Too Many Questions

A Question Of Conscience

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:00:00 +0000

Hey, religious dudes and dudesses, I have been atheist for about forty of my forty-seven years, so the ways of religion were rolling off my duck-like back before they really got hold and I've been out of the spiritual soup so long now I can barely remember what is feels like to wear that coat of just one colour.
So, I have quandary about your religious ways.
I reckon it's probably not an easy one to tell the truth about and I'm unsure if you'll be able to honestly answer, even though it's just a hypothetical ponder.
Anyway here goes, I'd really like to know how you would react if the following paradigm played out...

On your pillow when you wake tomorrow is neatly folded piece of obviously ancient but beautifully pressed parchment with your name magnificently inscribed in actual gold upon it. It is a note from Yahweh, God, Allah or (insert your chosen deity here) and you know it's from your one and only "big-chief mighty wishes" because everyone else in the world got one too and they ALL say the same thing.

Dear (insert your own name.)
After a great and careful consideration of the terms of my contract, I have determined that eternal paradise is no longer on the menu for the great majority of humanity. I have the ones I want; I like Leonardo, Einstein, Socrates. I've had some great laughs with Elvis, George Carlin and Mark Twain's a hoot!
Yeah, I know, they should all have gone to hell but if I hadn't rescued them, I'd be stuck with all those mind-numbingly boring sycophants! I tell ya, sometimes it's like heaven's had a zombie apocalypse but enough of my woes, and back to yours, lol.
Heaven's off the ticket for almost everyone; let's say, if your not as spectacular as Old Jo', that's J.S. Bach to you, then you're furnace fodder.
Sorry about that and all but hey, what ya gonna do; I'm the big boss and it's been my shindig since I created day one. I mean, none of you puny humans can prove you're not merely a figment of my imagine, anyway!
So, where was I?
Oh yes, keep up with the commandments because you really invented most of them yourselves anyway.
Good luck, and Peace-out,
Your ever 'loving'
Super-special, Super-daddy
(or whatever it is all you arse kissers are calling me now).

To be precise, if your god removed the promise of a pair of wings and an eternal lease on a comfy cloud with a to-die-for view, would you still follow and spread the 'good' word?

Now, don't give me any nonsense about "God wouldn't change the rules", we all know your god's first rule change wrath was global genocide via flood! And then his second change of heart was a complete rule rewrite courtesy of the Roman Catholic Church. They're his rules after all. And, when it comes down to it, your god's reputation is ALL POWERFUL (Omnipotent) so, if you are of the opinion he can't change the rules then you are suggesting that that's something outside your god's power, which denies his omnipotence! You can't have it both ways!

For me, as an atheist, it's a moot point; my conscience is built from empathy and my prize, therefore, is the smile of my fellow human (awww, yeah I know, sickening but it about covers it) but for you, the non-freethinker, if you would choose the same 'path' and continue to obey the previously, 'divinely enshrined' rules then isn't that evidence that you, as I and millions of other freethinkers across the world, are entirely capable of being good without god?
Further though, if you decided you would not continue with the dictates of whichever brand of authoritarian manifesto to which you are enthralled, then surely, must you not conclude that you are ONLY being 'good' because of your scripture's delicious looking carrot and whippy-whippy stick?
Now, to me, that's not 'a good conscience' but the valueless obedience a slave would employ as a survival technique.
So, come on, I'd really like to know, would you follow the path without the prize?

And as an extra final spin on the ponder...
If, in answering the question above, you would choose to 'be good', I'd ask you the same question you've been asking atheists for decades... "what reason would you have to be good with god?"

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

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System Of Abuse

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:44:00 +0000

A recent headline detailed cases of sexual abuse during 'spiritual cleansings'...

"
Second woman raped during 'spiritual cleansing,' officials say
A man charged in April with raping a woman in a Santa Ana motel room under the pretense of performing a "spiritual cleansing" involving raw eggs has been charged with sexually assaulting a second woman using the same ruse.

Alberto Flores Ramirez, 36, allegedly met his first victim on an online dating site and lured her to the Aloha Motel by telling her he could help bring her children to California from Mexico.

The victim told authorities that the man said he would perform "a spiritual cleansing on her to get rid of her negative vibes," according to the Orange County district attorney's office.

Ramirez is accused of rubbing raw eggs on the victim's body and fondling her and then sexually assaulting her. A second victim came forward after seeing reports of the first case on a Spanish-language television station, authorities said Friday.

The second women allegedly told investigators that she also was lured by promises of a "spiritual cleansing" and met the suspect at the same Santa Ana motel in February.

"
Los Angeles Times - L.A. Now

So the question is why were two young women so easily duped; why were they so gullible that they could be convinced they could be cured by magic & mumbo-jumbo? And, furthermore, why did they think they needed curing in the first place?

We must lay at least some of the blame for this abuse at the pages of the religious texts.
Throughout religious books we find the fallacious information that that humans are born valueless, in 'sin', that the completely natural human urges, we all have, are to be discouraged as intrinsically 'dirty'.
The religious texts preach that YOU, I and these poor women were ALL born rotten.
I ask you, is it possible for someone to conclude, "I need cleansing," without being repeatedly told, for their entire life, "You are dirty"?
If their spiritual instruction had not included such humanity hating claims or if their family and friends had ridiculed the offensive disparagement contained therein, would 'dirty' have been something they would have termed themselves?
If they did not think their souls were already to some extent 'damned to burn in hell for eternity', would these women have put themselves into such a dangerously exposed situation?
If there was no all Pervasive Fallasphere and we had an absence of religious oppression and 'subjugation to the books', could these poor women have been duped in this way?

And then to examine where these victims got this notion that they have a magically eternal, if sinful and inferior, invisible body part in the first place? Again, that would be the fault of these loathsome religious texts; each one purporting and supporting, in it's own supremacist ways, the notion of a shit-stained death-escape pod.

But are the scriptural fairy tales the only institutions of control that are guilty, in some part, for this abuse?
It's reasonably obvious that if, via standard school education, the victims had been made aware that the spiritual bollox is flummery to hoodwink the stupid, they'd not have become vulnerable to this monster's mythological construct but also, and perhaps more importantly, the monster would not have thought it up or, at least, not considered it as having a chance of working.

Now, I'm not condoning anything here but who is to say what is the supernatural effect of this magic egg massage ritual? Or can speak to its likely efficacy?
It is, I understand, a widespread practice among the superstitious of South America.
Can anyone truly deny that he has done what he said? What proof would there, or could there, be that he has not cleansed their 'souls'?
Does anyone have a mucky-ghost detector? A 'shiny-soul-o-meter'? Does ANY church or religious body have such a device as could define the cleanliness of a human's scripturally depicted Casper? Can anyone prove these women did not get exactly the service for which the asked?
Can anyone prove that the procedures he carried out are not 'the' way to spiritually cleanse a human?
I'm not saying they are, just that can anyone prove it?
The body part that the religious pretend they have is undetectable, so without evidence to the contrary, one may only assume that its 'cleanliness condition' must also be undetectable, so how can it be legitimately claimed that the undetectable filth on their undetectable body part has not been removed, improved or cured by this monster's ritualistic interference?
I think you'll agree that while the body part which he claims to cleanse is undetectable, it cannot be legitimately claimed that he as failed so to do. His or anyone's claims for this magic ritual have just as much validity, as the claim of the invisible body on which it is supposed to have effect or, indeed, the claim that the 'Casper within' somehow got scuffed and muddy merely by climbing into its human husk.
The point is...
ALL spiritual belief enables spiritual extremists and predators.
While the faithful believe the irrational as fact, irrational acts of faith are inevitable.
Surely, if one interprets groundless fantasy as reality, one may not then, legitimately, complain when another interprets the fantasy differently, that their view is groundless.

I do not wish for this man to be released, he's clearly a predator and should not be allowed to prey on the stupid but, really, while the soul remains in the realms of unproven fantasy, how can any actions taken upon it, be seen to have failed or succeeded?
Would that not require proof of 'spirit', proof that 'spirit' is capable of holding the property of 'cleanliness' and proof that the victims' 'spirit' condition was 'unclean' or less clean before the attacker's interference?

There's no denying this is a vile attack on two stupid women but the attacker was aided and abetted not only by the anti-human agenda of the books, the publishers and teachers of the books and the religious friends and family who, with every prayer, support the religious books' derogatory view of humanity but also by the state education systems, which completely failed, for fear of upsetting the already hoodwinked and the massively powerful magic lobby, to deliver a porper, well rounded education and lastly, and leastly, the women themselves, who are guilty of letting themselves fall foul of the fallacious hope of heaven carrot and fear of hell stick.
Whilst this crime was committed by a single individual, the conditions in which it was conceived and perpetrated were engendered and facilitated by endemic failings of our society to properly address the fallacies that are nourished by these vile manifestoes of subjugation and, with that in mind, can he really be said to be solely responsible? And with that in mind, where does the ultimate responsibility for the conditions of the crime lie?
For me...
The buck stops
at the books.
In conclusion, shouldn't we be attempting to bring an end to doctrines based in the irrational belief that 'if you don't live in permanent state of groundless fantasy you are valueless'? Shouldn't we be doing much more to rid humanity of this destructive cultist thinking?
You can probably guess what I think, although, if you've read my earlier posts, you'll not need to guess.

