Richard Dawkins writes, "I have found an amusing strategy when asked whether I am an atheist is to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon-Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further."
I suspect he chose that particular list because it is composed of gods that no one currently believes in. Even the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a modern creation, isn't (I hope) worshiped anywhere as an actual god. Most people consider him more of a statement of rebellion, I would say.
I bring all this up because it appears that Dawkins may have to revise his strategy some. Because a piece on NPR recently describes a movement gaining strength in Greece...
... to reinstitute worship of the Greek pantheon.
Yup, that's who I'm talking about -- Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, and the rest. And by "the rest," I'm talking about a crapload of gods. The ancient Greeks had gods for just about everything. There was Adephagia, the god of gluttony. There was Hecate, the goddess
of witchcraft. There was Ceto, the goddess of sea monsters. There was Mnemosyne, who was the goddess of memory who evidently doubled as the deity of unpronounceable letter combinations. There was Lorna, the goddess in charge of making scrambled eggs for breakfast on Mount Olympus.
Okay, I made the last one up.
But don't think that I would have fooled Tryphon Olympios for a second. Olympios, whose actual last name is Kostopoulos, is pretty serious about the whole Greek-god thing. He is the founder of a movement called Ellinon Epistrofi (Return of the Hellenes), which has as its goal the abandonment of what he calls "Helleno-Christianity." The Greek Orthodox Church, Olympios claims, has gained a stranglehold on Greek culture, and to be truly Greek you need to return to your roots.
Which, apparently, includes being rebaptized on Mount Olympus with an ancient-Greek-sounding name, and giving up Christianity for worshiping Zeus et al.
Now, to be fair, not all of the people who belong to Return of the Hellenes take it that literally. Marina Tontis, a computer programmer who founded a philosophical group to discuss the new old religion, said in the NPR piece, "The difference between philosophy
and religion is that philosophy is open to all ideas, and religion
is based on dogma. We support the
investigation of our cultural background to
find messages, good messages, to bring to today's world."
Which is pretty open-minded, I guess.
Still, there are people who are taking this pretty seriously. The site Dodecatheon, which promotes a return to "the religion of the Twelve Gods," seems to consider the Greek pantheon to be real entities, a possibility that I'm not sure humans should be all that happy about. For one thing, I've read a good bit of Greek mythology, and mostly what the gods seemed to do was either to have sex with mortals or else to smite them, or occasionally to have sex with them and then smite them. So however much fun this must have been for the gods, their interaction with humanity didn't seem to work out in favor of humanity all that often.
So I'm not really in favor of the whole let's-worship-Zeus movement. Despite my approval of these folks being proud of their heritage, the whole thing strikes me as a little... silly. It's all well and good to revere an ideal, in the way that Americans tend to revere the concept of liberty; but when you start sacrificing sheep to Matton, the god of bread dough, you've gone too far.
And, for the record, I did not make that one up.
So, anyway, I'm not going to go to Mount Olympus and change my name to Hermes Apollyon any time soon. Actually, if I was going to choose a pagan mythology, I'd go with the Norse gods over the Greek ones any day. I was always particularly fond of Loki, who was a trickster god who was (to be honest) kind of a sonofabitch, but usually good for a laugh. And you can't possibly find a cooler god than Odin, who had only one eye because he traded his other eye for wisdom, and who rode on an eight-legged horse with a raven on his shoulder.
Now that is badass.
Anyhow, that's the latest from the wacky side of religion. I have to say that, as religions go, this one is pretty benign. For one thing, Tryphon Olympios and his neo-Hellenist pals haven't said anything about going abroad to bring their Good News About Zeus to the unbelievers, which I think is a good move, and one that the Jehovah's Witnesses should take to heart.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013
The Buddhist jihad
I probably come across as hostile to religion, sometimes, and at the risk of being accused of he-doth-protest-too-much, it really isn't true. In matters of belief, I am a strong advocate for following wherever your heart and mind leads, and far be it from me to try to push anyone in a direction they don't want to go -- provided they accord me the same right.
Still, I'm an atheist for a reason, and I must state for the record that mostly what I feel toward a lot of religious ideologies is incomprehension. When I read about various gods and angels and demons and spirits and so on, mostly what my reaction is can be summed up as, "Why on earth do you think that's true?" But again, if it floats your boat, and you don't feel the need to have congress pass laws mandating that everyone treat it as scientific fact, you certainly are free to believe what you like. (I might, however, write a sardonic post about it, every so often. Tolerance and ecumenism only gets you so far.)
In fact, I find it unendingly interesting what sorts of beliefs people gravitate towards. With the exception of people whose beliefs are what they are simply because they were raised that way and have never considered anything else, I have noticed a general pattern; nice people tend to envision nice deities, and mean, narrow-minded people envision harsh, judgmental ones. We tend to populate the spiritual world with beings that match our temperaments, all the way from Borne Up On the Wings of Angels to Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
All of which is a rather verbose way to introduce today's news story, which comes all the way from Myanmar.
Meet the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu. You probably already have a picture in your mind, just from my identification of him as a "Buddhist monk" -- and likely that picture involves someone whose foremost characteristics are a love of peace, love, understanding, and detachment from the world. Given that most of us have people like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh as our models, it's no wonder that we have this as our mental image of what the term means.
This image, however, is very far from the truth. Wirathu is currently traveling around Myanmar, trying to stir up violent ethnic cleansing against the country's Muslim minority. [Source]
"Muslims are like the African carp," Wirathu said, in an interview with reporters from Global Post. "They breed quickly and they are very violent and they eat their own kind. Even though they are minorities here, we are suffering under the burden they bring us... Because the Burmese people and the Buddhists are devoured every day, the national religion needs to be protected."
