Shit Gay Couples Say

Despite being un-creative here on my own blog lately I have been creative in other ways, such as directing, producing, and editing an amateur addition to the "Shit ____ Says" videos. Two of my friends wanted to create a "Shit Gay Couples Say" video ... and after a couple weeks worth of work I give you our fashionably late video:

Giving up imaginary friends

I am moving across the country soon, and that means lots of cleaning and packing. I have pulled things out of the closet and from under the bed that go back as far as elementary school. It is odd rummaging through personal items like this; it is as if I am rummaging through my own past. Touching the items brings back wonderful/terrible/tepid memories which are linked to sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feelings. Many of you will experience this phenomenon (if you haven't already) and so it's difficult to share anything original here. However, I wanted to share with you a few of the things I have come across while packing. Two items in particular have brought back a deluge of memories and have confounded my decision to treasure or trash them: one will be kept and the other one will not. Here is a list of some things I have found while packing, and the last one represents my final step in giving up imaginary friends.

Many things I still want to keep: pictures with friends, awards earned, first piano books played from, greeting and personal cards from friends and family over the years.

Some things will obviously be thrown away: old school notes, college dorm room posters, connection cables to a camera that was lost years ago.

A few things will be thrown away with relish: reminders of bad relationships in the past, left-over Christian literature from a different time in my life.

One thing will be burned with ecstasy: Harun Yahya's creationist book, Atlas of Creation, which has served as coffee table book to gawk at with visitors. I remember it being sent to my mentor at Duke - she quickly discarded it and it wound up in my home as a point of hilarity among my friends and especially the Bettors. It's time to move on and that enormous monstrosity of a book will be good for warmth on a cool night and an excuse to get the Bettors together for some quality, heathen good time.

One thing will be kept, though my instinct was to throw it away or burn it: my journal from spring semester of sophomore year in college. The journal spans roughly eight months, surrounding my study abroad in Spain. This is back in the days when I dated girls and was a Bible-believing Christian. Reading the first entries of this journal were gut-wrenching. Such a stupid, silly young guy - confused about sexuality and even more confused by the universe. The beginning of that journal represented my thoughts unfiltered, yet imbued by the world-view of the small, conservative, hardcore Christian upbringing of my childhood. It pains me to see how lost I was then, and how the people I trusted were not the ones who would lead me out of the woods. After reading a few of the early entires I wanted to throw the journal away, and so I did. And I sat there. Then I picked it up out of the trash can and kept

reading - month three, month five, month seven. I changed so much over those eight months. I came out of the closet to my girlfriend. I started to seriously question basic religious and theological paradigms. Questions - by the end of the journal it is filled with questions. I found solace in quotes by Albert Einstein, Oscar Wilde, and Michael Shermer. The seeds of questioning had been implanted, and this journal represented the time of my life when those seeds were nurtured and fertilized. I cannot throw this journal away - I will keep it and cherish it.

One thing has been most difficult to throw away, but today it has finally landed in the trashcan: my teen study bible (see image). It has been packed away under my bed for the last five years - untouched, unused, but worn at the seams from the decade of use during my adolescence. It has been packed away because of some unrecognizable emotional connection to it the last time I came across it. Now the edges are shorn, and the margins are filled with thoughts, references to other verses, and prayers. Many selfish prayers, some unselfish prayers, few original thoughts. It represents a time in my life when I relied on the authority of others to answer the important questions, and a time when I often spoke out loud to an imaginary person (or persons - I could never quite figure out the trinity). One major difference between my bible and every other book I own, is the number of questions written in the margins. In fact, I cannot find even one question scribbled anywhere. I have many answers and references written inside, but no questions. It has bee

n many years since I last prayed (around five or six) and I realize now that any former ambition to read and study the bible was stymieing my personal and intellectual growth. It is of no use to me now, like a sock with holes in it. It is old, dirty, and I harbor negative feelings towards it, like an ex-boyfriend's toothbrush. It represents a childhood, fairy-tale belief. It is now in a place where socks with holes, old ex-boyfriends' toothbrushes, and imaginary friends belong: the garbage.

I recommend to any Christians out there still reading this that you take the only good piece of advice that your bible has to offer:

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."

--1 Corinthians 13:11

All by myself

Well, it's been a struggle for the gays down in Mississippi - not sure that there's a clear victory for Constance; getting your own prom when only a seven people show up may not be ideal, but at least you know who your real friends are. And bringing national (and international) media attention is definitely part of taking a huge step forward in human rights.

Leave it to Bryan Safi to give an informative, yet entertaining, recap for you:

Faith

So, isn't the Christian god supposed to be able to save his chosen leader without the aid of human technology?

Blasphemy Day - September 30th!