More religious insanity perpetrated on the innocent in...
His Blood On Your Hands
The Cost Of A Ticket To Heaven

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
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Grasping Free Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:34:00 +0000

Is it not time to leave behind the primitive savagery of pretenders in paradise and peril?
Is it not time to leave behind the religious?
Should we not step free of them?
We are Free thinkers, should we not now choose to live free of their fake chains, their primitive tribal barbarism; to let then fall by the wayside, the way the Neanderthal, as when we first awoke?
Human progress would stop if there were no scientists and from all the studies they are almost exclusively atheist. The theists would choose to drag us back to the Bronze Age or further, to subjugate and repress all who prefer to live in the now and tomorrow rather than wallow in the nostalgia of times that never where.
Should we not set up a country, state, island or city of the truly free, of atheist, rational, reasonable, logical and liberal progress? Should we not cast aside those addicted to dreaming of the impossible, the magics and superstitions? Abandon them to their Bronze Age medicine, science and thinking?
Should we not set up a Democratic Republic of great thinkers, reasoned men and women?
We already run the world but as slaves to their base primitive savagery, why not withdraw our labour and use it for the betterment of a truly sentient humankind?
Would it not display how much those, who are subservient to ancient fairytales, owe to those who use only reason?

Oh what a place of great wonders we could create.
We could be, in the future, what we dream the Atlantian society may have been; a race, free of the great weight of fearful existence and distinguishing ourselves in great achievements.

I don't know about you but I'm sick of trying to educate those, whose misjudgments and poor assumptions, our education systems have failed to correct and, sadly, all too often encourage. Whilst attempting to rid our fantastic species of it's endemic addiction to subservience is a worthy pursuit, I'd prefer to spend my time on something which will bear real, tangible, progressive fruit.

We, humanity, will not flourish further while the primitive drag us backward.
The stars are out there, we should be responsible and prohibit the doctrine addicts and wish thinkers from reaching for them; we need not pollute the universe with their barbarism, we need not let them infect any other intelligent species we may meet with the pitifully low opinion of humanity the festering religious canker continually spews.

Unfortunately this utopian dream of a rational nation is currently, and for some time to come I fear, mere folly.

Say it came about, the rational peoples of earth came together and headed for, for the sake of argument, Australia, to start a new community of the godless, those who accept reality without the magical dictator of the religious novels. A society dedicated to study and genuine human progress, unhindered by Ancient magic and myth, what would happen?

Well, the countries of the world would begin to crumble, societies would fail without the atheist. Many great thinkers would be absent from their countries of origin, specialists in their field from all areas of life would be missing. If statistics are true about 97% of scientists would leave etc. You get the picture, the cream of each society's minds would be absent, leaving the countries to the lesser thinkers, the fearful doctrine addicts and superstitious.

And what then?

Wouldn't that land of the Freethinkers be instantly the target of their armies?
Wouldn't an island of human reason in a sea of faithful, instantly become the target because all the religious totalitarian doctrines clearly hold unbelievers as Satan's spawn?
Would they not view the island of the free as a place to destroy?
Would they not be told by their zealot leaders, the popes and ayatollahs, that removing this one nation would be doing the work of their god; that "The messiah cannot return, dragging the heaven behind him, while that country remains" or some other such voodoo bollox?

You know they would, because you know that's the supremacist core of the books they adore.
In one fell swoop, would the religious not eagerly agree to destroy all the finest brains our genome has currently spawned?
Might there not even be an arms race between differing cults to wipe us out first, thereby ensuring it would be their personal messiah was the one to show up?

Can I get an...
"And thus they would have proved their moribund stupidity; the reason why we left"? But of no great comfort is being right when You are the slaughtered, eh?

Although I do 'have a dream' of a godless world, free of Stone Age thinking, I think it's probably better for us all if we are hidden in plain site, amongst them.
Yes it's like living amongst untrustworthy zombies.
Yes they are fucking infuriating wastes of our time, our thinking time, but while we are amongst them they cannot destroy us en-masse. We may lose the odd one or two to beheading, stoning, persecution etc. but the noise will continue and the youth, who like to break the mould set by their parents, will start to see our entirely material reality for what it is.

I just hope that we reach a critical mass, where the majority are non-religious in less than a century, before Aubrey De Grey's prediction comes to pass.
If we are still suffering under their earthly idols, popes and Ayatollahs when Aubrey's prediction comes about, we could have religious leaders who could live for a thousand years or even indefinitely.
And then what would there be to stop theocracy becoming the hell on earth that it has always threatened to be?
Aubrey's prediction should be a clarion call, not only to all anti-theist and atheist activists but also to ordinary atheists, appeasement atheists, religious collaborators and agnostics, to step up the argument against thousands of years of unsubstantiated subjugation and fear-mongering.
It's time to grasp freeality before freedom of thought disappears under the jack boot of one hoard of vile authoritarian theocratic savages or another.

Aubrey de Grey - TEDx Oxford

Sens.org
This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
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This post was first published as a guest post at dailyworldwatch

Change Is As Good As The Rest

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:44:00 +0000

Recently and it seems with increasing incidence, I have been hearing even from atheists, agnostics, secular humanists etc. the notion that homosexuality, specifically male homosexuality, is not natural.
The running theme seems to be that anal sex, rather than male to male devotion, is unnatural by Darwinian evolutionary standards; regardless of what any religious text states because, they say, the anus did not evolve for that purpose. Those promoting this notion will often cite a 'dictionary definition' that 'homosexual male sexual intercourse is achieved via the introduction or penetration of the male sex organ of one male into the anus or anal canal of the other' - it doesn't seem very dictionary like to me; I'm not even sure what search term you would have to enter to retrieve that definition but it's what's cited. It's not escaped my notice that they rarely include Male Female anal intercourse.
Now, I have a personal view that many 'manly' men have a problem with this act just because male homosexuality is so utterly opposite to the image they want to project, they are against it so that they are 'seen' to be against it. Also, I'm trying to not draw any conclusions from the geographical origin of those from whom I've heard this but most often it has been from Mid-Eastern, Asian or East Asian men.
However, as they offer supporting 'evidence' of abuse; implying or even outright stating that there is no physical difference between sodomy and sodomy-rape and also that the anus has not evolved the same level of protection from disease as has the vagina and that, in the current climate of turmoil over equal rights for gay marriage, they cite that 'marriage' is not possible between two males, as the marriage cannot be consummated in the 'normal', accepted way, I thought I'd apply a little thought to the subject; try and, if you'll excuse the pun, straighten out a few of these notions.
What I see is that they're are not on firm ground with their assertions.

So, to the talk about organs evolving for a specific purpose. The veins have evolved to carry blood around the body. Is it to be considered a misuse when veins are punctured by a needle and used to carry medicines? I think any reasonable person would answer 'No' because consent is given, or the recipient enjoys the benefit, or both. It would only be considered misuse/abuse only if the vein was used to the the persons detriment and without permission or need. Consent is key. I'd say the same for any human to human interaction; consent is key.

There also seems to be a leaning, by the proposers, toward viewing human sexual relations in a very mechanical and it seems purely physical way. I do not know if you have a partner but, if you do, I doubt you'd deny having some loving feelings for or some affinity with the personality of your spouse/partner. Would you deny it to your partner's face?
One does not fall in love with the sex organs of a human, one falls in love their character, their personality & principles and, while the skill with which one's partner nibbles one's what-have-you may have a bearing on the relationship, marriage is about so much more than what unseen body parts rub against each other in the dark.
Most people fall in love and then work out their sex lives between them; sex is made up of whatever they are most comfortable doing to, for and with each other, in order for them to be fulfilled and happy (in the only life they have).
Marriage is about two people sharing one existence, one 'being'. It's about holding the joint being's collective happiness in as high esteem as each individual's desires. They share 'everything' because they want to share 'everything'.

Now, as I see it, the first act of sex that is the loving expression of a marriage is the consummation of that marriage, regardless of the body parts used. Surely, if both parties are happy that the marriage is consummated, it is consummated.
In olden times, a high-held component of marriage was the production of children. In that paradigm the couple having had successful sex on the wedding night was signal that all was okay, babies were not impossible, the dowry was 'worth it' etc and everyone's happy. However, this was when a women's value for childbirth was of uppermost interest to the ruling class(males).
In a paradigm where the union is purely for companionship, longevity of commitment to partner is still prized but children are unnecessary for both partners (regardless of the gender). There is no intended signal that children are likely, because neither partner is marrying for the production of offspring, so consummation in this instance has no such 'purpose' and is just a sex act, a natural celebration of their union, a physical expression of the union.
In the paradigm of two childhood sweethearts who plan to marry. He's called to war before they get the chance. He's wounded and they marry when he has recovered.His injury was to his groin, consummation will never be possible.
Are they to be disallowed from marriage?

As to whether homosexuality is normal amongst human biology.
When do you think the first human homosexual act took place? 10years ago? 100? 1000? 10,000? 100,000 years ago or longer?
Before we were sentient? When still primitive ape?
Would a homosexual act between two apes be considered 'wrong'? Or 'immoral'?
We have been animals a hell of a lot longer than we've had modern day sexual hang-ups imposed on our society by a mixture of religious and peer group pressures.
It is thought that the first recorded long-term homosexual relationship was circa 2500 BCE between Egyptian royal manicurists Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum. Note that this states 'long-term' relationship, I've no doubt the 'one night stand' predated this and that the 'ten minute standing up', or as it's more commonly known, the 'knee-trembler' predated that! The idea that human homosexuality was absent from human sexual relations before the current social abhorrence of it, is merely the 'preferred assumption'.
As it's therefore reasonable to assume that homosexual sex has occurred in every generation for, one might legitimately suggest, ALL of our conscious evolution then it must be accepted that humanity has always had homosexuality as part of its make up and so, can it really be considered abnormal or out of the ordinary to find homosexual humans? Further, if there have always been homosexual humans then surely it must follow that homosexual humans have had no detrimental effect on the overall human population.
7 billion and counting.