His rhetoric may sound familiar, especially if you have read any of the speeches of Adolf Hitler.
He refers to Muslims as "mad dogs" and "cannibals," and advocates driving out of the country those Muslims who will not convert to Buddhism. He has been a strong advocate of a "National Identity Law," which would mandate Buddhism as the official state religion for all citizens of Myanmar. He has started a campaign called "969" (after the number of virtues of the Buddha) that encourages Buddhists only to do business with other Buddhists.
Now, let me say first that I am no apologist for Islam. Muslims in the Middle East, Africa, and (increasingly) in Europe and North America have a lot to answer for, given the silence of their leaders in the face of terrorism, intolerance, and subjugation of women, minorities, and those who dissent. But in Myanmar, Muslims only make up 4% of the population [Source] -- so this has much more of a flavor of oppressing a vilified minority than it does striking out against a group that has created legitimate problems.
Be that as it may, Wirathu's fire-and-brimstone speeches have stirred up the populace in a way that is all too familiar to students of history. Recent riots have, according to estimates in Global Post, caused the deaths of 200 Muslim citizens of Myanmar, and displaced from their homes 150,000 others.
The irony of what amounts to a jihad against Muslims leaves me shaking my head in dismay.
It is appalling that Wirathu has corrupted the message of Buddhism in this way -- Buddhism has, for the most part, been the most tolerant and peace-loving of the world's major religions. But it is, perhaps, unsurprising. The fact that kind people spin religion in a kind fashion, and violent ones in a violent fashion, is universal -- and further evidence (in my opinion) that all of religion is a human invention. We live in the world we create, and Wirathu and his followers are determined to create a world out of hatred, intolerance, violence, and demonization of people who are different.
As author Ken Keyes put it: "A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror."
Still, I'm an atheist for a reason, and I must state for the record that mostly what I feel toward a lot of religious ideologies is incomprehension. When I read about various gods and angels and demons and spirits and so on, mostly what my reaction is can be summed up as, "Why on earth do you think that's true?" But again, if it floats your boat, and you don't feel the need to have congress pass laws mandating that everyone treat it as scientific fact, you certainly are free to believe what you like. (I might, however, write a sardonic post about it, every so often. Tolerance and ecumenism only gets you so far.)
In fact, I find it unendingly interesting what sorts of beliefs people gravitate towards. With the exception of people whose beliefs are what they are simply because they were raised that way and have never considered anything else, I have noticed a general pattern; nice people tend to envision nice deities, and mean, narrow-minded people envision harsh, judgmental ones. We tend to populate the spiritual world with beings that match our temperaments, all the way from Borne Up On the Wings of Angels to Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
All of which is a rather verbose way to introduce today's news story, which comes all the way from Myanmar.
Meet the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu. You probably already have a picture in your mind, just from my identification of him as a "Buddhist monk" -- and likely that picture involves someone whose foremost characteristics are a love of peace, love, understanding, and detachment from the world. Given that most of us have people like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh as our models, it's no wonder that we have this as our mental image of what the term means.
This image, however, is very far from the truth. Wirathu is currently traveling around Myanmar, trying to stir up violent ethnic cleansing against the country's Muslim minority. [Source]
"Muslims are like the African carp," Wirathu said, in an interview with reporters from Global Post. "They breed quickly and they are very violent and they eat their own kind. Even though they are minorities here, we are suffering under the burden they bring us... Because the Burmese people and the Buddhists are devoured every day, the national religion needs to be protected."
His rhetoric may sound familiar, especially if you have read any of the speeches of Adolf Hitler.
He refers to Muslims as "mad dogs" and "cannibals," and advocates driving out of the country those Muslims who will not convert to Buddhism. He has been a strong advocate of a "National Identity Law," which would mandate Buddhism as the official state religion for all citizens of Myanmar. He has started a campaign called "969" (after the number of virtues of the Buddha) that encourages Buddhists only to do business with other Buddhists.
Now, let me say first that I am no apologist for Islam. Muslims in the Middle East, Africa, and (increasingly) in Europe and North America have a lot to answer for, given the silence of their leaders in the face of terrorism, intolerance, and subjugation of women, minorities, and those who dissent. But in Myanmar, Muslims only make up 4% of the population [Source] -- so this has much more of a flavor of oppressing a vilified minority than it does striking out against a group that has created legitimate problems.
Be that as it may, Wirathu's fire-and-brimstone speeches have stirred up the populace in a way that is all too familiar to students of history. Recent riots have, according to estimates in Global Post, caused the deaths of 200 Muslim citizens of Myanmar, and displaced from their homes 150,000 others.
The irony of what amounts to a jihad against Muslims leaves me shaking my head in dismay.
It is appalling that Wirathu has corrupted the message of Buddhism in this way -- Buddhism has, for the most part, been the most tolerant and peace-loving of the world's major religions. But it is, perhaps, unsurprising. The fact that kind people spin religion in a kind fashion, and violent ones in a violent fashion, is universal -- and further evidence (in my opinion) that all of religion is a human invention. We live in the world we create, and Wirathu and his followers are determined to create a world out of hatred, intolerance, violence, and demonization of people who are different.
As author Ken Keyes put it: "A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror."
Friday, June 21, 2013
Cosmic infidelity
Here in the United States, we are all too aware that politicians can sometimes act in an erratic fashion.
Just recently, we had the candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia claim that you shouldn't do yoga, because you'll end up possessed by Satan; a state senator from Louisiana who asked in a public hearing why, if evolution is true, you don't see bacteria turning into humans; and a state representative from Iowa who claimed, in print, that we should follow the biblical rule that allows parents to execute rebellious children (although, in his defense, he did say that he thought that the instances where it was carried out should be "rare"). Just last year, the Republican candidates for Congress seemed to be in a heated competition to see who could make the most bizarre, offensive statement about women, with the odds-on favorite being Richard Mourdock of Indiana, who said that if a woman was raped and got pregnant, that was "something that God intended." (Mourdock ended up losing to Joe Donnelly, who was able to keep his foot out of his mouth and won the general election to the Senate.)
