The Ranting!

Triumphant Return of The Ranting!

2014-07-01T11:13:00.001-07:00

Hello, my small readership. I know it's been quite some time since I last ranted, but I have not forgotten about you all.

It's been a crazy year for me so far. I have a great new job that I love very much, and am in the process of finding myself a new place for the 3rd time this year. However, this isn't why you're here. You're here to read a venomous diatribe about something we all hate about something, so I will gladly oblige.

Homelessness, we all have to face it at some point in our lives. Whether it directly affects your ability to sleep in a nice bed every night, or someone you cross paths with, it reaches into everyone's life some way or other. It's a shifty part of living in any city, and is hard to feel good about it. I have had to stare the prospect of it down a couple of times this year, and have been fortunate enough to find someone gracious enough to give me a hand up each time.

However, it's a problem that is not properly addressed in many places at all. Sure, the US has a few programs to provide (very little) assistance to the unfortunate people who can't afford the astronomical rents in many cities, but there aren't enough benefits given to those seeking relief to actually get them out of the rut they are in and on the road to success. I know, having needed the help myself only to be rejected and left to fend for myself.

There's also this strange issue of housing also. In many cities there are more residences than people to occupy them, yet people are forced to live on the street if they can't find the exorbitant amount of money required to move in. The houses and apartments will literally sit empty while people who need them sleep in alleyways and parks.

Many of these people are trying to better themselves, only to be skipped over for jobs and dismissed by landlords because they don't have a stable income or the ability to maintain a hygienic appearance due to the lack of resources to do as such. This is bullshit, and not enough is done to rectify this growing problem.

To make matters worse, there aren't enough people in positions to make the changes necessary to really help the unfortunate victims of homelessness. I concede that a percentage of the homeless have chosen this lifestyle, but I feel that the majority are victims of circumstance trying their best to make a better life for themselves in the only way that is available to them. It's no way to live, and the people who have the ability to bring all humanity up choose instead to be selfish while their species suffers the folly of their greed.

The Holiday Ranting, First Winter Holiday Special

2013-12-24T01:58:00.001-08:00

Ahhhh... Winter has arrived in the north hemisphere, and you know what that means, right? Cold weather, longer nights, snow in the coldest places, and Fox News' War on Christmas is in full swing again. Christians are celebrating Mithras and Saturnalia, (I mean X-Mas,) pagans celebrate the Solstice/Yule, Chanukah menorahs are lit once more, and other winter celebrations from the many other cultures that I didn't mention.

The Traditional Festivus Pole

Families are coming together to (apparently) cause as much awkward family drama as possible in as short a time as possible, all while trying to maintain the illusion of the "ideal American family Christmas." It must be the sole purpose of the family gatherings that these holidays bring, because at no other time of year has the family forgotten where their dramas lie. This is the way I've perceived these "celebrations," from nearly every family that I've ever spent holidays with. I am sure that there are a few families that are truly the cheery iconographic Rockwellian families, but I doubt there are many.

It's the time that charity toward not yourself is slightly encouraged under the pretense of doing a good deed for some less fortunate individual through the hands of some religious organization that puts more into their employees' hands than into the total budget meant to help someone in need of it, all year long. I think of all the things that come with the holidays, the charitable demeanor that sweeps over the populace for that short, short time in December, should be an all the time sentiment, regardless of season.

The Roman version of Jesus/Osiris/etc.

I'm certainly not delving into the history of these many holidays that torment us all, heathen and misguided fool alike, though there is a great deal of commonality in the rituals/nuances of the holiday in each culture. Every year the torture is dealt and borne, leaving homes like battlefields in the aftermath, and conflict-inciting relatives leave for another year, peace slowly retakes the landscape. The dawn of the New Year winds down this great annual catastrophe with the false hope of things that may yet happen to change one's life for the best/better, emptily resolving to make this new year better than the one previous, driving an illusory air of confidence that just fades into disappointment as the year wears on and warms up.

So, in light of the wet blanket grumbles that come with this glorious season of darkness, have a safe and happy Corporate Welfare Day, or whatever you choose celebrate with your families.
Thanks for your time, and share the best part of your winter celebrations... (Pics will be greatly appreciated for the best sounding stories.)