Finally, I find no reason to believe human sexuality to be a binary condition of male or female. This binary state, as far as I can tell, is not the case, in either body or mind.
The biochemical conditions, which form the baby's male or female organs, show a full range of varying degrees of maleness and femaleness, with androgynous (50/50) forming the exact centre between Male & Female biochemistry but that is only with the physical of the body. I'm fairly sure that we are all initially formed as female and remains so, from when we are zygote until later in the pregnancy when the level of testosterone present forms the male organs. So, we all start off female and transform into male. The amount of 'male' in the end product is therefore entirely dependant on the hormones present in pregnancy.
So we must view Human sexuality as very complex; think of it this way and before I start I must just say this is a purely philosophical view of the situation.
All humans start off female so lets set that as the starting point of a horizontal line and call it 0% as there is the minimal amount of testosterone present. At the other end of the line we have 100% Male and right in the middle as I mention earlier we have androgyny at 50%. Now, with our society, we like the level-headed people, the even-handed, fair, not too extreme etc so, let's say those who occupy the positions of 0%-10% or 90%-100% are considered 'undesirable' by all but a small percentage of the available opposite sex as too much of a girly-girl or too macho a man.
Also, those who are androgynous are less likely or even unlikely to appeal to either the 'average' female or the 'average' male, as far as sexual partnership is concerned, so let's draw up another group, let's say those between 45% and 55% are 'undesirable' to the 'average' male or female. That leaves two groups, those who are 'desirable' and gender female, occupying a position of between 10% and 45% along the line and those who are 'desirable' and gender male, occupying a position of between 55% and 90%. These two groups are likely to be desirable to each other and will procreate to produce future generations. I concede that's not exclusively the case but, like I said, this is only a philosophical muse. Now if we consider those two groups add up to 70% of the population it means that 30% of the global population is 'different'.
30%! Can almost a third of a population be really be considered abnormal?
Most local elections in the UK have a voter turnout of about 30% but we do not consider the official elected thereby to have been chosen by the abnormal!
Some supporting evidence; part of the amateur research I've carried out into human sexuality and gender. This is a clip from "Me, My Sex and I" first broadcast on BBC One, on Tuesday 11 October 2011. Whilst it's not directly related to homosexuality it does illustrate the complexity of the biochemistry involved in determining gender.
There's more information about the program here

Now, while I have no evidence at hand, the chemistry of the brain seems to produce similarly indistinct sexuality. While it is also formed by the hormones which are more prevalent because of the bodies biochemical and physical gender orientation, the brain is similarly not binary in it's sexual desires. Many straight men will also like some anal action, many straight women would at the least fantasise about 'appreciating' another woman.
With the sexual orientation of the personality of the individual being somewhere on a long scale from Male to Female and the human body lining up somewhere, possibly different, on a similarly long biological scale, to argue that human sexuality is binary is nonsense. Homosexuality exists and as I've suggested above has always existed within this species.
If it exists within any species, it is reasonable to assume that at some point in the past it started to exist as any other genetic variance in human evolution. As we have no records about when it began, we may only assume it is a random expression of the normal genetic processes involved in genetic replication and if so, when it started is less relevant or irrelevant. Normal genetic variance is beneficial to group survival therefore homosexuality must be of some benefit to the survival of the group. And so, to argue that a marriage between two people is invalid because their sexuality lines up on the same side of a binary fence is nonsense.
How can we consider Homosexuality as abnormal unless we also consider those who have red hair or an IQ higher than 130 similarly?

Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering, I am a straight male human who has has been happily married to a straight female human for more than a quarter of a century. we have two straight adult children, one male, one female.
I know it shouldn't make a difference but I wanted to clarify for those bigot-types who would choose to dismiss this post as the views of 'one of those gay-types'.

If I've caused any offence to anyone it was an entirely unintentional consequence of this subject being way too expansive for such a short space.
There is more sexuality information here

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
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Travesty Of Reason

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:52:00 +0000

Picture the scene...
There's a murder in a devoutly Religious town. A man is found on his back in a pool of his own blood with an ancient, muddy, rusty blade sticking out of his heart.
The Police turn up and look around but find no evidence.
Detectives wander through, looking around and the same story; no signs of struggle, no money problems, no known enemies.
Forensics take a peek over the crime scene. They find no fingerprints or DNA to do with the murder but there is evidence of a second occupant of the flat; a woman, probably a lover. The only extra information they can deliver is a ballpark time of death of 10 hours earlier.
Specialist crime scene investigators search through the data and details; same story, even with all the high technology at their disposal.
No evidence is found of an attacker.

There is a prime suspect, the man's partner, a painter of landscapes; she was overheard threatening her lover a month before.
Witnesses say they "know she packed and left the flat within days", others say they've "not seen her for about a month or so" and a few witnesses say "she had plans to travel the country in an old camper-van".
She is finally located, living halfway up a mountain, deep in the forest.
She's arrested and the case goes to trial.

The verdict comes in and the Judge delivers the sentence saying.

"The devoutly Religious jury has decided that even though we have an absence of evidence which places you at the scene, there's is no direct evidence of your absence from it, so you must be the murderer. And I'm good with that because I'm a devout believer too and as we all know "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" and, if it's good enough for god, it's good enough for you. You are sentence to death."

So the questions here are obvious...
Should it ever happen, would we not consider this to be an appalling travesty of justice?
Would it not cause outrage in society for lack of good reasoning?
Would it not be overturned on appeal and the first judge 'retired' for lack of a brain?
Would there not be calls for the judge, prosecutors, jury and police force, if not the entire town, to be sent on an short, sharp anti-fuckwit course?

There is an absence of evidence for the mythical being 'Snow White' but, as far as I'm aware, there are no SnowWhite-ian worshippers, no Order of the Brotherhood of the Dwarves claiming that the absence of evidence of Miss White's existence is not evidence of her historical absence.
So why do Religious apologists think it's a sufficient catch-all, the be all and end all refutation of the statement 'there is no evidence of a god'?
How can they be so dishonest as to find it an unacceptable line of reasoning in our places of justice but a totally acceptable way to justify belief in their mythical being?
And the answer is? - Fear, on so many levels.

As it turns out, the butler did it but there's no evidence of that either.
This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
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Only An Agnostic Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 09:59:00 +0000

The Mechanics

In the first two posts in this short series^(1,2) I looked over agnosticism in relation to its academic definitions, history and philosophical position within society. In this post I’m going to play with what I’m going to call the mechanics of agnosticism.

I think we(humanity) inherently understand probability. We live in a universe where comprehending probability really matters, so our brains, which I’ve always assumed to be electro-bio-chemical probability engines, have developed with the ability to properly interpret physical reality from our, more or less, accurate model of the physical world. A model which is based on a hundred thousand years of witnessing what happens if a human does X, Y or Z’s
In the hostile environment of 50,000 years ago, if you didn’t have some understanding of probability, you wouldn’t have survived long enough to have children. I’m not saying primitive peoples or even most modern humans had a schooled grasp of probability calculations (I certainly don’t) but rather that by having the ability to properly assess the probable outcomes of a dangerous situation that situation can be survived; an innate biological comprehension of probability is necessary for survival. We have traditionally termed this ability ‘common sense’.
e.g.
A creature, never-seen-before, eats a village's goats in the night.
Next morning the 1st person to approach the ‘lion’, to shoo it away, gets eaten.
2nd person now knows there's a probability of getting eaten and approaches from a different direction.
3rd person realises there’s a high probability of getting eaten, so collects the tribe together with weapons and all chase the lion away from the settlement.

I feel this inherent understanding of probability is why our entire genetic databank tells us “a fall from below height ‘A’ does not result in death, falling from above height ‘A’ does”. But we also know that if we add in other factors this simple rule becomes ‘bendy’; a fall onto a bunch of cardboard boxes, into trees, deep snow and countless other factors change our assessment of what the safe, ‘probably survivable’ height of “A” would be; all factors inform and transform the bio-physical probability equation.
However, we are only willing to suspend disbelief for so long; set height “A” as “Summit of Everest” and most people would say… “Splat is highly likely, no matter what array of comfy cushions you land on!”

So, as with all good paradigms (I don’t know if that’s true but it sounds great), let’s crank it up a notch…
Would you consider someone surviving, say, 42 consecutive falls from the summit of Mount Everest, to be more or less probable than surviving one?

I think we’d all say less probable - would many bet on it?

Now consider "a god": The Universal Overlord in question, the Judeo-Christian Big Papa, is supposed to be the most powerful, complex and beneficent being ever and is supposed to have popped into existence first⁽³⁾, before even the simplest atom, so, taking into account that one could, with equal evidentiary validity, claim the universe(s) was created by a super intelligent armadillo after it invented an infinite improbability engine and deliberately selected ‘maximum random un-likeliness’, is the existence of a god more probable than someone surviving that series of Everest falls?
I think any reasonable person would have to consider an answer of “Yes, god’s existence is more probable than someone surviving 42 consecutive falls from the summit of mount Everest”, as merely the responder’s hope; a wish for god’s existence to be more probable.

Now, as falling from Everest and surviving even once is improbable, falling and surviving 42 times is, obviously, 42 times as improbable, which is an order of magnitude of improbability which would bring the answer of “No” to the question “is this series of fall survivable?” And, I suggest, most would agree the Judeo-Christian god’s reputed attributes are, by a much greater order of magnitude*, way more improbable still.

* To set an order of magnitude for the ‘probability of god’, I’d suggest an initial figure somewhere in the region of SCND to 1 against any god existing.
SCND = Stars in the universe multiplied by Cells in human body multiplied by Neurons in human brain multiplied by number of letters in human DNA.

That is, if I've got my sums right,... 300 septendicillion	to	1
Which I think is 3 X 10⁵⁶	to	1
Or 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000	to	1

(It’s as good a guess as any - as is this one - The God of Insufficient Statistics?)