So, we're no strangers to politicians who make fools of themselves, sometimes in very weird ways. After all, Dan Quayle's vice presidency was one long derpfest, to the point that comedians and cartoonists went into a protracted period of mourning once he was no longer in office. But no one here in the US, I think, can beat a British politician who has been in the news recently...
... for claiming that he had sex with an alien and fathered a hybrid child.
The Northern Echo has reported more than once on Simon Parkes of Stakesby, who serves on the Whitby Town Council, and who seems to have a screw loose even if you judge him by American standards. Beginning with the fact that he claims to have been abducted by aliens, not once, but many times.
"The only thing I can remember after that is it saying to me you will never be hurt, your will never be harmed," Parkes claimed in an interview for an upcoming documentary called Confessions of an Alien Abductee. "I think I am fairly clear in my head that I am being monitored [by aliens] very closely and if there is anything that’s seriously about to happen or does happen then I am fairly confident in my own mind that they will intervene, they have in the past."
But it gets even more interesting, because Parkes doesn't just get to chat with the aliens, he gets to mate with them.
No, I am not making this up. Apparently Parkes' interactions with extraterrestrials includes four-times-a-year jaunts up to a waiting Spacecraft of Love, where Parkes gets to engage in some serious bow-chicka-bow-wow with an alien woman named "the Cat Queen."
"My wife found out about it and was very unhappy, clearly," Parkes said. "That caused a few problems, but it is not on a human level, so I don’t see it as wrong."
I think if I told my wife that I wouldn't be home for dinner because I was heading up to the spaceship to have sex with "the Cat Queen," she would react in a way that was significantly past "very unhappy." I think she would call the men in the white lab jackets to come pick me up.
"Make sure you bring along your tranquilizer rifle," I can hear her say. "I think you're gonna need it."
But of course, a general rule from biology is that sex leads to babies, and Parkes' liaison with "the Cat Queen" was no exception. They have a hybrid child, Parkes said, whose name is "Zarka."
Oh, yeah, and Parkes' actual mother is a nine-foot-tall alien with green skin and eight fingers per hand.
What is astonishing about all of this is that nobody much seems to mind. "Ha ha," they all seem to say, over there in Whitby. "That Simon Parkes, he certainly is a character." He apparently has been babbling about aliens for years, long before his election to the Town Council in 2012, and everyone pretty much shrugs it off.
So, anyhow, that's the news from the UK. I must say, for the record, that I rather prefer their variety of wacko to ours. Parkes seems harmless enough, and one article about him states that he is the "most active member of the Town Council," which is (after all) what he was elected for. All in all, if you have to choose between politicians who are crazy, dumb, or bigoted, go with crazy every time.
At least the crazy ones are kind of fun to watch, which is more than I can say for the dumb and bigoted types we seem to be dealing with over here on the other side of the Atlantic.
Just recently, we had the candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia claim that you shouldn't do yoga, because you'll end up possessed by Satan; a state senator from Louisiana who asked in a public hearing why, if evolution is true, you don't see bacteria turning into humans; and a state representative from Iowa who claimed, in print, that we should follow the biblical rule that allows parents to execute rebellious children (although, in his defense, he did say that he thought that the instances where it was carried out should be "rare"). Just last year, the Republican candidates for Congress seemed to be in a heated competition to see who could make the most bizarre, offensive statement about women, with the odds-on favorite being Richard Mourdock of Indiana, who said that if a woman was raped and got pregnant, that was "something that God intended." (Mourdock ended up losing to Joe Donnelly, who was able to keep his foot out of his mouth and won the general election to the Senate.)
So, we're no strangers to politicians who make fools of themselves, sometimes in very weird ways. After all, Dan Quayle's vice presidency was one long derpfest, to the point that comedians and cartoonists went into a protracted period of mourning once he was no longer in office. But no one here in the US, I think, can beat a British politician who has been in the news recently...
... for claiming that he had sex with an alien and fathered a hybrid child.
The Northern Echo has reported more than once on Simon Parkes of Stakesby, who serves on the Whitby Town Council, and who seems to have a screw loose even if you judge him by American standards. Beginning with the fact that he claims to have been abducted by aliens, not once, but many times.
"The only thing I can remember after that is it saying to me you will never be hurt, your will never be harmed," Parkes claimed in an interview for an upcoming documentary called Confessions of an Alien Abductee. "I think I am fairly clear in my head that I am being monitored [by aliens] very closely and if there is anything that’s seriously about to happen or does happen then I am fairly confident in my own mind that they will intervene, they have in the past."
Simon Parkes of Stakesby, communicating with the Mother Ship via interpretive dance
No, I am not making this up. Apparently Parkes' interactions with extraterrestrials includes four-times-a-year jaunts up to a waiting Spacecraft of Love, where Parkes gets to engage in some serious bow-chicka-bow-wow with an alien woman named "the Cat Queen."
"My wife found out about it and was very unhappy, clearly," Parkes said. "That caused a few problems, but it is not on a human level, so I don’t see it as wrong."
I think if I told my wife that I wouldn't be home for dinner because I was heading up to the spaceship to have sex with "the Cat Queen," she would react in a way that was significantly past "very unhappy." I think she would call the men in the white lab jackets to come pick me up.
"Make sure you bring along your tranquilizer rifle," I can hear her say. "I think you're gonna need it."
But of course, a general rule from biology is that sex leads to babies, and Parkes' liaison with "the Cat Queen" was no exception. They have a hybrid child, Parkes said, whose name is "Zarka."