The Ranting's 1st Annual Thanksgiving Special

2013-11-23T03:58:00.000-08:00

How the British Taught Us the Meaning of Gratitude

It's that time of year where the folks in the good old USA gather their families together and remember our arrival to the North American continent by a group of religious refugees fleeing persecution in Britain and other parts of northern Europe. These brave pioneers landed in Massachusetts and established one of the earliest British colonies that wasn't immediately destroyed by cannibalism, plague, famine or reclamation parties sent by the displaced incumbent residents which places like Roanoke Island and a couple of the other colonies were seemingly cursed with. Don't get me wrong, this colony was no strong success in the beginning either, as not a single one of this group of settlers decided to take any levels in farming before embarking on the grueling voyage across the northern Atlantic to finally be able to live in such a way that their little sect of Protestantism could at least die out of its own folly instead of at the hands of the Anglicans and Catholics that were thinning their numbers in the Old World.

The legend states that a noble and peaceful tribe of Natives showed this group of nearly invalid zealots compassion, taking the time to teach them how to work the alien soil of this New World. The famines that plagued the colony during the early years of the northern Massachusetts colony was finally getting reined in and the people weren't starving to death. The harvest time was looked on with a new found air of hope and accomplishment, leading to what we call the legendary "First Thanksgiving Feast." There was an air of cooperation between the Natives and the settlers for a short time afterwards, until the interlopers had grown beyond the capacity of their small settlement's limited resources. So they did what any burgeoning group of resource consuming invaders would do, they started stealing from the very tribe that only a short time before had shown them compassion and brought them from the brink of utter annihilation. Thus the centuries old conflict between Natives and Brits had started in the north.

What a wonderful way to thank the people who saved an entire colony from becoming Roanoke II, the Disappearingening. This was to become the model for standard operating procedure amongst successive colonies all over the eastern seaboard, though typically the make friends with the locals step was skipped in the future incarnations of colony establishment. The gun was mightier that the tomahawk, and so the gun took what it could, leaving pillaged forests and smoldering villages in the wake of colonial expansion. This isn't even the worst of the damage that was caused by white people, I have not addressed the biological terrorism that was unleashed upon the unsuspecting and extremely susceptible Natives. European diseases like smallpox, and others, devastated far more people in the Native populaces than all the other means of eradication (guns, swords, farm implements, arson, alcohol, etc). The Natives had never developed any antibodies the fend off these European borne pathogens because they were never exposed to them until large numbers of foreigners started appearing in their ancestral lands.

The gruesome treatment of these "savages" was rewarded in a similar manner to other dangerous wildlife at the time. Wolves, bears, mountain lions and Natives all had bounties placed upon them, so the colonies could maintain the semblance of safety that any frontier settlement deludes itself into believing exists around it. The colonist's were surely thankful to the to the major landholders for this false safety, thankful enough to accept the idea of killing another man to protect the resources they felt they were entitled to simply because they were there. Gratitude which would have been better placed in the first tribes that saved the oldest colonies from their own ineptitude, I'm sure.

If there had been any effort to actually attempt diplomatic measures of cooperation and understanding, who know what the early colonies would have been like. Instead, because people are plagued with this sense of exclusivism regarding differentiation throughout a populace, the colonists (or usses) and the Native (or thems) were inextricably drawn into a centuries long conflict that nearly extincted the northeastern tribes to make way for the exploding population of colonists from every English colony, leading through the long series of battles and even longer wars to establish dominance over the precious resources that came with the land which the victors claimed as spoils.

The colonists and soldiers became ever more grateful to the vacating Natives, that were diminished by illness and open combat, for giving up their ancestral homes so progress could be made in the name of civilizing the wilds so that way civilized men could erase the bounty of natural resources and replace them with livestock and low yielding crops. The continued on and on, and we all know that the American Revolution did nothing to decelerate the genocide of the Natives in the grand scheme of history...

That's how our ancestors gave thanks to the people who helped them survive the failings of their own ineptitude in a strange new environment. That's seriously 200+ years of gratitude that the interlopers expressed to the incumbents, almost wiping the Native tribes completely out in the expansionistic fervor that eventually became known as "Manifest Destiny," though the name was coined nearer the end of this period of thanking the Natives that helped us on occasion by taking everything away from them a swathe at a time, for nearly two and a half centuries.