So, if an answer of ‘Yes, surviving a series of Everest falls is obviously negligible’ is perceived as the ‘right’ answer by ‘all’ and thereby ‘easy’ for any human to state then why is there a disconnect from saying ‘No; a ‘god’ is just too improbable’? Why is that such a difficult statement to make? I think there maybe something of the answer in Only An Agnostic Part 2 To any rational assessor, the probability engine which quantifies the world’s implications for us, keeping us safe and helping us to survive, is delivering the supremely improbable answer of ‘a god’ into the ‘things that are likely to exist’ ball-park, so what is fouling up the mechanism? Why do agnostics feel that in this single, virtually exclusive instance, ‘negligible’ does not warrant a ‘No’?
How does the agnostic manage to feel that they are making an honest statement in “I don’t know?”; is it really honest to claim agnosticism?
I reckon there are probably almost as many answers as there are true agnostics; a complex mix of lack of knowledge or perspective, not caring either way, Pascal’s wager, an inherent fear of death and the ever present religious oppression, which makes it clear that unbelievers will be at best ostracised from family & community and at worst persecuted to death.
The most confusing is honesty; it feels inherently dishonest to say ‘there is no chance whatever of a person surviving 42 falls’ because our probability engine tells us there is ‘always’ an outside chance, however negligible, that a single faller will survive the series. We may consider it a ‘sure thing’ that if you ran the series of falls a trillion times, 999,999,999.9 of them would end in splat. (I added the .9 because if anyone did survive 42 falls from Everest they’d probably be mashed up and in a coma for the rest of their life). That is 99.99999999% sure, almost a sure as one can be, but further, on hearing that someone was going to run the trillion series, we would likely state with confidence “You should probably buy a trillion coffins.” We ‘know’ how unbelievably improbable surviving the fall series would be; there’d likely be protests against such folly, people would write to their Member of Parliament to get it stopped etc but for the honest person, a single survivor, can’t be ‘ruled out’. And, for the unsure believer, the purely philosophical proposal that is ‘a god’, even though it is such a low probability, fits the bill of ‘outside chance’.
Unfortunately the dishonest religious grasp the outside-chance straw and deliberately misinterpret the honest description of 'negligibly probable' as a vote for the existence of their personal 'Ming the Merciless'.
But if an agnostic was told by her friend “I’m going to attempt 42 consecutive falls from Everest”, would the agnostic say “I’ll get my video camera coz there’s a 50-50 chance you’ll survive”? I think not because however honest the actual answer may be, the useful answer is “Don’t! You’ll likely die before you’ve finished the first fall”.

For me ‘a god’ remains merely an unsubstantiated philosophical muse; unless there is evidence to reassess that position, one may only legitimately accept the facts as they stand and conclude, there is nothing to be agnostic about.

¹ Only An Agnostic Part 1
² Only An Agnostic Part 2
³ The Impossible Six
This is one of the Too Many Questions

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God For All That Ails You

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:30:00 +0000

You may have read my tweet

"Religions should be compelled to prove humans have a 'soul' before getting a licence to preach."

but I don't think I've ever told anyone the reason for the statement and from where that notion sprang.

My Grandfather was a great fan of Westerns and, as my father died when I was eight, we, my granddad and I, watched many hours of the wild-west morality tales. In quite a few of them, it seems from my distant blurry memory, there were depicted shonky travelling salesmen, stopping in every town then pulling a lever or two on their wagon which caused its conversion into a stage and sales booth, selling the latest discovery in medicinal health products.
Those snake-oil salesmen and sideshow charlatan's selling ultimate panaceas, quack elixirs & wonder tonics that could "heal every illness" or "cure any physical ailment known to humankind", came under the scrutiny of government trading standards legislation decades, if not a century or more ago and there are now laws to prevent those unscrupulous fraudsters making false claims for their wares. And this ethos has permeated so thoroughly that we now test 'all' medicines for years to make sure they do 'exactly' what it says on the box.

Now, a long time ago, in an age of ignorance and fear, some very scared proto-human had a hunch that the human body has a lifeforce, that which we call 'soul' but, thus far, in the very long time since our first terrified ancestor made the claim, there has been no evidence whatever for this ancient hypothesis.
As almost all of the religious / spiritual beliefs trade on this wish, should they not also be compelled to prove it is more that mere fantasy before they are allowed to collect funds from and minister to those who have been hoodwinked into thinking it is a body part everyone owns?
Why do the "spiritual elixirs" peddled by the religious purveyors who claim their wares can even 'cure death' remain immune from regulation?
It's not merely that their wares are less stringently tested or less well examined, it is that the claims are immune.
As far as I'm concerned, unless some evidence is forthcoming, the idea of humans having a soul remains no more than a wish but when it comes to the efficacy of the claims of those flogging spiritual products(soul etc), the general populous is abandoned to the whim of confidence tricksters and cults without so much as a 'government advisory warning' or even a mention of caveat emptor.
Why the privilege for these magical-medicine men?
If one does not think it 'right & proper' for untested cancer promises to be foisted upon the public's bodies then why think it right & proper for untested psychological promises to be foisted upon their brains?

This is one of the Too Many Questions

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The Impossible Six

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:21:00 +0000

Plenty of Evidence for God?

What we know:

1. There is a universe(s).
2. Life grew in the universe(s).
3. All else is conjecture.

The religious seem to think and like to imply that the theological and philosophical 'evidence' proffered for a creator god is sufficient to conclude God "is". While I don't think anyone could legitimately suggest that these 'evidences' can be claimed as any more than logical conjecture, does the conjecture actually amount to evidence for a god's existence?
I've been looking at the arguments for a while now and while there are many facets to the discourse, Ontological¹, Teleological², Cosmological³ etc⁴, nearly all arguments depict a similar being; all are logical deductions toward a single goal of a 'necessary god', which most often delivers a being with the properties of Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, Beneficence, Immortality and Eternity.
However, do these properties constitute evidence for any god? Or are they ONLY a list of properties which any god MUST possess in order to be the creator of a/the universe(s)? Are they not merely a description of the only god there may be IF there were to be an actual creator god?
Don't ALL the logical conjectures, that the likes of Craig⁵, Naik⁶, Tzortzis⁷ and other misguided disciples of some great, but equally misguided, minds of the past offer in support of a creator god's existence amount no more than a list of properties by which we would recognise such a being, if such a being existed?
This is not valueless information, it's valid, and very human, to attempt to prepare for the unknown via deduction from the variables available, no matter what the subject. And, in this instance, the philosophical conclusions that theologians have so earnestly revealed, would seem to be a fairly complete theory for recognising a creator god; if such a creator god was ever discovered. They, the theologians and philosophers, have provided for humanity a perfectly logical set of parameters via which 'we' could identify such a creature as legitimate.
Now, that's a very handy thing, a boon document you might say and kudos to all the great thinkers who have deduced such specifics from such flimsy data but, is knowing the attributes a god must posses even close to having evidence that such an entity exists?
I think not.
And I think not partly because each entry in this list of properties that we have come to through conjecture is itself, merely a conjectural ideal. These properties of god, no matter which religion you choose interrogate, are "The Impossible Six"

God:A Being that is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Beneficent, Immortal and Eternal
I've called them the impossible six because, as far as I'm aware, not one human has ever actually encountered even one of these properties, and it's way more catchy than calling them the "So improbable it's negligible six"....

Omnipotent:
Have you ever met anyone who was powerful enough to control everything in a house? Yeah? What about with their mind? Nor me. Ever met anyone who came close to this, or ever heard of anyone do more than bend a spoon or an move object a few inches? I think we can reasonably concede that omnipotence is a good distance from factual and must be considered to be conjecture about an ideal.

Omniscient:
While psychics do a great impression of having a microscopic portion of omniscience it is, as we all know, just a carnival trick called cold reading. And I think we'd all agree that even the President of the most powerful country on Earth could not be considered all-knowing, even in his own country, in his own office sometimes. Whichever way one thinks about it, 'all-knowing' is not a thing that we can say exists in a real sense, it may only be concluded therefore that it is a conjectural ideal.

Omnipresent:
Have you ever met anyone who was even in all the places they themselves wanted or needed to be? Ever met anyone who came close to this, or ever heard of anyone knowing even one instance of this property - then it's conjecture about an ideal

Beneficent:
While there are amongst us those with seemingly limitless benevolence to our fellow human, even the best efforts of the best of us can not hope to equal the immensity of malevolence in the struggle for survival. It's a slaughterhouse out there people, everything eats everything else, it's all about struggling to survive. Beneficence is not in evidence on any grand scale and so this property must be seen the same way, as conjecture of an ideal.

Immortal:
Think of your oldest relative, not necessarily living but the longest lived, not very long, eh? Some turtles live a long time, Crocs and a few Jelly Fish are supposed to be a bit immortal or something like it. However, all of that is here on Earth, inside this kindly biosphere. Ever hear of anything living in space? Not on an asteroid but floating free? And not in Star Trek or anything? Nope? Nor me. Now, as the Earth will eventually be swallowed up in the death of our, by cosmological standards, minuscule sun, all living things here will succumb to mortality, no matter what their genes have to say about it, so immortality of any kind in the creatures of which we are aware, is ultimately not seen and we may only conclude this is conjecture of an ideal.

