“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

–Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford University, 2005

From 10 things you never knew about Steve Jobs.

Just stumbled on this Skeptico post from a couple of years ago about how astrology does not work.

People want to believe this stuff for some reason. I don’t believe it at all and yet I am still a Libra in many ways. I suspect that I just relate to those parts of my personality that are Libra-like when discussing astrology. If I were some other sign, I would relate to the qualities of that sign. People are complex and we all probably have attributes related to all of the signs of the zodiac.

This is why many people believe their horoscope as well. They ignore those parts that don’t ring true or don’t happen and remember those parts that do. So you read a horoscope that says a friend will have bad news and you’ll have a happy surprise. If those things don’t happen, you don’t really think about it, but if they do you say “Wow, my horoscope was true!”

One trick you can do is read someone their horoscope but actually read one for a different sign. Same thing: they’ll pick out the “true” stuff and ignore the not true stuff.

From an astronomical basis, astrology is bullshit as well. I did a little calculation comparing the gravitational force of the other solar system bodies with that of the earth. Here they are in decreasing order of influence:

Body    Force
Earth 100.00000000%
Sun     0.24077994%
Moon    0.00125292%
Jupiter 0.00001312%
Venus   0.00000752%
Saturn  0.00000095%
Mars    0.00000029%
Mercury 0.00000010%
Uranus  0.00000003%
Neptune 0.00000001%
Pluto   0.00000000%

So on average the Sun has 0.25% of the gravitational influence on you as the Earth does. The moon has 0.001% of the influence. And those are the STRONG ones. Jupiter, which is the biggest planet and fairly close, has 0.00001% of the influence as the Earth.

The notion that these minuscule forces are going to affect whether you have good luck today or not is daft.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune (which retardedly deletes stories after a while, insuring the following link will break sometime in the future) has a story on Muslims who won’t scan pork at Target or give people rides in their taxis if they have alcohol. One person is quoted as saying:

“If a vegetarian refused to scan hamburger, that wouldn’t make the front page,” she said. “But because the word ‘Muslims’ comes up, suddenly it becomes news.”

I’m not sure this is true. I oddly agree with many right wingers on this issue because it is so damn simple: do not try to get a job which includes duties that you are unwilling to perform. This has nothing to do with Islam, in my opinion. I hold the same opinion of Christian pharmacists who won’t dispense prescriptions for religious reasons or vegetarians who won’t do their jobs. Either do your job or get a different job.

This is not any sort of infringement on religious freedom nor is it discrimination. The job is X and either you do X or you should look for another job. The same rules apply to everyone.

I had a few beers with my pastor friend, Tom, last night. Tom is by far the most enlightened religious person I know. He is not at all threatened by atheism or even fundamentalism. His focus is on the good that people of faith can do and the richness of the lives they can lead. He is not in any way judgmental, he is extremely compassionate and caring and he takes no issue with science, humanism or rationale being applied to matters of faith. He thinks, in fact, that doubt, discussion and seeking are vital to an honest faith. He makes you Christians look good.

We talked a bit about my discussion with the young earth creationist. He said that he reads the historical parts of the Bible as history, the poetry as poetry, the metaphor as metaphor, etc. The Bible has all of these things. If you want to treat the Bible as absolutely literal you miss most of its teaching. He used an example that Jesus (or God or whatever) said “I am the rock”. So, is God made of granite? Is that the literal interpretation? Of course not, it’s a metaphor. Another example was that after God created Adam and Eve, the very first people, the serpent spoke to them. How is it that a serpent and these brand new people spoke the same language? A literal interpretation of the fall from grace is retarded — a metaphoric interpretation is rich in meaning and in teaching.

A little Googling led me to this article on biblical literalism and he makes some good points about the topic as well.

My point? It is literally impossible to interpret the Bible literally. Such attempts strip the teachings of their true meaning. The ass-backwards attempts of religious fundamentalists to interpret the creation of the universe, the creation of humans, the flood, etc. as literal, scientific truth are turning their backs on the Word.

The fact that I’m an atheist does not likely cause these people to agree with me, I’m sure!

A report is getting some play in the press that marijuana is getting more potent and more kids are having problems with it.

First of all, I don’t think kids should drink and do drugs. I did it, you did it, but no one in their right mind recommends it, just like we don’t recommend a lot of other stupid shit we all did. Parents need to exert their influence and make sure their children make good choices.

But what strikes me funny is how people treat marijuana so much differently than alcohol. You can drink beverages with low alcohol content, such as beer and wine, or you can drink beverages with high alcohol content, such as hard liquor. No journalist in their right minds would write an article about hard liquor having more alcohol than beer. It’s obvious, known by all and not newsworthy in the slightest.

