You're closeminded.

Theology Non-Rule #4 - Anybody who cannot be convinced by absolutely no evidence and nothing but some special pleading and logical fallacies is close minded. These individuals have closed their eyes to the truth, which requires you have faith (close your eyes and mind) in order to believe. In the world of theology, being compelled by strong evidence and not by special pleading means that your mind is closed.

In reality, not everybody you fail to convinced to believe what you believe has a closed mind... you could be full of crap and have no evidence.

Baby Bible Bashers...

Apparently it's British so Bible Basher means Bible Thumper rather than Bible Basher which in the US means somebody who "bashes" the Bible. It's apparently about mindfucked kids preaching the word of God to disinterested people. Two of the three kids are well managed and are fulfilling what they are good for... making money. However the last (presented first) is just confused and kind of pathetic.

The Barker Postulate

There exists an inverse relationship between the truth of a religious position and the number of gods proscribed. If you have five million gods, your religion is less valid than if you have 5 gods. If your religion has twenty gods is less true than if you have three. If your religion has three gods it is less true than having one god.

Truth value = (1)/(1 + (number of gods))

Woman set to have her baby on her 7th birthday.

Oddly enough, Michelle Birnbaum is born the day before my 27 year old brother's birthday. On her 7th birthday she is set to have a baby girl... congratulations.

Sarah Connor Chronicles: Robot Souls

The latest failing. Yes, robots lack souls. They can't have faith or commune with God. My god! I'm a robot!

Stargate SG1 had similar lines where Daniel Jackson said something similar to Replicarter.

*sigh*

Apparently robots don't have interests groups and you can malign them to your hearts content. Soulless automatons unable to ascend or commune with the non-existent.

Ricky Gervais' deconversion story.

That's pretty sharp.

(Via Pharyngula)

Motivation Poster: Fractal Wrongness.

Testing out a nice DIY parody motivator generator. Toss in a nice image stole from some site. And... Done.

Santa... Jesus... never forget.

Kermit I have some bad news.

Have a seat...

Who's at fault for my atheism?

"it's not my fault tatarize doesn't believe in God."

It's nobody's fault I don't believe in God. Fault isn't the right word as I'm quite happy as an atheist. I wasn't indoctrinated as a child and by the time I learned what religion was my brain was fully functional. Children will believe lies, even absurd lies. At a certain age, though, people will just laugh at silly things. I became an vociferous atheist ten seconds after I first learned about religion, eight seconds after I laughed.

Fractal Wrongness and Pwned.

The first is to popularize a very useful term of Fractal Wrongness. It has been batting around for a while showing up in the Computer Science lexicon or two for a while. Mentioned on both the Non-Prophets and the Atheist Experience.

The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as every refutation you make of that person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder, full of half-truths, leaps of logic, and outright lies, that requires just as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the Mandelbrot set in finite time.

If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the Internet--in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums--your best bet is to say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.

I've met many people exactly like this, amazingly as wrong in their entire view as they are on the little subpoints that views that view is built upon. Leading to an odd sort of paradox where not only are none of the premises acceptable but the entire argument itself fails and is itself being used to build up an impossibly wrong conclusion. If you look into why the premises fail, you'll see they are accepted on reasons equally as bad as the conclusion they are attempting force out of this silly exercise.


Second, suggested by two headed boy on some philosophy blog comment.

instead of writing "QED" at the end of proofs, I think we should all start writing "pwned."

(Via Ethics in Science entry)

Newdow, much hated, for so little.

The Non-Profits latest episode did had a great cite to a page about Michael Newdow.

Wow, the hate and utter stupidity of the average American is horrifically lacking.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=67117

--

* ""Under God" was added in the 1950's to combat the 'godless communists' - it's propaganda, and it SHOULD be removed."
* "For the deist and atheist who deny GOD and the Biblical foundation of the United States of America… they would do well to objectively consider the truth of the matter: For my brothers and sisters in Christ, please pray that GOD will pour out His Grace on those who are blind by choice. "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." - C.S. Lewis JOHN 3:16"
* "Take it out or not, I will ALWAYS, REPEAT ALWAYS, say ONE NATION UNDER GOD when I make the pledge."
* "Lil ole Newdow at it again eh? Not surprised. Anyway, the phrase which he bases his lawsuit on "seperation of church and state" appears nowhere in the Constitution or in any Founding document. I agree with the comment that if Newdow doesn't like it here, well, go live somewhere else."
* "Why do they allow Michael to continue with his diatribe on this issue??? One nation under God. There can be no other way. Like it or not we are a Christian nation only by the grace of an Almighty God."