Eternal:
This is a bit of a non starter, eternal is tricky; too many variables and simultaneously not enough but I'll have a bash. Firstly, it's stands to reason that the only way to determine whether someone/thing is Eternal, is if you are yourself Eternal and can observe its 'life' for the entirety of yours. However, you'd only know for sure that it was you who was eternal, if your were also omniscient, which, as I mused above, is just a conjectural ideal. So, we must assume that you could not know you were the last and only being in existence or always existing, unless you hung around on your own until you were the only thing left after universal heat death, in all the dimensions in existence.
Secondly, if it so comes to pass that you do end up 'the one and only, eternal, billy-no-mates' then there's know way to detect if 'it' all stops if you stop; you have the solipsism⁸ problem.
At that point, the 'eternal being' really IS the ONLY mind in existence, so can a single mind truly know it didn't just imagine it all? The answer is, it can't and would instantly be unable to confirm its own eternal nature, or even have any true sense of how much time has passed since it had its first thought, indeed if heat death has occurred everything has already stopped, so there are no 'events' between which one can measure an elapsed time, so no time. Eternity here may be described here as zero perception.
Thirdly, "How long is eternal?" is not really a question, no answer can there come, but "How much longer is eternity than the length of time the universe has existed?" is a valid question.
The universe it seems is not eternal but the Big Bang didn't just create the space, it created time along with it. So, before the universe there was no time and we may only concede what the religious promote; any creator of the universe was existing outside of time. With that, surely we may only say that prior to the matter of space-time there was "No time at all" and so it follows that the length of the 'eternity' prior to the big bang that any creator god 'spent' learning how to decide if women should be stoned or if gays should be persecuted is also "no time at all" and thereby perhaps conclude it to be of little moral value?
As 'Eternal' prior to the universe is exactly equal to zero, indeed even using the word 'prior' is meaningless, it means any creator god's existence was, at best, exceedingly short, as close to zero as negligible can get, and cannot be legitimately seen to imply 'older than the universe' because to do so would take the conjecture into a time of "no time" where the descriptors like 'older' cannot apply in any comprehensible sense.
The religious may say, "Forget about time, god just exists 'always'!" but any attempt to quantify the word 'always' without implying the qualities of some scale of time and some scale for space eludes me, it becomes another meaningless word, like 'prior' or 'older'. How does one define "always" without these concepts?
Have a go; if you crack it, let me know.
Seems to me, the actual parameters of eternal are unmeasurable and therefore indistinguishable from ideological conjecture.

So, there you go, as far as I can fathom, the theological/philosophical 'evidence' for a creator god is set of conjectures based firmly in a list of conjectural 'impossible' ideals or, as I prefer to call it, pretendsies.

And, can pretendsies be legitimately claimed as evidence for anything?
Other than pretending, I mean.

Apologies for the 'booobie' immaturity - couldn't resist :)
This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

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¹ Wikipedia - Ontological argument

² Wikipedia - Teleological argument

³ Wikipedia - Cosmological argument

⁴ Wikipedia - Existence of God

⁵ William Lane Craig explains Ontological argument for god - Youtube
(BTW I think "God and the laws of Physics - All alone in the Multiverse?", I was going to say destroys, but let's go with casts great doubt on the Ontological argument)

⁶ Dr Zakir Naik

⁷ Hamza Tzortzis

⁸ Wikipedia - Solipsism

Dogma Advisory Warning

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 11:19:00 +0000

Shouldn't ALL religious works carry a United Nations Human Rights Advisory Warning?

Human Rights Advisory Warning

Important:
Possibly psychologically damaging content.

Before you start reading this book, please be aware, if you think you might be a human who has a soul it is strongly advised that you read and fully comprehend this warning first.
There has never been any proof, or even evidence, that humans have an invisible component, a 'spiritual core', which is commonly known as soul.
The content of this book suggests a package of rewards and punishments which may be available to or forced upon any who think they have a soul.

Caution:
If you do think you have a soul and continue to read this book you will instantly be bound by its laws. There is no choice, this book and others of its kind, contains within it clauses which state, loosely...
"If you read this book you will be considered to be aware of its message. Should you read then choose to deny that which this book contends or defy its laws, at the end of your life your 'soul' component will be forced", by the god it contends exists, "into a giant concentration camp and tortured forever."
This book and others like it also clearly sate, again loosely, that...
"If you have never read this book, your 'soul'", which it contends you own, "will be judged merely on how well or badly you have behaved to your fellow humans throughout your life."
So, whether or not you think you have a soul, regardless of any reward which may be offered, it's probably best to ignore such books with these types of clauses because this would put you in the more advantageous position of 1. Not having known the rules, and 2. Not offending any true god there might be, by reading and following the wrong god's rules.

Continue reading at your own risk or rather, if this book is to be believed, your eternal risk.

Final Advisory note:
If you do not understood any part of the warning above, you should read no further.
If you are an adult and are considering reading and explaining this book to a child in your care, it is further advised that if you should do so and then the child grows to resent the decision you took, he or she may have the right to prosecute you for infringing his or human right to SELF determination.

In the absence of a properly sanctioned and "printed by publisher" first page for these dangerous documents, here's a suggestion which any who wish to can apply themselves...

To shop for a sheet of these very reasonably priced labels at Zazzle click the image
actual size: 2.375 inches X 1.25 inches.

To shop for this very reasonably priced Bumper Sticker at Zazzle click the image
actual size: 11 inches X 3 inches.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

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Crucify This Catholic Nightmare

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Dear members of the Roman Catholic Church,
If you do not make it through this post, I will not be surprised; sticking you fingers in your ears and screaming la-la-la at the facts of reality that you would prefer to avoid knowing is the sort of head in the sand thinking you fable promotes.

First, The Roman Catholic Church persecuted the majority of Europe with the inquisition, putting all opposing The Roman Catholic Church to the 'question'.

Then Roman Catholic Church held high the policy "Despise the Jews, they betrayed our lord!" ramping up hatred against the Jews for, y'know centuries, up until about 1940. Then that Adolf Hitler, good son of The Roman Catholic Church's childhood indoctrination scheme and patently soldier for god, in his and his army's minds at least, destroyed all those, Jews. Hmmm? Might there be a link?

Then, because of The Roman Catholic Church's hideous self-serving condom policy many more babies are delivered into already struggling communities than can be sufficiently provided for; the first natural disaster, famine etc. and there are million, who didn't need to be born, lining up to starve to death. And the same rank-swelling condom policy simultaneously assists the spread of any and all STD, including HIV. Millions of mums and dads lost easily preventable disease to add to The Roman Catholic Church's vast global death tally.

And what do we have as a result? Oh yes, orphanages full of children, millions of babies for whom there was no one left to care, all left in the care of what we know learn has been an organisation willing and able to harbour and assist those only it knows to be Paedophiles; transferring them from one unsuspecting orphanage to unsuspecting group of parish children, and which has done so merely to protect The Roman Catholic Church's 'good' name for, it seems, centuries. This hideous Papal evil-machine has been the ducking stool of humanity; our torturer, judge and executioner since they wrote that vile misogynistic supremacist doctrine, The Bible.
Throughout The Roman Catholic Church's, and unfortunately our, history The Roman Catholic Church's doctrine has facilitated the wholesale slaughter of so many millions one might be forgiven for wondering if the Papacy's mission to 'deliver souls unto god's care' may have been taken to too great a level of efficiency.
Have a word with yourselves, chaps!
It's not turnover that counts! You don't get, I suspect, more kudos from Super-Gramps for shovelling them upstairs with a mechanical digger!

Why is this distasteful boil(The Roman Catholic Church) still with us? Why must we suffer news of it's atrocities on an, often, hourly basis? Given the record of this wretched organisation, how is the Vatican even still standing?
Why have its followers not long since razed the Vatican and it's occupants to the ground?
Shouldn't irate groups of villagers with torches and clubs have been bashing the doors in centuries ago?
Why have they, at the very least, not left the organisation?

Dearest humans who are also called Catholic,
This vile organisation has wrought havoc across the our centuries and behaved, it must be said, for their own ends, with measures and practises which, I'm sure, any good human today would abhor and certainly not the way any benign god in which you may believe would have chosen for his church's representatives most high to behave.
Please draw yourselves up from the swamp they've made you stand in and rise to the heights of the absolute morality to which you say you aspire and put an final end to The Roman Catholic Church's continued offensive against our Humanity. You can still believe in your god and all the doctrine but punish the Vatican for the crimes they've collectively either allowed or perpetrated on humanity, turn your backs them leave that den of Vipers. If each Roman Catholic Church's congregation chose to take ownership of the building in which they worship and run their own decentralised New Catholic Church, would anybody really care; I mean, even the Pope couldn't argue that they are the houses your god, so doesn't he own them?

If you are offended by what you've read here, please remember, you are not even close to how offended I am about the atrocities your weekly donations have long supported and will continue, whilst you continue your support.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

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His Blood On Your Hands

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 01:02:00 +0000

Witchcraft murder: Couple guilty of Kristy Bamu killing
A couple have been found guilty of murdering a teenager they had accused of using witchcraft.

The defence had argued Bikubi was mentally ill when he carried out the killing, with a scan of his brain showing lesions which "probably contributed to an abnormal mental state".
Article

Hmmm... "probably contributed"? Not a phrase that has the ring of "solely responsible", is it?
If the lesions were ONLY a contribution, there must be another another reason, a MAIN reason, for the horrific torture and murder, eh?
Can you tell what it is yet?
Yes folks, once again it's the supernatural bollox spawned by the pretendsies of absolute evil to which all the religious show their support, merely by believing in their own personal brand of the voodoo.
If nobody believed this bollox, Bikubi would not have had the fables to fuel his delusion and 15-year-old Kristy Bamu would still have the ONLY life he was ever going to have.
Yeah, you can say "something else may have caused a nutter to go pop", implying that even if he hadn't believed there was actual real magic like ghosties, ghoulies, gods, and dirty, dirty demons, as so of you pretend are true, he'd could have still killed.
Soothing isn't it, when you can abdicate responsibility; it's what your god's novel teaches, eh, "put your troubles in the cloud".
Well here's a prime example of what happens when you mistakenly think your supernatural stupor does no harm, Kristy and millions of others continue to pay the price of your irresponsibility.
At Christmas time our, I'm sad to say, Prime Minister, David Cameron claimed that the UK is "a Christian Nation." Recently Baroness Warsi added her own ingredients to the current bake-off in the Zealot Pie competition and Eric Pickles displayed a frighteningly supremacist and non-inclusive theocratic attitude for a cardigan Christian. All three of you should be ashamed. This boy died because you all suckle at the teat of the same pretendsies magic lunacy that this fucking idiot murderer bought.
And yes, agnostics, I'm talking not only to the zealots, fundies and cardigan Christians, you agnostics are not without blame. Even saying 'I don't know' adds weight to the overall faith fog, the magic, myths and moronic mysticism, 'I don't know' is an admission that you too feel actual magic is likely!
All of you who believe in things utterly stupid, the stuff of childhood stories, all who believe in spite of the evidence, whether you think a psychic can actually deliver pigeon-post from long mouldy Uncle Pete or you're a full-on supremacist Jew, Christian or Muslim, all you who like crystal balls, tarot and horoscopes, every last one of all of you selfish faithful, all bear a token of responsibility for this boys tortuous death because you all facilitate his murderer's belief in magic.