Now, I was taught that gratitude was expressed in a congenial manner toward outside assistance given to help positively rectify an internal issue (like the British colonists starving for a couple years before the tribe of Natives intercede and the colony survives, or a person drops a small object and loses it until another person assists in locating and recovering said lost object). The gratitude should be a humble gesture that doesn't demean either the helper or the helped. That's what I've always thought the act of thanking someone should be. The early colonists apparently never received that small portion of grace that their god had bestowed upon the pinnacle of his Creation all those centuries before civilized cultures came to the west. Obviously that whole god and grace thing is a load of crap by any reckoning, but people still buy into the same crock today, in the age of explanations and evidence that point toward the absence of any deity that may resemble the one(s) described in any religious texts that humanity has found throughout the ages.

From the French and Indian War*

In the same vein as the majority of this piece, I am thankful for:

1. Rich people not paying their fair share of taxes and buying politicians.
2. Our elected officials bickering over petty things while major decisions loom toward disaster.
3. Christians preventing equality in marriage and interfering with pro-choice establishments.
4. Corporations controlling the lion's share of legislators in every level of government.
5. US Government agencies monitoring private communiques of everyone, citizen or not.
6. Climate change and science deniers establishing science class curricula that include magic.
7. Hostilities all around the world to "protect"our interests abroad, namely opium and oil.
8. Having to pay ever higher tuition to get a decent education, and the lifelong debt that accrues from it.

DISCLAIMER!!! The gratitude expressed in this piece is purely sardonic and is not actually the position I hold on these topics. If there is any question on my position, just apply some old-fashioned logic and common sense to your confusion, and you'll see my true stance on these issues. If you still think I support any of the aforementioned list, then you probably need to dismiss your imaginary friend and think for yourself for a change. Thank you for taking the time out of your holiday to read this piece.

What does Equality Mean to Me?

2013-11-20T22:58:00.000-08:00

The dream of everyone who is discriminated against, the hopes of the socially oppressed and the nightmares of the opressors in places of power, the chance to be on equal footing with our fellow man, to be viewed as no less than those around you. Equality is a struggle that humanity has not yet overcome in its (relatively) short history, though leaps and bounds have been made throughout the millenia. The dream of many people is to have the right to choose their leaders (specifically in democratic scenarios), the right to join the person they love in a lawful joining (marriage or civil union or whatever) with all the benefits that come with it, the right to be able to be gainfully employed without fear of being rejected because of unchangeable variables like skin tone or sexual orientation.

People all over the world are struggling for a great many rights that many first-world nations take for granted. Slavery is a concern that was outlawed by most of the west by the 1900's, but remains a global plague that goes mostly unnoticed by the general population because it doesn't directly affect most of these people. Owning people in any sense is wrong, regardless of the reason that one uses to explain their perceived superiority over any other individual. The same is true of anyone who thinks a skin color causes one to be inferior/superior to any other, it should be plain that all people are people regardless of what pigments are dominant on their epidermis. There are racists the world over, and they deserve to be placed in the position that they wish upon those they are biased against, forced to see what their hatred and bigotry cause in their victims.

Religious persecution registers as another problem, though true genocides have become less and less common throughout the years. In the early days of our society's history, one tribe would believe in a group of one or more deities that were diferent from the next tribe over, and this would cause them to dislike each other. Truthfully, it wasn't the thing that would drive them into open conflict so much as the need to expand and obtain more resources from the same pool as the neighboring tribes, but it did play a factor in convincing tribe members to take these resources because the god(s) demanded it. This was a very simple way to manipulate a group into believing that their deity/ies had superiority over any rival pantheon, and zealous fervor drove these tribes to wipe many of the tribes from history altogether. This still plagues our species to this day, and there is no really viable solution aside from abandoning that whole part of our culture and replacing it with something contructive.

Atheists are victimized by nearly every religion ever, since always, becauze they do not have the guidance of some deity/ies showing them how to "play nice" with other people on the individual level on through to on a societal level. This is even more heinous than any faith-on-faith atrocities that have been recorded, because these religious groups all agree that they are superior because of they all at least have faith in some kind of greater entity that endows them with the ability to dispense righteous justice on the heathen non-believer. This type of inequality prevents people in some parts of the U.S. from running for elected office, and many other nations as well; that doesn't include the other nations that imprison or execute atheists or apostates, which is also a significant portion of the cradle of civilization's modern political powers.