Oh, yeah, and Parkes' actual mother is a nine-foot-tall alien with green skin and eight fingers per hand.
Parkes as a child, interacting with Mom
What is astonishing about all of this is that nobody much seems to mind. "Ha ha," they all seem to say, over there in Whitby. "That Simon Parkes, he certainly is a character." He apparently has been babbling about aliens for years, long before his election to the Town Council in 2012, and everyone pretty much shrugs it off.
So, anyhow, that's the news from the UK. I must say, for the record, that I rather prefer their variety of wacko to ours. Parkes seems harmless enough, and one article about him states that he is the "most active member of the Town Council," which is (after all) what he was elected for. All in all, if you have to choose between politicians who are crazy, dumb, or bigoted, go with crazy every time.
At least the crazy ones are kind of fun to watch, which is more than I can say for the dumb and bigoted types we seem to be dealing with over here on the other side of the Atlantic.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
The highway to theocracy
Two stories popped up just in the last couple of days that have me shaking my head.
First, we have a story out of New York City, where the local Satanic Temple is trying to crowdsource a project to acquire funding that would allow them to be part of the state's Adopt-a-Highway program. [Source]
The Church of Satan, whose actions in this regard are being chronicled by Spectacle Films, Inc. for a possible documentary, is soliciting donations through the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo. (Here's a link to the donation site.) According to the article linked above, written by Sarah Wilson of Illuminati conspiracy theory fame, the church claims to have innocent motives:
A story in Huffington Post yesterday describes a YouGov Omnibus poll taken this spring in which a random sampling of Americans were asked two questions:
"This was a national poll," writes the author of the article, Fred Rich. "Imagine what the numbers must have been in Alabama, Kansas, and Oklahoma."
So, once again we have the mystifying desire on the part of one third of Americans to turn the United States into a theocracy. Which, of course, makes it abundantly clear why this group is consistently the same bunch that howls about claims that Sharia law will be instituted in the United States, and are certainly the ones who would flip out if "Adopt-a-Highway: Satanic Temple of New York" signs appeared by the roadside. The problem is not (in the first case) that people are using an antiquated book of bizarre, arbitrary, and inhumane rules to govern their behavior, nor (in the second) that some group of people who worship an almost certainly nonexistent being want a chance to throw that fact in the public's face. No, the motivation is just fine with them.
The problem is that it isn't the right book of bizarre, arbitrary, and inhumane rules, and the right almost certainly nonexistent being.
Now, I'm not going to debate the second part; I've gone into the reasons for my atheism in enough detail here that anyone who is a regular reader will not need to be reminded in that regard. But if you objected to the first statement -- that the Christian Bible is just as weird and bloodthirsty as the worst sections of the Qu'ran -- I would suggest that you that you haven't read it very carefully. People like to quote the happy parts of the Bible, such as Matthew 19:14: "Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'" They conveniently forget Psalm 137:9: "Blessed shall he be who takes your babies and dashes them against the rock!" People who call the Muslims barbarians for stoning people for having sex outside of marriage forget how many offenses in the Bible called for stoning to death, including teenagers being rebellious (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) and gathering firewood on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36).
Even people who are fond of using the bible to justify their hatred of gays and lesbians, who cite Leviticus 20:13 as their support -- "You shall not lie with a man as one does with a woman" -- conveniently don't mention that the next bit goes, "They are both to be put to death, and let their blood be on their own heads."
So, tell me honestly, those of you who would love to see the United States become a Christian theocracy; are you really eager to institute biblical rules for governing life? I doubt seriously whether even the most devout Christians are "living biblically" right now. If they were, they'd be in jail.
As far as I'm concerned, I have no problem with the Church of Satan adopting a highway in New York. We've got too much damn litter and too few people who are willing to pick it up, and I don't see how it matters if it's picked up by someone who thinks it makes sense to worship a guy with horns and goats' feet. If you think that the biblical God is somehow better than Satan, I suggest you go through your bible and do a body count -- count up the number of people killed by Satan and the number killed by God directly, or on his command. One writer, with far more patience and time than I have, has combed the bible, and found that the count puts God in the lead, at God's 2,476,633 people murdered as compared to Satan's 10. So if Satan wants to catch up, in the evil department, he'd best get busy.
Of course, in my opinion, they're both imaginary friends, but I suspect you knew I'd say that. I guess the bottom line is that you need to be picking up trash for the right imaginary friend to get any kind of approval.
And to those of you who really think that a theocracy is the way to go, I suggest you look, honestly and impartially, at how such a method of governance has worked in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Then go, and read your bible, and consider carefully what life would really be like if those rules were instituted, not just for true believers, but for everyone. Consider what life was like when the religious leaders did run the government and the justice system, and created such wonderful institutions as the Inquisition and the Crusades.
If at that point you still tell me that we'd be better off having Christianity as the state religion, then I suspect that either (1) you're lying, or (2) you're batshit crazy. And in neither case should we take what you say seriously.
First, we have a story out of New York City, where the local Satanic Temple is trying to crowdsource a project to acquire funding that would allow them to be part of the state's Adopt-a-Highway program. [Source]
The Church of Satan, whose actions in this regard are being chronicled by Spectacle Films, Inc. for a possible documentary, is soliciting donations through the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo. (Here's a link to the donation site.) According to the article linked above, written by Sarah Wilson of Illuminati conspiracy theory fame, the church claims to have innocent motives:
Why would the Satanic Temple wish to join the adopt-a-highway program? The group says that they would like to use the opportunity to enhance the public's understanding of Satanism, and hopefully gain a bit more acceptance within the community. The Satanic Temple would uphold the voluntary upkeep (including ridding the area of garbage) of a stretch of public highway for at least two years. They also plan to do a little landscaping as well.Of course, Wilson isn't buying that they're really just trying to do their part to care for the community:
In order to adopt their own piece of highway and maintain clean-up duties for the two years, the Temple must pay an estimated $10,000, which is why they are accepting donations by using the crowd-source funding option of indiegogo.com.