On September 30th, 2009 the first 'Blasphemy Day International' will be celebrated. For freethinkers everywhere, and for a society based on reason and science, put it on your calendar! :-)

Here's the facebook link - spread it around.

Some of the pictures from their site are posted below. At least religion can be a constant source of laughter ... when they're not terrorizing or fear-mongering in the world at large.

Creationists

Why do they clamor about and scream 'academic freedom'? Creationists and ID proponents use their airtime and article space to complain about academic freedom, instead of ever offering their solid, scientific evidence for why they should be given time in a SCIENCE classroom.

I'm so tired of it - here's a tirade I commented on a blog by infamous ID'er Casey Luskin in US News and World report today. I hope you understand my frustration:

How is it that someone who thinks that the world is trying to censor their point of view, takes almost 7000 words in an opinion piece to never ONCE put forth the evidence for their claim?

You act like science is a democracy. Science is, in fact, NOT a democracy - it is constantly discriminating against ignorance and poor methodologies, logical fallacies and plain old ideologies. Theories and models MUST hold up to scrutiny and observable fact. When they do not, they are discarded for newer, updated models that better explain our natural world/universe.

The fact that the universe is 13.6 billion years old, that our planet is ~4.6 billion years old, that single-celled organisms can be found ~2 billion years ago, that the fossil record shows emerging organisms with greater complexity over time, that we're all related genetically in proportion to our morphological similarities and complexities, that religions, myths, and ancestor worship has been around since cro-magnon man, best support a model of evolution and a natural means of origin of life.

If you want to take the unknown and say that a god did it, fine. Humans have been doing that for eons. You're just playing the 'god of the gaps' - whatever mystery exists, whatever we don't understand, you're claiming is just a god. Nevermind that people can't agree whether it's Zeus, or Thor, or Apollo, or Athena, or Jehovah, or The Flying Spaghetti Monster. For years we've been closing the gaps on these gods, explaining things like where the rain comes from, why the grass is green, why developmental defects occur, how the sun 'comes up' every day, how we evolved from simpler life forms. But if you want to hold out your superstition, there's no logical argument that says you're committing some intellectual fallacy.

However, getting backed into a corner and exclaiming, "Well, you can't PROVE a god DIDN'T do it!" doesn't do anything to help your case. With that kind of reasoning, I'm as justified in declaring, "Well, you can't PROVE that Santa Claus DIDN'T do it!" It's equally nonsensical.

Of course, this is when it always hits me. I realize it. You don't believe in 'intelligent' design because of any scientific reason. You believe it because it supports a model that you want to be true - that you WANT to believe in. And therein lies the rub.

Ultimately, I can't reason someone out of something that they didn't reason themselves into in the first place.

And on that note, have fun on sunday suppressing the truth for your magicman in the sky.

It's a brewin'

Tim Minchin is a comedian/musician from Australia who knows how to rock out to the skeptical perspective. The following clip is from a live show in London just last year. It was taken down for a while, but he recently put a better quality copy back up for all of us to enjoy. This is an original, fictional beat poem, but as you'll hear, all stories are pulled from things we've heard kooks talk about every day. In this case, all the woo you can think of is rolled up into one paranoid hippy named Storm. As the woo gets thick, just listen to Mr. Minchin whittle it back down.



I'd like to throw a dinner party and invite Tim Minchin. I'll find a hippy for him to debate too.

Growing Up

PZ Myers posted this on his blog today and I wanted to share it here as well. Watch it by yourself where you will not be interrupted. I think we can all relate.

Bumper Sticker

I was walking in to lab today and I saw this bumper sticker on a car in the parking lot:

Then I looked up and saw the Duke Chapel looming in the distance. I love living in a free country.

Oxygen Deprivation

One of my favorite YouTube users, Edward Current, has recently uploaded a new video that I must share.

Mr. Current is an expert in satire, particularly concerning fundamental christian believers. He's also quite adept on the computer machine and inter-tube. In this scenario a christian is about to die, but before he bites the dust, as his brain is deprived of oxygen, he hallucinates and a bit of truth is revealed to him ... isn't the saying 'better late than never'?

God doesn't have a sense of humor apparently.

They say emulation is the highest form of flattery, but apparently impersonation is in bad taste ... especially if it´s of imaginary characters. In an article reported by The Seattle Times three days ago, a DJ named Revin John was fired from his job for a sketch released over Virgin Radio Dubai in Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. According to the article:

The Arabian Radio Network said in a statement Revin John had been "let go" over a sketch Monday on Virgin Radio Dubai in which he quoted an article about a U.S. court throwing out a lawsuit against God.

John then pretended to act out a telephone conversation with God, prompting complaints from listeners of "diverse faiths and nationalities," said a statement written in reponse to questions from The Associated Press.

"He intended to be funny, not to offend anybody," said Arabian Radio Network Chief Operating Officer Steve Smith. "However, what he did was highly offensive to the Muslim and Christian community in the UAE."