If it crossed your mind, even for a moment....
"Maybe he was a witch! I mean, you never know, do you? Satan gets everywhere!" ...can you really consider that you do not believe in the same magic as the murderer?

If it did cross your mind....
He is one of your team.
You ALL make me puke.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

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A King Of Kings Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 11:00:00 +0000

I first saw King of Kings(1961) when I was about 7-ish. Even then I knew Carmen Sevilla was one of the most beautiful women I was ever going to see, but that aside, it was on TV last week in the UK and I thought I'd let it ramble on in the background while I was a bit poorly. It was kind of a reminder of my Gran's kitchen, an original Victorian black leaded range roaring away and a afternoon movie on the black and white TV in the corner whilst she toasted crumpets for us.
Awww; yes, all in all, I had a great childhood but I digress.
Like I said I had it on, and I was right about Carmen Sevilla btw, and when it came to the sermon on the mount I heard him, Jebus, say a line that I've not heard/read for almost as long as the age of the memory above and certainly not thought about not since I fully reclaimed my atheism...

"Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."
Matthew 10:16 KJV

Wise as serpents; he considers the serpents wise.
I suspect then he'd have to agree that if he is promoting serpents as having wisdom then the most wise/smart/knowledgeable of serpents would display even more of the characteristics of the wisdom which he wishes the sheep should seek to emulate.
And, as I'm sure you've already realised the most famous serpent of which we know from the story is his older brother, Fiery McRedArse.
We may not assume that Jebus didn't know the Genesis story, or had forgotten it, and as the mount was his big-time stadium concert, the main chance for him reach as many as he could, I feel we may not assume his words were unrehearsed.

Surely then, we must conclude that it was a direct instruction to think like Satan?

This is one of the Too Many Questions

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Multicultural British National Anthem

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 23:29:00 +0000

I listened to the British National anthem today and it suddenly struck me that it's really not very inclusive.
I mean, given that the UK is NOT in any way a Christian nation(not a theocracy); we have what the government has delighted in calling a multicultural mix.
We have some Christian's, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Jews, Rastas, Krishnas, Druids, Wiccans, Jedis and of course the vast majority of us are now Atheist.
Yeah, yeah, go right ahead and dispute it but until there's a box on the census which asks 'Did you tick the box corresponding to your religion because it is what you were branded at birth?' the census (on at least this point) is hokum.
So, to reflect what the loss of life in two world wars and big business's greed to maintain their profits after that massive loss of workforce, has done to this country's mix of cultures, I thought it might be time for a rewrite of the anthem.
However, as I'm not a songwriter the best I can offer, by way of an example only, is a modification of what the English/Brits currently belt out when ordered.

Yahweh save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen:
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us:
Allah save the Queen.

Thy choicest gifts in store,
On her be pleased to pour;
Long may she reign:
May she defend our laws,
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice
Pretend save the Queen.

O Vishnu, our Brahma, arise,
Scatter thine enemies,
And make them fall:
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On thee our hopes we fix:
Goddess save us all.

Not in this land alone,
But be Force's mercies known,
From shore to shore!
Krishna make the nations see,
That men should brothers be,
And form one family,
The wide world over.

From every latent foe,
From the assassins blow,
Buddha save the Queen!
O'er her thine arm extend,
For Britain's sake defend,
Our mother, prince, and friend,
Jah save the Queen!

This is final verse is less sung now so I've left it in it's antique state.
lord grant that Marshall Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
god save the Queen!

Not keen?
Nor I, but it's probably best if we make a start, so we can get used to the idea because, if things keep going the way they are, and the Government don't wake the fuck up and change tack from its feeble attempt to stamp on Islam by trying to ramp up Christianity, rather than poo-pooing the supernatural in all its foolish forms, which is truly the only way to stem the Middle Eastern totalitarian tide, don't you think it's very likely that all our great-grandchildren will be wailing out "Allah Praise our gracious Allah" in Arabic?

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

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To Be Or Not To Be Aborted

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:12:00 +0000

With all the insanity the pro-lifers are spouting in the USA at the moment and to a lesser extent here, I thought I'd drag this out of my about page and expand on the simple paragraph it was...

I am Pro-Life but, before you get all antsy and run off, hating me, I am NOT pro-life at the expense of existing life. I am for humanity so, personally, I would not choose to terminate the life of a potentially healthy addition to the human family. All babies conceived should be born if circumstances make that possible; as I see it, you never know which baby will be the next Darwin, Aristotle, Einstein. All have the potential to be valuable members.

However, and this is a massive however, circumstances REALLY matter.
Existing life matters, to society, more than any vague hope of a potential, future genius or idiot.

The child's parents should make the decision to abort, or not, without any unsolicited interference from family, friends, society or religions but especially from religions, who are biased in favour of swelling their own ranks.

To be clear, while I would never personally choose to abort a healthy child of my own, I would also never choose to interfere with anyones right to make their own decision based on their own circumstances.
If you choose to abort, I will not judge, berate or challenge your choice, I am not you and could never hope to understand what it is to be you. I bow to your adult right to self-determination and can only empathise with the scale of your intolerable dilemma; if you find yourself in a position where you are forced to make that extremely troublesome decision you have my support, whatever your circumstances demand of you.

I could carry on to talk about limited resources and the horrendous poverty and starvation caused by the RCC's self-serving condom policy (there's more about that in my ReapSow radio appearance) or even pose the question "What would pro-life Christians or Jews advise for the newly pregnant Mrs Hitler?" but, as always, George Carlin really nailed it and pretty much says is all for me...

As a final thought, one must wonder...

Is the Roman Catholic Church's policy of forcing people to have children they don't want, merely a means of swelling orphanages to provide, for future wearers of the paedo collar, a stock of virgin victims to abuse?

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Crispy

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Crucifying The Resurrection

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:30:00 +0000

This weak I was in conversation, I use the term loosely, with a fundie. No, not a fundie, one of those who have bought into the myth "hook, line, sinker and copy of angling times". Anyway this er, religious person laid out for me one of the Christan 'proofs'. It was not, as one might expect, an answer to a question but, as usual, a seemingly unanswerable question in place of an answer; as seems the way of those who wish to believe.
The point the religious person was trying to make ran something like this; I'm paraphrasing:

"Jebus was obviously a magic god or what-have-you,
coz how could a 3 days dead human move the tombstone?"
So, as it does, the probability engine between my ears started its infernal whirring and this time it had a look at the the crucifixion and resurrection through the eyes of Jonathon Creek. (No, not really, it's just an analogy. :)
I'm not going to repeat the fable, there are bible references at the end if you need a recap.
As it turns out, the Jonathon Creek view of the Zombie Jebus fable looks way different...

1. It was common for people to give the crucified, poison; to speed their death. It is said Jebus refused.
2a. Assume for a moment that the Roman soldier who stabbed Jebus didn't want him to suffer and, knowing he'd refuse poison, stabbed him as an act of mercy to speed death.
2b. Even also muse on the likelihood that Roman soldiers, being only human and not actual monsters, might have regularly done this.
3. Consider that Jebus was reclaimed by his kin but only seemed dead to the Romans who wanted to go home for dinner.
4. Suppose that secreted inside the tomb, there were medical supplies, food and water.
5. Speculate that Jebus came round as the stone rolled closed, collected the medical supplies and sowed up his wounds.
6. Suggest that he ate and slept and regained enough strength to roll the stone back or was helped so to do.
7. It's fair to conclude that none ever spoke of it, so as to protect Jebus and he went on to be a...?

This forms a list of conditions and actions, none of which are individually impossible. Yeah, we can put the weak point that there's no evidence to support these conjectures but as we're talking about a tale of which we have only bullet points, one could easily counter with 'there's insufficient evidence to rule them out' and, for me, almost any chain of implausible but rational caualities¹ trumps even one 'impossible' event or, as that adage it's more commonly repeated...

When you eliminate the impossible(resurrection)
whatever remains,(1-7) must be the truth.

The resurrection fable is only 'astonishing' if you accept the chain of events laid out in the Bible but examine an alternative chain, using exactly the same bullet point details as are told in the tale, as I have above, and it looks completely achievable.
So why the hell is it still allowed to be taught as if it is the full facts of the matter?

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

¹ Magic And Mumbo Jumbo Test
Thanks to "Red Dwarf" for the "copy of angling times" quote.
And to Jonathon Creek and Sherlock Holmes for collaborating in this post.