If the group gains approval, the New York Department of Transportation will post the all-too-known blue-and-white sign acknowledging the adopting party (in which case, it would say Satanic Temple), and in the end, gain promotion for a group that is not readily embraced by the general public. Why? Because although the Satanic Temple hopes to use this action to spread their message of "Satanic civic pride and social responsibility," those associated with the Temple still believe in and worship Satan.You should keep in mind, however, that Wilson is the same person who thought that Beyoncé made magical Illuminati signs at the Superbowl this year and that's why they had a power failure, so anything she claims should be taken with a grain of salt. Be that as it may, she is undoubtedly correct that having signs that say "This section of highway has been adopted by THE CHURCH OF SATAN" isn't going to go down well with a good many people. In fact, I can say with some certainty that 34% of Americans are going to take serious issue with it, which brings me to our second story.
A story in Huffington Post yesterday describes a YouGov Omnibus poll taken this spring in which a random sampling of Americans were asked two questions:
1) Would you support a measure that would make Christianity the official religion of your state?34% of the Americans polled answered yes to the first one, and 32% to the second.
2) Would you support a constitutional amendment that would make Christianity the official religion of the United States?
"This was a national poll," writes the author of the article, Fred Rich. "Imagine what the numbers must have been in Alabama, Kansas, and Oklahoma."
So, once again we have the mystifying desire on the part of one third of Americans to turn the United States into a theocracy. Which, of course, makes it abundantly clear why this group is consistently the same bunch that howls about claims that Sharia law will be instituted in the United States, and are certainly the ones who would flip out if "Adopt-a-Highway: Satanic Temple of New York" signs appeared by the roadside. The problem is not (in the first case) that people are using an antiquated book of bizarre, arbitrary, and inhumane rules to govern their behavior, nor (in the second) that some group of people who worship an almost certainly nonexistent being want a chance to throw that fact in the public's face. No, the motivation is just fine with them.
The problem is that it isn't the right book of bizarre, arbitrary, and inhumane rules, and the right almost certainly nonexistent being.
Now, I'm not going to debate the second part; I've gone into the reasons for my atheism in enough detail here that anyone who is a regular reader will not need to be reminded in that regard. But if you objected to the first statement -- that the Christian Bible is just as weird and bloodthirsty as the worst sections of the Qu'ran -- I would suggest that you that you haven't read it very carefully. People like to quote the happy parts of the Bible, such as Matthew 19:14: "Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'" They conveniently forget Psalm 137:9: "Blessed shall he be who takes your babies and dashes them against the rock!" People who call the Muslims barbarians for stoning people for having sex outside of marriage forget how many offenses in the Bible called for stoning to death, including teenagers being rebellious (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) and gathering firewood on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36).
Even people who are fond of using the bible to justify their hatred of gays and lesbians, who cite Leviticus 20:13 as their support -- "You shall not lie with a man as one does with a woman" -- conveniently don't mention that the next bit goes, "They are both to be put to death, and let their blood be on their own heads."
So, tell me honestly, those of you who would love to see the United States become a Christian theocracy; are you really eager to institute biblical rules for governing life? I doubt seriously whether even the most devout Christians are "living biblically" right now. If they were, they'd be in jail.
As far as I'm concerned, I have no problem with the Church of Satan adopting a highway in New York. We've got too much damn litter and too few people who are willing to pick it up, and I don't see how it matters if it's picked up by someone who thinks it makes sense to worship a guy with horns and goats' feet. If you think that the biblical God is somehow better than Satan, I suggest you go through your bible and do a body count -- count up the number of people killed by Satan and the number killed by God directly, or on his command. One writer, with far more patience and time than I have, has combed the bible, and found that the count puts God in the lead, at God's 2,476,633 people murdered as compared to Satan's 10. So if Satan wants to catch up, in the evil department, he'd best get busy.
Of course, in my opinion, they're both imaginary friends, but I suspect you knew I'd say that. I guess the bottom line is that you need to be picking up trash for the right imaginary friend to get any kind of approval.
And to those of you who really think that a theocracy is the way to go, I suggest you look, honestly and impartially, at how such a method of governance has worked in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Then go, and read your bible, and consider carefully what life would really be like if those rules were instituted, not just for true believers, but for everyone. Consider what life was like when the religious leaders did run the government and the justice system, and created such wonderful institutions as the Inquisition and the Crusades.
If at that point you still tell me that we'd be better off having Christianity as the state religion, then I suspect that either (1) you're lying, or (2) you're batshit crazy. And in neither case should we take what you say seriously.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The interstellar lighthouse
I must admit to having a fascination with aliens.
I recall being the tender age of five years old and sitting spellbound watching the impossibly ridiculous aliens on the television show Lost in Space -- and being only a couple of years older and being positively captivated by the marginally-less-ridiculous aliens on the original Star Trek. Even now I still have a soft spot in my heart for bug-eyed little gray guys, and I have the posters on my classroom wall to prove it (including a replica of Fox Mulder's famous UFO poster with the caption "I Want To Believe"). I also once paid a visit to the International UFO Museum of Roswell, New Mexico, with interesting results:
So I suppose it's to be expected that I was pretty excited about a new project called "Lone Signal" that aims to transmit messages to nearby star systems with habitable planets.