So what if pot is stronger now? It may very well mean that people smoke less of it, consume less tar as a result and it may thus have an overall health benefit. Instead of smoking a joint or doing bong hits they use a one-hitter. (Not that I know anything about this stuff.)

Reports like this are good information, but my fear is it will lead people to think that prohibition is a good thing, and it’s not. No one, ever, anywhere is talking about the prohibition of alcohol again. Why? Because it was ineffective and was the genesis of organized crime in America. It put huge dollars into the black market and it did not stop people from drinking.

The same is true of marijuana. The only rational, life-saving, crime-preventing, money-saving strategy is to legalize, or at the very least decriminalize marijuana.

I hate to blow his cover, but micadelic, who dogs me on this blog, has started his own blog. But, not one to think small, he didn’t just start a blog, he is the next President of the United States of America.

Head on over and harass the crap out of him. 😉

bsherwood said:

Faith is an absolute virtue. You have faith in what you believe. I have faith in what I believe. David Koresh (sp?) had faith in what he believed……Faith is a virtue…what you have faith in may not be virtuous (sp? again…)

I’m wondering what is so virtuous about faith. Let’s use an example. I do have “faith” in science because obviously I can’t personally recreate every experiment ever done. But my faith is based on the idea that I could if I wanted to. For example, in one of my physics labs we redid a lot of famous experiments. Here is my lab report on measuring the charge of the electron. I don’t need to have “faith” on the charge of the electron, I did it myself. Thus, my faith in science is faith in the process and the people and it is underwritten, if you will, with the knowledge that I could personally verify the experiments (even though doing so is impractical).

So what is faith? If we ask the dictionary it is “confidence or trust in a person or thing” or “belief that is not based on proof“.

My faith is science is based on the former: I trust scientists and the scientific process. Your faith in God is based on the latter: in spite of the lack of evidence, you believe it anyway.

I’m not necessarily convinced either of these is a “virtue” (moral excellence; goodness; righteousness).

Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, should be an outstanding leader. He has 8 degrees and “several honorary degrees and doctorates from various international Universities“.

But, unfortunately, he is a complete and utter failure, and a prick to boot. He has utterly destroyed Zimbabwe. It used to export food, now it is on the brink of famine. It’s economy has collapsed and it has rampant inflation.

I’m not expert on Zimbabwe but I do agree, in principle, that white ownership of all of the arable land is untenable. Like South Africa, the transition to a more representative government and some redistribution of wealth was probably necessary. But what Mugabe has done has obviously not worked and he has hurt all of the people of Zimbabwe in the process.

I think he has been absolutely corrupted by power and/or is completely insane or perhaps both. I wonder when the people of Zimbabwe are going to take their country back…

I had a fairly long email exchange with someone who was adamantly a “creation science” person. He believes the Earth and the universe are only thousands of years old. He believes in Intelligent Design (ID), of course and thinks evolution is nonsense.

A few things struck me about our debate. First of all, the guy isn’t dumb and he is not just spouting dogma. He has thought about it, read about it and feels he is extremely informed on all sides of these issues. He thinks science is intentionally blind to the influence of design. Here is a quote:

Actually I was once in that place and was emotionally revolted by the idea, but after about a year of letting it settle I started looking and was astounded at the way I had been brainwashed. It took several years more before I could actually see the case for a young earth, but it is indeed there. Because mainstream science is so inbred, incestuous in fact, it SEEMS to all fit together. What has happened it that anomalous evidence is ignored.

So here is a religious conservative with radical scientific views, rejecting entire disciplines of science as quakery. And here I am, a social and political liberal who always sides with the establishment when it comes to science.

I, of course, think this dude is batshit crazy. These folks start with a conclusion, that God is involved in our every day lives, and project it on everything. Anything that contradicts the Bible is wrong. Scientists are atheists who “MUST believe in evolution because they would otherwise lose intellectual respectability. Therefore they are not open to the evidence for creation.”

It’s amazing to me that someone can look around this amazing world that science has created for us and still call scientists frauds who purposefully ignore evidence to support their idealogical beliefs.

But only, of course, in those areas addressed by scripture. For some odd reason they don’t quibble with electromagnetism or chemistry. No, it’s just geology, astronomy, cosmology, paleontology and biology they have a problem with, thanks to the insane young Earth theory and ID.

But, their minds are made up and no amount of direct evidence or scientific consensus will ever convince them. The Book was written and that is the end of the story.

WTF.

Democrats’ Plans Help Al-Qaida, Cheney Says

Barf.

What a fucking deranged, bitter old fuck Cheney is. They have proven, beyond all doubt, that what they think is right does not work. Yet he still comes out with this same old tired bullshit.

They know that the only tool Congress has at this point to affect this fucked up situation is their power with the purse strings. That is what Cheney is fighting. They want an endless supply of our children’s children’s children’s money to fight this dumb war with their old boy’s club partners.

Fuck them.