Apparently impersonating fictitious characters is only allowed if you're doing a sketch on Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, pink unicorns, etc. In fact, I don't believe equal opportunity is shown to all deities here - I wonder: if he impersonated Zeus, Ra, or Quetzalcoatl would he have been fired? I reckon all gods are not created equal.

Mariam Zarouni, a 20-year-old chemical engineering student at the American University of Sharjah, said she was so offended by John's comments that she formed a group to protest the incident on the social networking Web site Facebook. It had 569 members by Wednesday evening.

"When somebody crosses the line, then you have to defend your religion," Zarouni said. "Honestly ... how can he do this? We're in a Muslim county. But even Christians would take offense to that. You can't insult God."

First off, when you create a facebook group, if you have less than 1,000 members you can hardly call yourself 'protest' group. A group on facebook called "Gay Marriage Killed the Dinosaurs" has almost 40,000 members. Secondly, if a 20-year-old chemical engineering student has time to be offended, she's not studying hard enough.

My favorite comment is "You can't insult God." Really? REALLY? To begin with, I was not aware that impersonation was in fact necessarily an insult. I figured that if we really wanted to insult god, it would take the form of, "Hey, god, your mom is so ugly, when she goes to the beach, cats try to bury her." No? Not appropriate? How about, "Hey god, while you were out last night killing all the first born, smiting the gentiles, and cutting the foreskin off of other babes, I was banging your wife." You're right. That's over the top. I'm gay, so I would probably bang god's husband, not his wife ... only if he was hot ... who I'm kidding, he's married to god, of course he's gonna be hot ... and probably a catcher, not a pitcher. After all, god is supposed to be omnipotent, that's got to come in handy sometimes.

I'm lucky enough to live in a country that truly believes in free speech. And I intend to practice that right until the day I die. There is no such thing as blasphemy. No topic should be off limits. When we decide that some things can't be said, that some things should never be discussed, we lose our freedom of speech and begin sliding down a slippery slope to fascism. When we make topics off-limits and cut ourselves off from free scientific inquiry, we end up with periods of history called the dark ages ... just ask the victims of the medieval inquisition or the salem witch trials.

And for any of you who may think that my views as an atheist are offensive, just remember what the people can do to a man or woman with a dissenting opinion. I'm sure you've learned about the holocaust at some point in your life ... the holocaust was a horrible, horrible stain on human history and I hope that it is not repeated, especially on that scale. Unfortunately there are people in this world who deny that the holocaust ever happened ... sick bastards. I bet you don't like their views either, just like me. But what should we do about it? Should we educate others about the truth? Should we oppose them in open public debate? Should we arrest and put in jail those people who claim the holocaust never happened? Right now, on October 25th, 2008, holocaust denial is explicitly or implicitly illegal in 13 countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Switzerland.

Does that scare you? I mean, I whole-heartedly disagree with flat-earthists and creationists but I would never promote legislation that would INCARCERATE them. Being free means you have the freedom to be smart AND stupid.

Don't forget that.

On a final note, Dubai is supposed to be the most liberal of the seven UAE states. The age of enlightenment began almost 400 years ago. Will it be another 400 hundred before the rest of the world catches up? 1000? The answer is up to us.

Ontological, Schmontological!

Well, the final presidential debate is over, and not a moment too soon. I'm so tired of stump speeches, negative campaigning, and cliché pandering I could almost go vote for Ron Paul ... almost. If all else fails, we can just get Joe the Plumber to run our country.

At the very least it would be nice to listen to a real debate. If I wanted to hear weak arguments employing poor logic that is essentially lost in semantics or word play, I'd go listen to a religious believer or deist try to convince me of god's existence using a classic ontological argument.

So, why is the ontological argument so silly? For starters, it's essentially a tautology - an argument that takes as a premise its own conclusion. Let's examine one of the more classic interpretations:

1) By definition, God is perfect and thus greater than anything a human being could imagine.
2) If you can imagine something, it would be 'better' or 'more perfect' if that imaginary thing were actually real.
3) Therefore God must exist.

Confused yet? It's saying that if you try and imagine a 'God', he's probably perfect (meaning lots of fun things like awesome, good, the best). The twist (and assumption) is that if you can imagine something incredibly crazy cool, wouldn't it be that much COOLER if what you imagine actually came true?! If 'God' is perfect, and a perfect real thing is better than a perfect imaginary thing, then by the definition that perfect is more perfect in reality 'God' must be real.

This is as much word play as it is anything else. The base assumption that something perfect is 'more perfect' if it is actually real rather than imaginary seems to us (in modern days) a very unwarranted assumption. I reckon that many years ago it did not seem so odd.