Lone Signal says, on its home page, "At Lone Signal, we believe that crowdsourcing messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence (METI) is the ideal approach to establishing a stable, cohesive, and well-resourced interstellar beacon on Earth. We invite you to join us in the first collective and continuous METI experiment in human history. Lone Signal allows anyone with Internet access to compose and transmit messages to strategically selected stellar systems."
You can send one Twitter-style 140-character message for free, and four additional ones for 99 cents. The idea is then to use satellite equipment in Carmel Valley, California that Lone Signal's CEO, Jamie King, purchased, to send these messages to the star Gliese 526, which is 17 light years away and has a planet in the so-called "Goldilocks Zone" where the temperature is right to have water in its liquid form.
King is currently trying to raise enough money to buy additional satellite equipment -- and we're not just talking about a couple of dishes, here. He wants to generate enough interest in his project to raise $100 million -- sufficient to turn the Earth into a "transmitting beacon," sending continuous signals to nearby stars that seem like good candidates for hosting intelligent life. Creating an interstellar lighthouse, is what it amounts to.
I'm not entirely sure what I think about this.
First, on the positive side, there's the coolness factor. The idea that we might be capable of sending a coordinated message to intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy is nothing short of thrilling. Ever since watching Captain Kirk interact with Balok and the Andorians and the Salt Vampire, I've lived in hope of one day finding out that we really aren't alone in the universe. To me, finding unequivocal evidence of life on another planet would be just about the most exciting thing I can imagine, even if they don't turn out to have blue skin and antennae.
The problem, though, is that this message is going to be composed by... random humans. And I hate to point it out, and I say this with all due affection (being a random human myself), but when you put something like this in the hands of average people, the results can be kind of... dumb. For example, take a look at the next three messages queued up on Lone Signal's site:
I recall being the tender age of five years old and sitting spellbound watching the impossibly ridiculous aliens on the television show Lost in Space -- and being only a couple of years older and being positively captivated by the marginally-less-ridiculous aliens on the original Star Trek. Even now I still have a soft spot in my heart for bug-eyed little gray guys, and I have the posters on my classroom wall to prove it (including a replica of Fox Mulder's famous UFO poster with the caption "I Want To Believe"). I also once paid a visit to the International UFO Museum of Roswell, New Mexico, with interesting results:
So I suppose it's to be expected that I was pretty excited about a new project called "Lone Signal" that aims to transmit messages to nearby star systems with habitable planets.
Lone Signal says, on its home page, "At Lone Signal, we believe that crowdsourcing messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence (METI) is the ideal approach to establishing a stable, cohesive, and well-resourced interstellar beacon on Earth. We invite you to join us in the first collective and continuous METI experiment in human history. Lone Signal allows anyone with Internet access to compose and transmit messages to strategically selected stellar systems."
You can send one Twitter-style 140-character message for free, and four additional ones for 99 cents. The idea is then to use satellite equipment in Carmel Valley, California that Lone Signal's CEO, Jamie King, purchased, to send these messages to the star Gliese 526, which is 17 light years away and has a planet in the so-called "Goldilocks Zone" where the temperature is right to have water in its liquid form.
King is currently trying to raise enough money to buy additional satellite equipment -- and we're not just talking about a couple of dishes, here. He wants to generate enough interest in his project to raise $100 million -- sufficient to turn the Earth into a "transmitting beacon," sending continuous signals to nearby stars that seem like good candidates for hosting intelligent life. Creating an interstellar lighthouse, is what it amounts to.
I'm not entirely sure what I think about this.
First, on the positive side, there's the coolness factor. The idea that we might be capable of sending a coordinated message to intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy is nothing short of thrilling. Ever since watching Captain Kirk interact with Balok and the Andorians and the Salt Vampire, I've lived in hope of one day finding out that we really aren't alone in the universe. To me, finding unequivocal evidence of life on another planet would be just about the most exciting thing I can imagine, even if they don't turn out to have blue skin and antennae.
The problem, though, is that this message is going to be composed by... random humans. And I hate to point it out, and I say this with all due affection (being a random human myself), but when you put something like this in the hands of average people, the results can be kind of... dumb. For example, take a look at the next three messages queued up on Lone Signal's site:
"A dog can't get struck by lightning. you know why? 'Cause he's too close to the ground. See, lightning strikes tall things. Now if they were giraffes out there in the field, now then..."
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
News from the squatching world
I have two pieces of good news and one piece of bad news for any readers who are Bigfoot hunters.
Now, mind you, it's a job I wouldn't mind having myself, notwithstanding that to steal a line from Monty Python's Camel Spotters, we so far have acceptable hard evidence of nearly one Bigfoot. But to a guy who almost didn't go to college because he wanted to go into the National Park Service training program, living your life outdoors with a backpack on doesn't seem like such a bad way to go.
So let's start with one piece of good news, which is that we have a new set of audio recordings to listen to.
Craig Woolheater, of Cryptomundo, posted yesterday a report and some audio clips from "Sasquatch Ontario." The clips are well worth listening to, although they are a little creepy, what with the sound of rain falling in the background, and no video to go with it other than what your imagination comes up with. "This is what you get with 8 months of habituation with a sasquatch," the text from Sasquatch Ontario reads. "This is the result of dedication, perseverance and consistency. As the PGF [the "Patterson-Gimlin film," one of the most famous video clips of a Bigfoot] has stood the test of time, so will this audio. If there are any audio analysts who work with law enforcement whose word is relied upon for convictions, please contact us through our channel if interested in pursuing the truth of this matter. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated."
Now, despite the fact that this audio is of a scariness level such that, if I were out in a tent alone in the wilderness and heard these noises, I would piss myself and then have an aneurysm, I must say that I'm not completely convinced that we're hearing Bigfoot. To my ears, this could be Bigfoot, or it could equally easily be a guy out there saying "YARP" and "GRRROP" and sometimes "WOOOOO." So as convincing evidence goes, I'm not sold, although (as always) I am happy to defer to anyone who can prove otherwise.