Homosexuals want the right to legally join the person they love in many nations worldwide, and are starting to gain headway in several nations in the last few years. There are states in the U.S. that refuse to acknowledge such equality due to the overall religious disposition of their elected officials, and I imagine that the nations outside the U.S. that also deny these rights are similarly biased by their theologically misguided law making bodies. I personally think that it's a beautiful thing when two people love each other enough to want to merge their assets and legally incorporate themselves as one legal entity, regardless of what gender(s) the couple is. The gay community faces probably equally fierce bigotry as the atheist community, in some cases more, I'm sure. It's also mostly from the religious communities and their belief that their deity/ies want the abomination of non-reproductive relationships should abstain from any sexual contact or die. In case that is unclear, being a man with male friends is ok, but you can't cross swords and touch tips with said male friends because it's against the will of the divine and worthy of being put to death, the exception being David and Jonathon in the Old Testament (1 Samuel) and that relationship ends poorly anyway.

Equality should stand for being on the same terms in the eyes of your peers in every aspect, any right that one person has should never be greater or less than those of another. Everyone should be allowed the freedom to choose what they believe (within reason), the ability to have the leadership they collectively choose, the option join whomever in legal union/marriage regardless of gender or culture, have the same opportunity to succeed in life that anyone else has, and the list could go on forever so I'll stop here. This is my interpretation of equality, and I hope that I'm not alone. Help crate a better world for everyone, erase bigotry, hatred and dogmatic hypocrisy, and replace it with tolerance, education and empathy for others.

Surprise amidst espionage that should have been expected.

2013-11-02T06:25:00.001-07:00

What's with the amount of surprise generated by the news that the NSA was gathering intel on suspected enemies the world over, like our ally Germany's Chancellor and other countries we are supposed to be on good terms with. This seems to bear a message of distrust to any non-US entity, from entire nations down to the individual person, regardless of political standing.

If you were surprised by this news, you don't pay attention to global politics or history. It's standard operating procedure for any number of groups beyond 1. There is the us vs. them perception that was originally for evading predators or for demonstrating alpha status superiority to the competition. It's a standard feature of nearly every herding or territorial animal from the time the first complex organisms were evolving.

This should be something that is as obvious to postulate as the gravity's effect on falling or dropped object on the moon. The world is built on the fact that competition creates rivalry, especially among those who are lulled into believing that allies can exist with integrity during the social media age. There is no truly safe place to be now, if you want to maintain complete anonymity or privacy and benefit from any of the advances communication technology grant. Items like telephones, radios, computers, cell phones of all types, etc. are easy to monitor with a budget the size of the NSA's. It pays to have good help with useful skills.

The Russians were also put on blast for bugging gift bag for other visiting state officials, as if to say they were not to be out-outed over the indiscretion of their operating protocols. This is quite expected, though, if you remember the animal brain tangent earlier this very article. It seems as though both sides want to bully each other indirectly by also bullying everyone else with apparently poorly (or well) placed indicators that led to the discovery of "covert" surveillance was being conducted.

It's hard to say how this type of global surveillance presents itself as good politics, but it's perceived as something that will help humanity in the long term, at the expense of liberties that should be unalienated without inarguably hopeless circumstances.

If we as a whole stopped trying to be kings of the castle, we could evolve beyond the petty differences of our individual -isms. Get rid of the authority given to any church leaders and imparting taxes equivalent to a business of similar income per individual church building, not as only 1 organization. Then make information of literally any kind available to anyone that asks for it, within reason. Trust among people and the drive to improve life for all of humanity would very likely drive a new golden age, the likes of which would be beyond any we have been around to record, ever. It's only a complete series of choices that every single person alive would have to make, but the inevitable extinction event will not be caused by our own creations, possibly extending the species survival another day or several millennia (based on a whole slew of other events happening or not). There would be time to tackle the biggest problems and mysteries that wait for us to be able to find them.

Sorry to get all idealistic on you, dear reader, I should probably allow you to return to the chaotic flow of life, and thanks for donating some of your precious time entertaining my point of view. Until I rant again.

Beyond Time and Space?

2013-09-06T03:49:00.003-07:00

What exists outside of space and time? I started pondering this idea recently, having talked with a theist about it not long ago. Now, I know that there's no definitive answer to this question from a scientific standpoint. Some scientists believe that nothing exists beyond our universe, whether it's infinite or just unimaginably vast; others believe that other universes are beyond ours in a multiverse, containing possibly an infinite number of these other universes, which also may or may not be infinite in size and may or may not be similar to our own. These are the predominant theories according to the most brilliant minds that humanity has to offer, and I accept that we as a species may never know the actual answer to this particular debate, but these are both plausible compared to the third alternative that I have stumbled across. Theists have provided this third alternative, which states that God is beyond time and space.