--

These are just taken one after another. These are tame (I chose them at random) but even that crap... tame.

Brief History of Theology

People are Scary.

I am glad to know that Bush is really a bad Christian. A good Christian wouldn't have screwed up. We should bring the troops home. There's never going to be peace in the middle east until judgment day. Why waste our troops in the mean time?

Sarah Connor Chronicles: Genetics

Not that much for genetics, though the rest is pretty stellar.


- Medic: "He's lost a lot of blood"

- Robot: "Sarah Connor is O-. Universal donor."

- Medic: "He needs at least three pints of his own blood type: AB-"

- John: "Test mine."


If your mother is O, the chance you're AB is 0%. My mother is AB the chance that I could be O is 0%. You get one gene or the other, if you have no gene to give you have O. Regardless what version of the gene John got from his father, his mother doesn't have the other gene to give him. With a mother who has AB, I can have A, B, or AB. Depending on my father's blood type (B heterozygous). I have B.

John, ofcourse, had the right blood type. This forces me to conclude that John's mother is not Sarah Connor. -- Odd. I understand the switching to a new timeline, but why exactly are they changing facts established prior to John's conception?

Update:
A commenter informed me of a good explanation of this.

Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor must have had a blood type to allow John to have AB- whereas Lena Headey's Sarah Connor has type O- blood. The mother currently in this show is clearly different than the mother who gave birth to him; everything makes perfect sense now.

Sarah Connor Chronicles...

Why do some awesome shows have crap for intros?

Battlestar Galactica use to, as a general rule, spoil the episode before showing the episode during the intro. Sitting down to watch the show and *pow* what you're going to see in this episode you've already decided to watch!

Well, Sarah Connor Chronicles isn't that annoying but the intro was written by a MORON!

In the future, my son will lead mankind in a war against Skynet, a computer system programed to destroy the world. It has sent machines back through time, some to kill him, one to protect him. Today we fight to stop Skynet from ever being created. To change our future. To change his fate. The war to save mankind, begins now!

No. Skynet was not programmed to destroy the world. Skynet isn't trying to destroy the world... it's trying to kill all humans. Skynet was not programmed to destroy all humans. It became conscious and decided to do that! The former (destroy world) would be a stupid thing for a robot to do, and, being human, I reserve judgment on the latter (kill all humans). Skynet never sent the "one [robot] to protect him". -- Clearly that robot is reprogrammed and being used to protect him, but was not sent by Skynet!

Solutions to life's problems in comic form.

Debate: Hitchens Boteach

You'll never guess who wins.


Shorter version of the debate:

Boteach: The Jews are special and God gave us moral laws, but the Jews are not special and those moral laws are inherent within us. Hitches is depressing because evolution is depressing, which Stephen J. Gould didn't believe in, and you shouldn't either because its false and simply replacing God with time; but I believe it!

Hitchens: *POW*

Random Stuff: I can do anything better than you.

My shows are coming back...

Ah... no more writers strike.

Daily Show + the funny... I can't wait.

Bill Maher is crazy.

Bill Maher on his latest show went deep into his toxin/super-immune system crap and just went too far. I know he's on the board of PETA and this idea that toxins are what makes everybody sick is quite common in New Age circles. The idea that germs aren't what make you sick is about as impressive as the idea that Iraq might not be a bad idea if it works. He's a voice of reason when it comes to atheism, but why not subject those beliefs to a bit of science on this bad boy?

Chlorine is bad for you, it's a poison and I won't drink bleach. So any amount is bad for you? No. Smaller amounts are bad for bacteria in the water supply and insure that we get clean disease free water.

It's akin to the idea that cancer drugs are bad. A lot of them are toxic, really toxic. But, cancer is going to kill you if you don't take those drugs and so far this is our best solution.

Admittedly, we should all cut down heavily on our intake of meat. We should cut down on our intake of sugar. We should exercise more. This will strengthen us, keep us young, and keep us healthy... it won't make us into germ immune supermen.

Just saying, Bill Maher is crazy.

Darwin Day Tomorrow... Bow before your God!