Now for the bad news. One of the standard claims in the analysis of alleged Bigfootprints is that they show an apelike "midtarsal break" -- that the flexibility in the ligaments in ape feet cause the depression of the middle part of the foot, so that footprints show a ridge left behind where the foot flexed. This, Sasquatch researchers claim, shows that the prints could not have been made by a human.
Unfortunately for this conjecture, some anthropologists checked out the feet of 398 visitors to the Boston Museum of Science, and found that 13% of them had the midtarsal break -- i.e., flexible, apelike feet. This neatly punches a hole in the Sasquatch footprints theory and the creationist claim that we're not apes simultaneously, although it must be said that I'm a helluva lot happier about the second one than I am about the first.
So it's a bit of a rough go for the serious squatchers, such as Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, who made a lot out of this piece of evidence. As Sharon Hill, over at the excellent site Doubtful News, put it, "[T]his puts Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, Idaho State University professor and Bigfoot expert, in an interesting position. He has stated, and published that Sasquatch/Bigfoot prints frequently show a mid-tarsal break and this is indicative of the prints NOT being human... Meldrum has to revise his ideas now. This is how science works. What does this mean for Bigfoot evidence? Well, it weakens it just a bit more. After all these years, in normal science progress, the support for a theory should be getting better. We do not see that in Bigfoot research. The cards just continue to fall."
So that kind of sucks, for the squatching world. But to end on a high note, figuratively if not literally, just last Friday we had news of a new squatching tool that all of you should purchase as soon as it's available. Called SquatchIt, it is a "Sasquatch sound simulator" about which the press release boasts as follows:
Now, mind you, it's a job I wouldn't mind having myself, notwithstanding that to steal a line from Monty Python's Camel Spotters, we so far have acceptable hard evidence of nearly one Bigfoot. But to a guy who almost didn't go to college because he wanted to go into the National Park Service training program, living your life outdoors with a backpack on doesn't seem like such a bad way to go.
So let's start with one piece of good news, which is that we have a new set of audio recordings to listen to.
Craig Woolheater, of Cryptomundo, posted yesterday a report and some audio clips from "Sasquatch Ontario." The clips are well worth listening to, although they are a little creepy, what with the sound of rain falling in the background, and no video to go with it other than what your imagination comes up with. "This is what you get with 8 months of habituation with a sasquatch," the text from Sasquatch Ontario reads. "This is the result of dedication, perseverance and consistency. As the PGF [the "Patterson-Gimlin film," one of the most famous video clips of a Bigfoot] has stood the test of time, so will this audio. If there are any audio analysts who work with law enforcement whose word is relied upon for convictions, please contact us through our channel if interested in pursuing the truth of this matter. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated."
Now, despite the fact that this audio is of a scariness level such that, if I were out in a tent alone in the wilderness and heard these noises, I would piss myself and then have an aneurysm, I must say that I'm not completely convinced that we're hearing Bigfoot. To my ears, this could be Bigfoot, or it could equally easily be a guy out there saying "YARP" and "GRRROP" and sometimes "WOOOOO." So as convincing evidence goes, I'm not sold, although (as always) I am happy to defer to anyone who can prove otherwise.
Now for the bad news. One of the standard claims in the analysis of alleged Bigfootprints is that they show an apelike "midtarsal break" -- that the flexibility in the ligaments in ape feet cause the depression of the middle part of the foot, so that footprints show a ridge left behind where the foot flexed. This, Sasquatch researchers claim, shows that the prints could not have been made by a human.
Unfortunately for this conjecture, some anthropologists checked out the feet of 398 visitors to the Boston Museum of Science, and found that 13% of them had the midtarsal break -- i.e., flexible, apelike feet. This neatly punches a hole in the Sasquatch footprints theory and the creationist claim that we're not apes simultaneously, although it must be said that I'm a helluva lot happier about the second one than I am about the first.
So it's a bit of a rough go for the serious squatchers, such as Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, who made a lot out of this piece of evidence. As Sharon Hill, over at the excellent site Doubtful News, put it, "[T]his puts Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, Idaho State University professor and Bigfoot expert, in an interesting position. He has stated, and published that Sasquatch/Bigfoot prints frequently show a mid-tarsal break and this is indicative of the prints NOT being human... Meldrum has to revise his ideas now. This is how science works. What does this mean for Bigfoot evidence? Well, it weakens it just a bit more. After all these years, in normal science progress, the support for a theory should be getting better. We do not see that in Bigfoot research. The cards just continue to fall."
So that kind of sucks, for the squatching world. But to end on a high note, figuratively if not literally, just last Friday we had news of a new squatching tool that all of you should purchase as soon as it's available. Called SquatchIt, it is a "Sasquatch sound simulator" about which the press release boasts as follows:
SquatchIt has been scientifically designed to be the most accurate, powerful and loud Sasquatch call for use by Bigfoot finders, to scare friends on a camping trip, to heckle politicians and raise a ruckus in general. It is loud and scary sounding and is sure to soil many pair of underwear on camping trips... There are so many uses for SquatchIt from using it to round up the kids for dinner to scaring your friends to attracting the ultimate big game, Sasquatch himself!... The SquatchIt call is a beautifully crafted piece made out of wood and plastic. The nose of the call is a plastic ribbed accordion like piece we refer to as a “gender bender” that allows the user to change the call pitch between higher tone feminine and low tone masculine mode allowing users to make the screaming sounds that many believe a Sasquatch would make if Bigfoot were proven to exist.Well, I think this is just splendid, and I certainly will certainly buy one as soon as they're available. After all, the alternative is to stand in the rain saying "YARP," and that doesn't sound like nearly as much fun.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Demon-B-Gon
I usually try not to spend much time on stories from people who are simply delusional, but this one was too good to pass up.
