you weren't aware, exactly the hypothetical scenario Hannity describes has been the case for many a year. I saw them myself whilst visiting New York City just last year.

So he MUST be a Poe, because no idiot would comment on something they know nothing about, right?

For the Express Purpose of Shameless Self-Promotion

2009-10-23T09:51:00.000-04:00

Since I've had this discussion recently, and because I'm almost certain that nobody has read my blog, I am going to occasionally put my arguments right here, so that I can link people to my blog, thereby increasing my potential readership. Not particularly original, or devious, or even very effective, but hey. Shut up.

By the way, I may edit posts such as these as arguments elsewhere become more fleshed out.

If you're here, odds are that it's because I've linked you here, so welcome. I hope my future self isn't being too rude or condescending, but sometimes it's completely justifiable. I'll apologize here if I've offended you, but that doesn't mean I'm conceding a point.

Today's lesson is the difference between atheism and agnosticism, and how they are not mutually exclusive. I will start with the Greek roots of these words. "Atheist" comes from the prefix a- meaning "without" and theos, meaning "god." Originally, the word was used differently; the Romans, for example, called the Christians "atheists" because they didn't believe in the Roman gods. Take this up to the modern era and you've got someone who is without a belief in a god. Agnostic also comes from the prefix a-, but its root comes from gnosis, "knowledge." So an agnostic is one who is without knowledge.

It should be evident that there is a difference between holding a belief and knowing the truth or falsehood of that belief. I do not hold a belief that gods exist, but I do not claim to know that gods do not exist. Whether or not you hold the belief in a god is not a spectrum, but a dichotomy. You're either an atheist or a theist. How sure you are is a spectrum, and you may fall anywhere on that scale, whether you're a theist or an atheist.

But perhaps you're still unconvinced; after all, shouldn't there be some sort of middle ground between theism and atheism? And shouldn't that middle ground be called agnosticism?

Let's consult former Senator Ted Stevens:

In logic, there is a concept called the law of excluded middle. This law, in short, states that for any proposition, either it is true, or its negation is. It is important to note that this does not mean, for example, "either this is an apple or it is an orange." Obviously that statement would be false; it could turn out to be a digital camera.

What the law of excluded middle does mean is that, to return to the above example, "either this is an apple, or it is not an apple." This is true; anything other than an apple is not an apple, and anything that is an apple could not possibly not be an apple.

Now let's bring it back to atheism. Either I hold a belief in a god, or I do not hold a belief in a god. If the former, then I am a theist. If the latter, then I am an atheist. Law of excluded middle, no middle ground could possibly logically exist. QED.

Now, in practice, there are many people who call themselves agnostic. Most of these people are atheists and either don't realize it or don't want to acknowledge it. I used to be one of the former, but I mostly thought of myself as an agnostic because I discovered it got people off my back, so the label helped to reinforce itself. It was only once I discovered the magical world of podcasts and started listening to the Non-Prophets that I realized I was an atheist, and shortly thereafter I adopted the "atheist" label.

There are those out there who regard themselves as "true agnostics," and I have a bit of a beef with them, too, but that's a post for another day.

My Baptism of Fire

2009-10-20T22:22:00.000-04:00

So, until recently I've been interacting mostly with atheists when it comes to religion. Most of this has taken place on the Iron Chariots forums. But recently, I've begun engaging *gasp* actual theists. Of course, this being the internet, and the theists in question being on the Mibba forums, the challenge has been more one of making my arguments easy to follow than of finding flaws in others' arguments. The biggest hurdle so far? One commenter has, after reading my careful explanation regarding the difference between the terms "atheist" and "agnostic," come to the conclusion that she "still holds that Atheist's cannot be agnostic. Or vice-versa."

If this is the power of the average Christian's arsenal, it looks like I won't be needing that new hull plating for the ol' battleship, after all.

In Case You Were Curious

2009-10-18T00:27:00.000-04:00

My blog. It's got quite a name, eh? So you might be wondering how I ever managed to come up with it, assuming you're reading at all, which I will. Well, "The Battleship Cerebral" is a product both of random chance and design. You see, my senior year in high school, I took a class called Evolution of Cinema. Despite learning very little in this class (picture 6 people who cared about film amongst 20 who just wanted to watch movies in school and you'll see why), we did manage to see a few films that have actual cinematic significance.

One of the first such films was a Soviet propaganda film entitled The Battleship Potemkin. While it didn't inspire me to become a Communist, it did have some powerful scenes, not the least of which was the infamous Odessa Steps sequence. Obviously, this film (or at least what we saw of it; at this point, it was really only three of us who cared about film. The rest came in at the second semester) stuck with me. It was well-made.

So this morning I found myself on my Blogger profile, having resolved to start a blog even if I wasn't going to commit to it, and I couldn't think of a name. So what I decided to do was find a random word generator and stay there until I found something I liked. The particular one I used (the first Google hit) generates words based on how common they are, and lets you generate multiple words at once. So I spent about twenty minutes, just clicking the button to generate new two-word phrases, until "Battleship Cerebral" came up. Right away, I was reminded of that film class, and that particular film. And as I thought about it (Yeah, I started a sentence with "and." That's right.), I started to like it even more.

Battleship. Well, as an atheist I like the theist-battling. Cerebral. Thinking part of the brain. It just clicked. I battle the forces of ignorance with my thinking abilities, plus I like the way it flows, plus the film reference. So my blog is the Battleship Cerebral.

First!

2009-10-17T12:15:00.000-04:00

So...I now have one of those blog thingies. I don't know how the hell often I'm going to post and all that, but I can be pretty damn sure that my readership will be a bit light.

It's okay, you can laugh if you want. Nobody else knows you're here. Except the guy behind you, but he's mostly harmless.

In any event, I thought it might be a good idea to have some sort of mission statement so this blog doesn't turn into a collection of my rambling thoughts with no direction or coherence. That's what Facebook is for. So here aboard the Battleship Cerebral, I'll focus on a few things.

First, atheism. I am an atheist. I become irritated when I see religious people doing stupid things. Since I cannot, for the most part, do anything about it, I will instead complain on my shiny new blog. This will inevitably involve politics. You have been warned.

Second, reviews. I read books, and I enjoy them. I watch movies, and I enjoy them. I play video games, and I enjoy those, too. I enjoy video games so much, in fact, that I've decided to attempt to make a career out of it once I get my Bachelor's degree. This is going to be difficult. Believe me, I know. Anyway, I'll occasionally post a review of a book, movie, or game. I'm not the toughest of critics.

Third, if for some reason I change my position on something (like, I dunno, delicious meat), then I'll make a post about it.

Okay, stop laughing. I didn't mean that kind of meat.

So endeth the lesson.