So, in the thinking about this third alternative, I have to reject it. The idea that a single entity that is infinite and timeless could not be feasible if it exists outside the universe it is credited with interacting within. If God is outside the universe, how could it possibly be everywhere within the universe? If God is outside time, how could it be every when in our universe? Logically, it couldn't exist outside space/time and be omnipresent within the boundaries of it, right? I believe so.

Nothing that we have observed within our universe has come from without, so far as I know. I'll admit that I'm not a cosmologist or astronomer, so I haven't made very many observations into the deepest regions of space. However, according to every study I've read and every scientist I've heard speak via video, this is true. There are only objects from our universe in our universe, from the moment time started until now and likely on into the future.

So where does that leave God? Nowhere in the observable universe, not in any spectrum of detectable energy from radio waves to gamma waves. Considering we also see the universe as it was relative to it's distance away from us, God is also not in any period of time that we can observe. I posit then that there is no God in this universe, at the very least, especially not one that is described by most theists.

I know that these points are not new by any means, and I'm sure that you have probably heard/read this a plethora of times before. I just felt that I needed to share my take on the subject. Now I want to leave you with a couple of questions, because I want to see what you all have to say.

First, what do God and nothing share in common?
Second, what do you think exists beyond the time and space that we exist in?
Finally, what is nothing capable of that God is not?

Can Apologists Create a New Argument for God, Please?

2013-08-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

I've seen a lot of apologists recently, as I enjoy hearing the arguments they come up with for proving their deity's existence. There aren't any that really bring a good argument to the table, though not for lack of trying. It seems that no one is even trying to come up with new ones, because I only seem to find the same ones over and over. The points in the argument vary from person to person, but the structuring of the arguments are really all the same. The "Prime Cause" seems to be the primary go to, but it leads to infinite regression; the "Ontological Argument" and "Cosmological Argument" both often lead back to the "Prime Cause" after any/all of the points made are refuted; the "Morality Argument" fails time and again, having poor examples of immorality associated (often inaccurately) with atheism. These are the arguments I see the most, in many different styles, and sometimes even combined with each other in an attempt to create a super-argument.

Are theist apologists really so uncreative that they cannot conceive of a completely new argument to provide evidence for their stance on the existence of their imaginary friends? I would say yes, having spent hundreds of hours listening to debates, apologist videos, and reading apologist literature, recently. All of the evidence that is provided is anecdotal, at best, or the Bible, at least. William Lane Craig tries to use a single study in his argument, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin study (linked as a pdf here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0110012v2.pdf ), but he removes any context from the factoids he uses that he might as well have made them up himself. Cherry-picking information is intellectually dishonest, we all know this, but is it really the best tactic to formulate a "well thought out" (more like faulty) argument to prove any point?

Until a completely new argument comes from the apologists, they've lost. Sorry, even if they come up with a fresh, untested argument for their proof, they've still lost.

Show me some of the best arguments you have encountered, I'd like to see them. By best, I don't necessarily mean the most reasonably presented. I like the funny ones as well as the serious, show them all to me. The best ones will get acknowledgement in a future posting.

God's Plan?

2013-08-07T14:09:00.000-07:00

Does God have a plan for us?

According to the Bible, yes. Everything that has ever occurred, or ever will, is part of his master plan. Including war, disease, genocide, bigotry, and all the other evils of the world. He planned all of it from the moment of creation.

The fall of Lucifer and his host was no surprise, as it was inevitable. The people who now worship Satan are part of God's plan, paying homage to the darker side of his plans. That's right, devil worship is part of God's plan! If it wasn't, there are only two explanations that it exists: God didn't plan anything, or there is no god to make any plans.

I have expressed this sentiment to theists in conversations about religion, and it flummoxes them. I don't know why, they (mostly) believe in God's infallible plan for everything, so they should accept that this is part of it. However, they get bent out of shape when I mention that the plan isn't all benevolent.

I mention the fact that the Bible states that God wishes for everyone to worship him, and obey his every whim, but he has created those who will not. Why would an egotistical megalomaniac would pre-condemn any group that he demands be obedient and worshipful? It's part of the plan, I guess.