(via Skepchick)

199th Darwin Day is tomorrow (actually it would just be Darwin's 199th birthday and hardly similar, also 199th Lincoln's birthday too). Remember, desecration of the Bible is Mandatory. Drinking the blood of Christian babies is canceled (due to increase awareness via Saint Dawkins we were going to drink the blood of "children of Christian parents" but then a lot of atheists are children of Christian parents and that kind of weirded people out, the suggestion of drinking wine and just saying it was blood was blasted on the grounds that "nobody could be that stupid").

Hallowed are the Ori.
Read the book of Origin!

Poe's Law, can you tell?

So real or not?

Dear God...

Dear God Letters via Goosing the Antithesis.

CotG #84

Latest Carnival of the Godless is up. I'm mentioned.

Gay Distaster Shield

It has long been offered that the obvious and clearly divine powers of gays could be harnessed for good. For example, at the same time gays were making it rain in the UK gays were causing a drought in the Southern States in the US. Clearly there's a sort of disaster buildup as far as homosexuals go. We should then, when such things occur, pay to move the gays from one region temporarily to another region. This way we can mitigate the disasters. Just as the gays protected the French Quarter of NOLA from being damaged they could protect other people from disaster. I know there might be some troubles here and there, and depending on how exactly gays have this disaster ability it might be too dangerous to keep them in certain areas. Therefore I recommend we spend a lot of money making some tropical island into a gay paradise along with a bunker. So when natural disasters come they can just scamper into the bunker and be absolutely safe. And then when it's gone go back to sipping their drinks on the beach and puttering on their fiber internet connection. I think the government should get right on this.

Though, I'm not gay, I want the best for people and if that means harnessing the superpowers of others so be it. I can cross my eyes and turn to pictures into one and use that to solve those, "what's different where puzzles." If that would save people, I would use it. Also, I think we might want to send a few fundamentalist preachers to this island (and not the ones who'd like it) because similar to the old saying about the people needed to hurt you: "an enemy to insult you, and a friend to tell you." We might need the preachers there in order to bring this "divine wrath". It might take fiddling with some of the variables as to what exactly cues this "divine wrath" and how quantifiable and controllable it may be. But, that's why we do these experiments.

There is *still* no God.

Just thought my blog was getting to random trivial stuff filled and politics. This is God Snot after all: Ssnot (it's like swounds meaning God's-wounds)! And I figured I would make this public announcement there is still no God.

The Bible is still stupid and still evil. Atheists still say brilliant things. Creationism is still hogwash. People are still not healed by deities. Prayer still does not work. Wrong is still wrong. Earthquakes still happen, still cause suffering, and still have nothing to do with free will. And kissing asses doesn't get you prizes.

California: Home district voting totals.

The people (how very distant they seem) in my family actually live an Even district. So it would take a lot to force a 3-1 split. And, frankly, it happened. 3-1 in favor of Clinton. Arg. Clinton took my district at a 2.025 to 1 margin. That .025 there means a difference of two delegates (One from Obama, One for Clinton).

Update: Wait, those were older numbers. Late breaking votes for Obama according to raw vote totals: 1.84 to 1. Means a two/two split. The 33.7% of the Obama supporters in this area succeeded. With 100% of votes in. What a difference between 63.2/31.2 and 62.1/33.7!

Woo... go 43rd congressional district.

THE FIGHTING 43rd!

Update: Never Mind. The math is more arcane than that. 62.1/(62.1+33.7)>.62! Hillary actually does snag 3-1 rather than 2-2.

Boo... go fuck yourself 43rd congressional district.

THE FRIGGING 43rd!

Predictions: Large Hadron Collider

On par with my other predictions, I will make this one: The Large Hadron Collider will confirm the existence of the Higgs Boson, will confirm Technicolor (Higgs is not truly an elementary particle but is made up of other particles), and the LHC will have anti-time effects causing the creation of our universe.

God Punishes Tennessee et al. for voting for Huckabee.

Union University was nearly destroyed. Science gave people ample warning as to the potential destruction and thus the fatalities were down from what they would have been.

However, is it any wonder that the exact states who voted for Huckabee were the worst hit? Clearly, Huckabee is slated for the presidency and is the Anti-Christ. God is trying to stop this. As it says in the Bible, the Devil will quote scripture. Huckabee quotes scripture. The only people ineligible to be the anti-Christ are those people who don't know the Bible, or as they are called... run of the mill Christians.

Something to think about.

;)

Stoopid California.

I blame my Sister and Mother. (for Hillary winning California) Give em the right to vote and they vote wrong. My mother apparently was "waiting 8 years" to vote for her [Hillary]. My sister was the victim of terrorism. Anybody who supports Obama is clearly "pulling a fast one" (too scared to risk it). My brother didn't vote based on his previous 2 hour wait in 2006. It took me literally three minutes to go in and go out. Done.