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Relevant references for the mentioned myth
Matthew 27:27 - 28:20
Mark 15:21 - 16:8
Luke 23:26 - 24:12
John 19:16 - 20:18

Whitney Dead at Forty Eight

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:50:00 +0000

Whitney was born in 2008 to a Roman Catholic family in Niger, Africa; one of 17 children, the product of Roman Catholic 'condoms are evil' imperialism.
Whitney is 48 months old. She's never had the strength to find out if she can sing but she thinks she might like to one day. Whitney has always eaten all of whatever scraps of food her mother could scrape together for meal times and never wasted anything. She has always said her prayers and never abused her body with drugs or alcohol. Whitney's favourite thing was to watch the thin stream of fresh water that used to run passed their hut, until the spring dried up; she liked the way it twinkled as it rippled over the little pebbles.
Whitney has been thirsty for a week now and help is another two days walk away. She's been too weak to walk for the last 48 hours, her mother has been carrying her.
Whitney dozes in half-dead stupor, in her mother's arms, lost in a sea of starvation. With her mother's muttered prayers to their god droning above her and the steady padding of her mother's shortening stride, Whitney slips into sleep.
A priest is waiting to greet new arrivals when Whitney's mother finally comes to a stop at the gate of the rescue camp.
Whitney's mother smiles at him and he takes her hand, raises his eyes skyward and offers a prayer of thanks for their deliverance into safety.

Whitney didn't hear him, she hadn't made it to the rescue camp and was buried at the roadside in the same manner as eleven of her good Catholic brothers and sisters who had also perished on the journey.

In other news...

A celebrated American singer passed away at the age of 48 years.
The famous songbird was found in a bathroom of a luxury apartment after enjoying the typically decadent delights of an evening of privilege just hours before she was expected to enjoy the decadent delights of a star-studded gala evening of privilege. After a fulfilling 48 years of self indulgence and excesses, stardom and successes, with amassed global media clamouring outside, the singer's many relatives and luminary friends gathered in a Roman Catholic derivative church to wish her a luxurious bon voyage.

As always, condolences to any who have lost someone.

If you can, please give Unicef a helping hand.

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PEACE
Crispy

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Andrew Copson Vs Anne Atkins

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:40:00 +0000

"Baroness Warsi wrote, for The Daily Telegraph, that British society was under threat from a rising tide of "militant secularisation" and that Europe needs to be "more confident in its Christianity".

Article Here

This is a discussion on BBC News yesterday between Andrew Copson and Anne Atkins about the 'Militiant secularism' comments made by the Baroness

(extra twiddly bits by yours truly).

More details of the Council Prayers court case they discuss are here:
http://crispysea.blogspot.com/2012/02/prayer-is-not-legal.html

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Crispy

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In Conversation

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:30:00 +0000

For those of you who are unaware, Reap Paden of ReapSow Radio and The Angry Atheist podacst has been conducting conversations with atheists. The purpose is to allow those who have not met an atheist to hear for themselves that we are not baby munching monsters and show just how 'normal' we are. This weekend it was my turn.

Crispy Sea in conversation with The Angry Atheist

download

I'd like to thank Reap for the opportunity.
I highly recommend it, it's kinda theraputic to just open your head.
And for free too!

You cam follow Reap on twitter @1AngryAtheist
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Crispy

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Prayer Is Not Legal

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:03:00 +0000

A brilliantly fair decision all around by Mr Justice Ouseley.

Bideford Town Council prayers ruled unlawful
A Devon town council acted unlawfully by allowing prayers to be said before meetings, the High Court has ruled. Action was brought against Bideford Town Council by the National Secular Society (NSS) after atheist councillor Clive Bone complained.
Mr Justice Ouseley ruled the prayers were not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972. However, he said prayers could be said as long as councillors were not formally summoned to attend.

I've reported on the case before so there's more in "Hands together Eyes Closed" ¹ and there's the full story with associated links on the BBC website ²

It's a shame it had to go to court before the religious were forced to see sense but at least it is now quite clear.

"Should prayer be compulsory in public meetings?"
"No."
This is ^{No longer} one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

¹ Hands together Eyes Closed - http://crispysea.blogspot.com/2011/04/hands-together-eyes-closed.html
² BBC website - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-16980025

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Philosophical Dickens

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:01:00 +0000

I Just watched a lecture by Dr Chris diCarlo, entitled "Natrual and Supernatural Responses to Life's Biggest Questions" If like me you didn't know any more about Dr diCarlo than his authorship of the RDFRS slogan "We Are All Africans" the video introduction furnishes us with some pertinent details; advisory fellow CFI Canada. Philosopher of science and ethics,interests in cognitive evolution have taken him into the natural social science. His research focuses on how and why humans reason, think and act the way they do.
Now I've not read the book, just seen the lecture but Dr Chris diCarlo's "How to become a really good pain in the Ass: A critical thinkers guide to asking the right questions" delivers the 'Big 5' questions about human life that, we find, we all ask of ourselves, even if only subconsciously.

The Big 5
1. What can I know? (what are the limits of my knowledge?)
2. Why am I here (how did I get here/what am I doing here?)
3. What am I (What am I composed of?)
4. How should I behave (that is to say, ethically; toward others/other species?)
5. What is to come of me?

Dr diCarlo says in the lecture, and I agree, that the way we each answer the big 5 tells us a lot about ourselves because they trickle down to decisions we make about human rights, abortion etc.

Whilst I think Charles Dickens did a sexier job of delivering the list, via Scrooge (A Christmas Carol), even if the elegance and artistry of his transmission method somewhat obscured the list's presence, and I've a sense of despair that the philosophical awareness displayed by our greatest of authors is often ignored in the schoolroom or trampled in the rush to forced feed children a steady diet of those novels with a promise of post mortem reward points, I think Chris diCarlo's list is a great distillation of the relevant points into an exceedingly manageable format, almost a questionnaire even. They are clear enough in fact for one to take a step sideways and consider selecting a set of multiple choice answers for them.¹
Y'know, we are all humans, we have limited choices about how we wipe our ~~arses~~ noses. we ALL have a similar experience.
Wouldn't handing out the big 5 as a questionnaire be better suited to human life than a religious studies lesson?
Wouldn't it prompt a great comprehension of our humanity to openly discuss and debate the possible answers to the questions and the consequences of those choices, in class, than merely expecting children to simply follow ancient rules of a fake authority?
I bet you can guess what I think.

¹Interminably long sentence in honour of Mr Dickens 200th birthday. "Please, Mr Dickens, can I have some more breath now?"

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Crispy

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An Unmeasurable Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:08:00 +0000

I was talking with a Christian a couple of years ago but I recently heard a similar statement by a Muslim so I thought I'd have a crack at addressing it. So as not to indirectly identify the sources or myself, this is a composite of their points...
"Sadly, the gift of disobedience is clearly seen in the children. I don't know where they get it! Lying was never taught to them."
It highlighted, very clearly for me, just how unaware 'we' are of our own behaviour.

While a child might not learn to lie from the environment in which it is raised, the ability to deceive could be seen as a genetically encoded survival mechanism, it will learn the advantages and disadvantages of doing so.
Tooth Fairy, Father Christmas, The Bogeyman, a hundred and one other myths, legends and fairy tales are displayed to the child (I realise that's a description for European descendant childhood but similar rites & phantoms likely apply in all social structures)
These fables are employed to educate the child in 'our' social ways, customs, ethics, morality etc. All very inclusive and laudable on the surface.
I wonder though, does it actually do society harm to employ these fables?
As the child uncovers the truth about each of these fake characters it comes, via subconscious or conscious route, to the solid fact that ALL the adults who kept the 'secret' were actually lying.

And, from the child's point of view these lies are for no good reason other than the adults own ends; to entertain themselves, discipline or educate the child, for the parent to 'get their own way all the time' or, more dramatically, the free will of the child is suspended by the dictator adult.
I know that sounds childish but it's how the child perceives the lies that's pertinent.

Regardless of what the child is told about the ethics or immorality of lying the child learns, by example, that it is advantageous to lie; that one lies to direct the thoughts and actions of others to one's own benefit.

If the child also has the misfortune to be brought up in a religious household they will also, alas, suffer under the largest lie of all, god. Don't get all bristly, religious folks, all I'm saying is this...
No matter what one chooses to believe or where one stands on atheism the following statement is true
An unmeasurable truth
is indistinguishable from a lie
If one teaches a child about a god as if it's the truth but that entity, the god, is the very epitome of unmeasurable, how can the child, or anyone, distinguish it from a lie?

How can anyone trust someone who promotes such an unmeasurable truth?

How can any rational person be in favour of the followers of an unmeasurable truth wielding, on unmeasurable authority, the power to punish, torture or slaughter any individual who disagrees with that unmeasurable truth?

Shouldn't the United Nations, the Court of Human Rights or whomever may be concerned, be working toward an end of all 'law' which is drawn up under an unmeasurable authority?

Finally it occurs...
Is it any wonder that so many young grow through adolescence with the Peter Pan ethos, 'you cannot trust an adult'?
And, if we acknowledge that they do, why do we persist with these exercises in breaking our children's trust in adults?
Is it merely because we are too primitive to notice the consequences of our poor education methods?
If so, surely we must now be smart enough pass on our essential values without all the magical claptrap?

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PEACE
Crispy

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Soul Shaped Gap

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:30:00 +0000

You inherit a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, an ancient heirloom, the picture on the box is faded beyond assisting you but the pieces have been kept safe in glorious full colour in a bag, inside.
The instructions say 'finish the puzzle for your inheritance'.
You quickly complete the edge and nearby pieces. The picture begins to reveal a landscape scene. A wrathful, dark sky of storm-laden clouds looms over an escarpment. Illuminated in the only shaft of brilliant sunlight piercing the scene a road leads to a path, which leads to the base of the cliff and a stairway hewn ornately from the rock face snakes upward, climbing to a....
The last piece is missing!
Will you accept that you may know only the shape of the missing piece and never know to what the stairs lead? Or, will you deduce from the surrounding image what is most likely printed there and claim you prize?
It's not really a question, our brains spend a huge amount of time piecing together little bits of data about the world in order to calculate 'the best route for survival', so you, I, or any, would likely have no choice, the deduction would be automatic.
It's likely you have formed an image of the scene, not only of the puzzle's picture and what may be depicted on the missing piece but also the surface, maybe a table, which MUST be present in order for a human to do a jigsaw, maybe also a light source, possibly a chair as it takes a while to do a jigsaw, and the likely overall size of the puzzle, based on your own experience of the size of 1000 piece puzzles and, thereby, the approximate size of the missing piece. All may be deduced, just from a the words above (Mighty powerful stuff is brainzzz). And, while the success of the deduction rests heavily in the quality of both the calculator's equipment and the data, even the dumbest person would be able to guess the shape of the missing piece.
Even a two year old can put the right shaped peg in the right shaped hole.