Paul Schroeder is a frequent writer for UFO Digest, which should put you on notice right from the get-go. He made a brief appearance in Skeptophilia a couple of years ago, with a claim that a Reptilian had visited him in his shower, causing "unprovoked sexual urges and negative ideations." But Schroeder hasn't made the pages of this blog with near the regularity of, say, Diane Tessman or Dirk VanderPloeg.
This time, though, Schroeder seems to have a winner, with a piece called "Self-help Against Demons." In it, we learn how to detect a demonic presence (I wouldn't have thought it'd be that hard, what with the sulfur and brimstone smell, not to mention the appearance of a giant half-naked guy with wings), and also how to get rid of said demon once he shows up.
He starts off with a bang -- literally:
I know that's what I'm going to do, if I ever get to be a ghost.
Be that as it may, Schroeder tells us that it's easy to get rid of a demon, once it appears:
In other good news, Schroeder tells us that demons can't stick around for long unless we let them:
So, anyhow, that's our self-help advice for the day. Stay away from lightning strikes, always have your garden hose handy, and accentuate the positive. Sure seems like an easier solution than the Catholic Church's answer, with all of the exorcism rituals, and having to remember to say "Vade retro Satana," and all that.
On the other hand, I think if a demon ever shows up in my house, I'm gonna just try peeing on him. So be forewarned, Beelzebub.
Paul Schroeder is a frequent writer for UFO Digest, which should put you on notice right from the get-go. He made a brief appearance in Skeptophilia a couple of years ago, with a claim that a Reptilian had visited him in his shower, causing "unprovoked sexual urges and negative ideations." But Schroeder hasn't made the pages of this blog with near the regularity of, say, Diane Tessman or Dirk VanderPloeg.
This time, though, Schroeder seems to have a winner, with a piece called "Self-help Against Demons." In it, we learn how to detect a demonic presence (I wouldn't have thought it'd be that hard, what with the sulfur and brimstone smell, not to mention the appearance of a giant half-naked guy with wings), and also how to get rid of said demon once he shows up.
He starts off with a bang -- literally:
So that's why horror movies usually seem to involve thunderstorms. I'd wondered why, for example, evil ghosts always waited until night fell, and the storm started up, before appearing. If what they're trying to do is terrify people, I've always thought it would be far more effective for a spirit to appear in broad daylight, right in the middle of a tenth-grade biology class, for example.Lightning flashes in a thunderstorm, which hit trees and go into the ground, act as a food media, a power grid for demonics to utilize and to manifest. When kaleidoscopic colors and animated figures storm your mind's eye, when you close your eyes to retire to sleep, you are with a demonic, standing gauntly by your bedside.They use this animated psychic fascination to keep children awake all night, night after night, to weaken them towards jumping onto and then into, children's energies field. Demons and other nasty spirits, often visit, but don't normally reside for long in our 3-D physical dimensional plane of existence. Since demons do not have a corporeal, earthly form, it is very energy costly and quite difficult for them to wander freely, or to have their full destructive force, in our physical dimensional world. But they CAN and DO hitchhike around, bound to human- others' energies.
I know that's what I'm going to do, if I ever get to be a ghost.
Be that as it may, Schroeder tells us that it's easy to get rid of a demon, once it appears:
Man, I bet Faust wishes he'd known that! Of course, he lived in the days before garden hoses, so that might have been a problem. But if running water is all it takes, I wonder if you could just pee on a demon? If I were a demon, I'd find that highly discouraging.It is remarkably true, as is much, in wrongly scorned and forgotten legends, that ghosts and demons cannot cross a running stream. Running water creates a subtle yet powerful electrical current, that will easily de-manifest them. One beset with demons can easily surround one's feet with a running garden hose to break connections. Underground streams, sewers, water mains, and below pavement conduits exist, and in much the same fashion, function as major obstacles to demonic motility and mobility.
In other good news, Schroeder tells us that demons can't stick around for long unless we let them:
Given that there's not much we can do about lightning storms, we have to be careful about our own "negative energy," Schroeder says:(D)emons are vested with temporary powers to be used here - unless and until they can find a way to gather more energy. For them, it is much as swimming is, for us; one can dive down deeply into the water and hold one's breath for some time... After a short while, out of oxygen, we need to come back to "our world" breaking the water's surface.It's the same for demons.Demons "hold their breath"to come into our world for a time, but can't stay for long. A major exception is similar to swimming. Just as longer dives are enabled with breathing apparatus, a demonic can have longer stays in our existence if they have energy.
Well, that seems like good advice for a variety of reasons, even if you don't weigh in "suffocating demons" with the rest.To keep demons from affecting you, control your energy.Visualize that you have large extension (imagined) arms, that lightly brush your body's skin, from top to bottom and back again; this astral exercise changes the magnetic field of your body and affects a demon like a magnet affects iron filings on a sheet of paper, dislodging EMF connections.Avoid anger and unlearn fear and remain calm as a heavy stone dropped into a deep lake; abandon resentments and grudges; let absolutely nothing ruffle your feathers.Evil spirits need negative energy, so starve a demon of all negative energy, effectively suffocate it from this world, a diver with no oxygen.Negative energy is the engine that makes it work.
So, anyhow, that's our self-help advice for the day. Stay away from lightning strikes, always have your garden hose handy, and accentuate the positive. Sure seems like an easier solution than the Catholic Church's answer, with all of the exorcism rituals, and having to remember to say "Vade retro Satana," and all that.
On the other hand, I think if a demon ever shows up in my house, I'm gonna just try peeing on him. So be forewarned, Beelzebub.
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