The younger generation has been doing a lot of heavy lifting politically and Hillary does well? Well, Obama did well too. But, still, old people would happily allow a party without a backbone to waffle-around and suck. Young people got Howard Dean in and shifted up the party to win back both houses and most likely this Presidential election. I want my dream-speaking candidate! Good speeches and strong actions. But, you backboneless freaks want your small margins and small wins. Obama for president would be either in 60s or the 40s and far more likely the former in a general election. However, some people in the party want Hillary's 52% win. I want Obama to crush the election with 60+% and sweep in a good number of Senate seats and a dozen house seats to pad the lead.

Yes, dumbass, Hillary can win. Obama can WIN.

My Super Tuesday Prediction...

My prediction for Super Tuesday Obama +80 on delegate count.

--

Work then voting...

Off to work (at a real job not a campaign) then vote for Barack Obama, I'd recommend the latter. The former is making me get up at 6 in the bleeding morning.

Resymbolizing the theft of America's soul.

So the New Presidential Coins which are to feature the faces of all the dead presidents (which I think is just shenanigans to get Reagan on a coin) well, they put In God We Trust rather than on the coin itself on the side of the coin. Well no longer! The Christian right through Sen. Brownback managed to put the phrase from the side of the coin (where nobody looks) to the front where everybody tends to be. The Right was kind of pissed that it was moved.

"The first four coins, honoring George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were issued in 2007."

"Officials at the Mint say the dies for the 2008 coins, which honor James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, have already been produced, so the change will not be visible until the 2009 series is produced."

So about the time the Christian right started to exert influence on the fairly secular government we're going to start having "In God We Trust" put onto those coins where we couldn't unnoticeable remove them with a small amount of grinding.

I thought that "In God We Trust" was suppose to be added due to ceremonial deism or respect for history or something like that. It certainly isn't an active claim to support a religious viewpoint through government machinery which would be a direct and clear violation of the Establishment Clause.

Jesus Loves the Little Zygotes

As read on the 2 Feb 2008 edition of the Non-Prophets radio show, from Dial-an-Atheist Ohio by Frank Zindler. Transcribed by some guy.

Jesus loves the little zygotes
all the zygotes of the world.
Jesus loves them until they're born
then abandons them forlorn.
Jesus loves the little zygotes 'til they're born.

Jesus loves the little children
all the children of the world.
Jesus gives them heart defects
measles, mumps, and ringwormed necks.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Jesus lets their parents beat them,
bruise their bodies black and blue.
Jesus gives them birth defects,
scurvy, ticks, and palette clefts.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Jesus gives the children cancer.
Earaches, lice, and scabies too.
Bowel obstructions, altered lips,
blighted brains and twisted hips.
Extra chromosomes to help them when they pray.

Hallelujah.

Jesus gives the children acne.
AIDS and leprosy galore.
Germs and worms of every kind.
Things to make the children blind.
But he cannot give them smallpox anymore.

Scientists and unbelievers
wiped the pox right off the earth.
Jesus still gives gifts to kids,
broken nose and burnt eyelids.
But he cannot give them smallpox anymore.

God Delusion Index

Sorry I would have stole this for Pharyngula earlier, but I didn't pay much attention to it until the Non-Prophets mentioned it.

Pope is still a tool: "some science shatters human dignity"

He said this included total respect for the human being as a person "from conception until natural death," and respect for the natural transmission of life through sexual intercourse.

Practices like freezing embryos, suppression of embryos in multiple pregnancies, embryonic stem cell research, the prospect of human cloning and artificial insemination outside the body had "shattered the barriers meant to protect human dignity," he said.

"When human beings in the weakest and most defenseless state of their existence are selected, abandoned, killed or used as pure 'biological material,' how can one deny that they are being treated not as 'someone' but as 'something,"' he said.

In other words science doesn't treat clumps of undifferentiated cells like human beings? What a tool. Lemme guess why that is. An undifferentiated clump of cells is not a human being. -- I'm guessing that's the key.

With the new breakthroughs dedifferentiating skin cells into full cells via four (now three) different viruses to reintroduce a couple genes we know that every cell in your body could be a human being as well. All the DNA is there, and it's possible to reset the cells and grow some new humans out of them. Frankly, by the popes logic, scratching my ass is worse than the holocaust.