Now transpose that paradigm onto biology, the 1000 piece puzzle is human DNA. Just as one knows, not only that there's a piece missing from the jigsaw puzzle but also the exact shape of that piece, by the shape of the whole which remains, so too with biology, there would be a gap in the genetic code, a hole in the biological knowledge; a group of genetic data, significant only by it's absence, where biologists would be forced to conclude 'there's something non-biological/inorganic going on here" and maybe even speculate on a non-corporeal component as would befit the presence of the 'soul' of ancient fable.
If one of the body's systems, respiratory, circulatory, nervous etc, or one of the organs, were invisible/intangible but KEY to life, biologists wouldn't be able to explain the body's workings; they would be able to tell you everything 'up to a point' but DNA wouldn't tell the whole tale, there'd be mysterious, intangible barrier to full medical comprehension.
However, given that thus far no such gap has been identified in DNA, there are no strange absences, blurry bits etc, we may only assume that humanity, and all life, is a direct consequence of natural abiogenesis and subsequent evolution; the human body functions because of the genetic biochemistry alone...
If DNA is present then SOUL is absent.
As if that wasn't conclusive enough, there's a second arrow in this quiver, the Evolutionary mechanism itself; survival of the fittest.
It is widely accepted now that Evolution is fact, THE mechanism for all life. Speaking very loosely, Evolution shows, if a life-form's new genetic mutation is not of benefit to survival in the life-form's environment that 'body part' is less likely to develop; Evolution is kind of a cross between 'Use it or lose it' and 'Do a job often enough you get a callous/good at it'.
So, with that acknowledged one must ask, how does one solve the 'soul' problem? What environmental factors would have to be in place to stimulate, in a purely material, biological mechanism, an entirely immaterial non-biological mutation; the archetypal and Biblical 'Death Escape Pod'? What factors would pressurise any 'Soul-bud' mutation into becoming 'Soul'? And then, more problematically, what environmental factors would have to exist for that biological mechanism to evolve to become incapable of functioning without that immaterial mutation?
Surely we may only honestly claim 'soul' as 'likely' if it can be said to be indispensable, or at least valuable, for the survival of the biological life-form in the environment in which the life-form evolved; ON EARTH.

So, unless we can point out a soul-shaped gap in DNA, where 'SOUL' is required to cause the organic to function AND explain the circumstances by which a soul-shaped callous may be environmentally forged, surely we must concede that the mechanics of Human life are wholly explained by DNA?
And, consequentially, that 'soul' is, as I think we all really suspected anyway, just an ancient label for consciousness?

In the brilliant daylight of current scientific comprehension where our genes clearly do not display even a soul-shaped gap, can we now not assume that 'our' long held fantistical quest for a magical, spiritual core has become, and consequentially always was, merely a wild ghost chase?

Seems clear to me, Soul will soon go the way of all the other bogeymen (or women).

If you are not already convinced, as I, that humans DO NOT have a soul, spin over here for a very detailed piece on what the Qur'an says, or rather doesn't say, about the 'soul' myth.
Please remember though, trust no one, be your own expert:
Best practice is ALWAYS do your own research. :)

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

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Visitors From Another World

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Welcome listeners to Capitol Hill for this unprecedented and momentous occasion.
Since their spaceship first appeared a little over 24 hours ago and the single radio communication from their beleaguered vessel, the country, indeed the whole world has been awash with the story of the star traveller's malfunctioning hyper-drive engines which brought them crashing from subspace to almost collide with our beautiful moon.
The latest update I'm hearing is that they've stabilised life support for the 200 hundred crew but there's still insufficient power for navigation or communications. They can still only communicate with us one call at a time.
In the past few hours dignitaries have been gathering from all over the globe for this first meeting between human and extraterrestrial life; a global collection of heads of state, all here to welcome this new era.
As it's the USA they first contacted they are landing in front of the White House where the president will greet them.

Here they come listeners, a small bright blue egg-shaped capsule with what looks like peacocks tail feathers twisting and fluttering above it as it descends.
It's decelerating, the tail feathers are spreading more like a helicopter, landing feet are extending out from beneath, and, it's, down. Oh lovely, the tail feathers have settled around the egg like a gossamer canopy.
A door is open, tilting out and down, there are steps on the back of the door that extend up into the interior. A similar blue colour.
I see feet two pairs of shoes no, boots; their feet are a little longer than ours. They have skirts or a tunic, there are belts with identical buckles and, it's definitely a tunic. Bare armed, their skin is dark, I think it's actually Greeny-blue, their faces are kind of lizard like though flatter and their eyes are bigger, they have round jowled jaw-lines and bulbous noses.

The president is stepping forward and holding out her hand, a moment's hesitation and the visitors hold out their hands in response; they have only three fingers, ladies and gentlemen.
As they shake hands, let's go to the external mic and hear what's being said.

With a practiced wide smile but trembling voice the president offered a simple, "Welcome to Earth."
"Thank you President and Earth leaders. You know of our plight; we are in need of supplies and have decided we ARE willing to trade technology for some of your water, biomass and resources to make our repairs."
"Well that's just wonderful and, as God is my witness, we'll be glad to help in any way."
The two visitors look aghast first at the president and then at each other, exchange a few very fast, very agitated words in their own language and begin to sidle away.
Sensing something is wrong, the president steps after them.
"Have I said something to offend?"
The visitors exchange another burst of chatter and one turns.
"No, not actually but we didn't realise. And we are not allowed to. It would cost us our lives. No, we must go before we are detected."
"What? What is it?" The president shouts after the visitors, now scurrying toward the ship, its feathers already starting to twirl.
At the steps one stops, turns and shouts back.
"It's a strictly enforced intergalactic dictate, punishable in execution of the perpetrator and ALL their blood relatives."
"What is?"
"Trading possibly dangerous technological advancements to races who have not yet discarded magical thinking. I am sorry. We must depart before we are detected. Goodbye."

It's not my worst nightmare but it's right up there!

Would I so-o be ready to get all stabby and killy on the deluded that day?
If I'm honest, probably not even then.

Of course, the flight of fancy above couldn't really happen; in every micro-second of every day since the first religious radio broadcast, this pale blue dot has been happily spewing supremacist religious bullshit to any other civilization who are paying attention.
Sadly, they will all already know, humanity is still far too primitive for contact. Indeed, we may only hope that any race watching are benign and consider humanity merely an embarrassment, for if they are not, for the last century or more they could have been "slowly and surely drawing their plans against us."⁽¹⁾ as Professor Stephen Hawking recently reinforced⁽²⁾.

My heartiest congratualtions to Professor Hawking
on the celebration of his 70th Birthday.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

⁽¹⁾ Misquote from "War of the Worlds" ~ H.G. Wells
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#The_War_of_the_Worlds_.281898.29
⁽²⁾ Hawking on the future of mankind
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9672000/9672233.stm

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Sweet Nectar of life

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000

I realise this is about to be a sweeping generalisation but let's say, for the hell of it, that the religious assume only two states; you're either 'one of the saved' or 'one of the damned', you're a 'lost soul' or a 'found soul'. It's as if they only see these two choices, that YOUR life is only capable of one of these two limiting positions; all very glass half-full or half-empty style, whilst all the time failing to notice what any atheist is freed to see.
Instead of exploring and appreciating the nectar, revelling and delighting in its gentle, brief pleasure, the religiously inclined, prohibited by authoritarian despot from noticing the vessel in which it rests, merely judge the nectar's value from a 'safe distance', through an ancient telescope too dimmed by time to reveal the magnificence of the beautifully hand-crafted Venetian lead-crystal goblet from which the luscious nectar's fortuitous full measure, whatever that may be, may be sipped, savoured or gulped but always only ever consumed.

Half-empty or half-full, whichever one perceives true, is irrelevant:
WE are the glass and the nectar,
WE are the sentient stardust,
WE are the new stars,
WE THINK.

Which is a really just a long winded way of saying.
I'm thrilled that in the entirety of eternity I know I am here, the one and only, sole owner of this glass and sole imbiber of its full, if finite, measure of nectar.

And in my book
That fucking Rocks

Wishing a fine and dandy, great and happy new year to all my readers
and anyone else.

All the very best for 2012

I sincerely hope your goblet is of the finest glass
and the nectar within is as sweet as you could ever wish it to be.

And as a final thought,
Awww bugger it, it's New Year's Eve and there's a very fine 10 year old malt whisky with my name on it; write your own last line! :P

Have a cracker! :)

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PEACE
Crispy

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OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Pod Delusion On Christopher Hitchens

noreply@blogger.com (Crispy Sea) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000

On the 15th December 2011 Christopher Hitchens died.
The Pod Delusion, always a fine show, has done him proud.

In this Hitchmas special the team provides reports on Hitchens life and works with occasional snowy sprinklings of examples of the faithful's reaction to the #GodIsNotGreat hashtag that trended on Twitter in the 24hrs after Hitch's untimely death.

If you can't see a player above you can listen here http://ipad.io/nY3 I wholeheartedly agree with the assessment of Luke T Adams mentioned by Dave Cross at the in the last few minutes of the show.

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

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The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!