More importantly, if we were to apply this logic to other ideas many people would find it laughable. Take Santa Claus for example (SPOILER ALERT!). Santa Claus is a fictitious character (hope you knew that already) that is a part of many cultures - at least, most of you who read this will think that. But I'm sure someone out there will claim that, in fact, Kris Kringle is as real as you and me, and he has amazing powers at Christmas time. You might say that that someone out there is crazy. Until that someone looks you in the eye and says "Santa Claus is perfect/the best/awesome at delivering gifts to everyone at Christmas time." By the logic laid forth above, Santa Claus must be real since the mere construction of the belief in this kind of perfection dictates its reality ... by definition! We have our tautology and with that, we can begin to imagine all sorts of crazy things into existence. Go ahead, try it! I've always wanted a pink-eared, fuzzy-bottomed, lion-tailed, ostrich-winged goldfish as a pet.

If you want a really great explanation/discussion of this ancient play on words, visit the skeptics guide to the universe and download podcast #80.

Now, if only I could find a politician who could even explain what the ontological argument IS, much less refute it, I would at least feel comforted knowing the intellectual capacity of the person running my government is better than a bush. If I cannot have a more skeptical candidate, at least I can have HOPE.

The Holy Realm of Crackerdom

I can't believe it's been this long since last I posted. The plan is to make this a much more regular ordeal. Now, on to the hubbub.

Two days ago, one of my favorite bloggers, PZ Myers, posted an entry about the final desecration of a cracker. Not just any cracker though; one taken from a church, blessed by a priest, and intended for human consumption - some of you might know this as the eucharist (I hate capitalizing letters for religious words - don't want to give undue respect to imaginary beings).

To explain why this took place, you would need to know the first party of the story. A student named Webster Cook (no relation to me) received the eucharist from the priest at the church, but refused to chew, and walked out with the cracker in his mouth to show his friends. After which point, the catholic church and many of its followers became furious. To the point that Mr. Cook received death threats, might face suspension/expulsion, and that catholics believe this is a hate crime, I can only hang my head in shame. Professor Myers did a great job relaying his sentiment, which I share, on his blog which you can read here. What seemed to cause an uproar was a challenge that PZ offered:

So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I'm sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart.

Fortunately a reasonable man with stature in the blogging community stood up for Mr. Cook ... and he paid for it dearly. For the following 16 days after bringing attention to the story and calling the situation as he saw it, PZ Meyers was on the receiving end of hate mail himself. Not just ugly emails, but death threatening emails and others that threatened his family. Throughout the shenanigans, some emailed him to pray for him or his conversion to catholicism. Still others hurled insults, calling him a Jew, or making comparisons to how muslims would react if he were to desecrate a copy of the Koran. Emails went back and forth, people got fired from their jobs for sending hate emails, and then ... duh-duh-DUH! ... Bill Donahue got involved.

Bill Donahue, head of the Catholic League, is masterfully deluded by The Woo. He called for Dr. Meyers' resignation as professor from the University of Minnesota. Of course, the main reason is simply that PZ is clearly evil.

The notion that catholics believe in the cracker and wine BECOMING physically the body and blood of Jesus is called transubstantiation. Growing up methodist, the official doctrine is that we believed in consubstantiation. Then lastly we have those who think it's simply symbolic. Since you've probably heard of the first and the third, let me tell you how the apologetic methodists make it work.

John Wesley (founder of methodism) clearly was no ignoramus. He could easily reason that, upon receiving communion, the bread and wine remained just that: bread and wine. Clearly this was in conflict with the catholic view of transubstantiation. As such, consubstantiation keeps the hocus pocus of the materials without all that cognitive dissonance of the bread and wine still appearing to be bread and wine after the blessing. Quick and simple fix, no? So instead of the magic being that there is a material alteration in the space-time continuum, the bread and wine just become magical, granting whoever consumes, well, salvation.

OK - back to the story. After much attention, PZ Myers finally committed the act of cracker abuse. After a short history lesson of when and how the catholics decided to make transubstantiation the standard and demonize the Jews (read his entry here), he revealed his work.

Because we live in a world that believes a cracker is actually another human being, and even a god, if you only believe it into being so, he felt it appropriate to dispel this myth and put forth his personal view (that it's just a cracker) with fervent force. He actually 'desecrated' three items: he put a nail through the cracker, tore pages out of the Koran, and tore pages out of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and threw all of it in the trashcan. Under the image of his work, he reminds us that these are just items, things. To quote him, "Nothing must be held sacred."

Any belief structure that undermines reality and reason, is a poison waiting to destroy the minds of those willing to inbibe its sometimes convenient rhetoric. A cracker remains a cracker, no matter how many words you utter in front of it. The world is still a sphere, no matter how many times you say that it is flat. You cannot wish something into being - it is or it isn't.

The question is, will you let your curiosity question the world and discover the truth of reality?