Does that mean that we are all acting according to this divine script? Devil-worshippers, warmongers, gays, atheists, righteous bigots, hypocrites, the infirm, and everyone else playing their part in a grand play that can't be strayed from? I don't think so, personally. I believe in free will, and I believe in no deities.

I strongly believe in being your own person, and working toward improving life for yourself and those around you. I will mention that there is a growing number of scientists and science-minded people who believe that the universe is acting in a manner that resembles a predetermined path. This doesn't put God into science, though the plan part is kinda there.

In a predeterministic universe, everything follows a set path that cannot be strayed from, much like God's plan, but more like a complex chain reaction with no one overseeing the experiment. I can at least acknowledge that a predeterministic universe is plausible, but I don't personally put stock into it. Otherwise, this rant would have been inevitable, like in the God's plan model.

In conclusion, God's plan contains evils, and therefore isn't omnibenevolent. I can't believe in a plan like that, and no one that uses logical thinking shouldn't either.

Another Year Passes

2013-06-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

Another year passes me by. I grow older and gain some wisdom. It's been a crazy year since my last birthday. It's very soon, and may have passed by the time some of you read this. Life has been a ridiculous ride the last couple years, having the perfectly ordered life I had come to a sudden stop, leading down this scary and enthralling series of cataclysms that I have stitched into the fabric of my life. I see that it's a harsh world, worth the apathy I want to show for it, yet there is something that keeps me interested in the world and it's issues.

I don't know why I continue to hope for a sudden shift in society towards intelligence and critical thinking and evaluation become the norm, mostly I understand that it's essentially futile in the way that you extinguish a fire with kerosene, but I keep on hoping for that change. If there were a chance to show people how to evolve beyond the bronze and iron age myths that have led to the atrocities that fill our history books for the last 2000 years or so, I would gladly exert as much energy as I could muster to help shape the minds of my fellow humans into insightful minds aware of the larger scale effects of their actions both individually and to/for other people.

If humanity could cast down this selfish method of survival, and adopt a selfless or generous way of living to improve the lives of all humans, I bet there are amazing things could be accomplished by us. I bet we could find a better way to maintain infrastructure and improve the engineering and construction of it to reduce the necessity for repair. From there, we could restructure the way we travel to be safer and clean, reducing both accidents and pollution with a robotic self-drive car that's electric, and it can charge via induction through the road safely into a coil on the car that charges the battery of the vehicle or run it completely without a battery by utilizing the energy directly without storing it.

After improving local transportation, we could address larger scale transport via mag-Lev rails that run in near vacuum tubes to reduce drag and increase the speed which our commodities can travel at hundreds of miles per hour to and from anywhere on a landmass to anywhere else. Getting across oceans will also eventually be via mag-Lev, but that's a project that makes the Chunnel (look it up) seem like a dig in a primary school sandbox. Air travel will be outmoded and slower than the mag-Lev system, which will be run by electricity not H2O5 or other types of jet fuels that create vapor trails across the sky.

With these fundamental paradigms now shifted to a safer, faster, and exceptionally cleaner way, we can establish a more stable economy based on things that have a static value and will always be worth what it is originally measured at. It will take a while to get to economy through the transition, but because there won't be as high a demand for oil and coal, the price for each will eventually stabilize and cost less than it has in about 15-20 years. (That statement is purely speculative, as I cannot predict the values that items will have when a consensus is reached during the transition from failing economics to the aforementioned framework.)

We then need to have EVERY nation dismantle their WMD arsenals, which can be used constructively as drive components for interplanetary travel. If that method of propulsion is adopted, it'll have to be used at a safe distance from our atmosphere, but will be faster than any chemical rockets or ion drives we could ever produce.

It's such a simple plan, elegant in a way. However, overcoming the opposition and getting everyone running with the idea is the hardest part. Everything else will seriously fall into place after that Herculean task has been summited and people really start working toward the improvement of our species and planet, looking toward the future instead of stressing on the present. I do weep for us, though, for we are still just stupid monkeys that are reactionary and selfish by nature. We can't progress until that is quelled and social awareness replaces it.

So as I continue to get older, year after year, I see the state of the world declining further and further into a chaos that we created for ourselves. The political atmosphere is boiling at the fever pitch, war threatens to ravage society and will destroy many more unsuspecting people in the years to come. Rich people will be capable of evading harm, but the townsfolk will die for their homes against any enemy. I just want this to be the year that something changes for the better. I want that to be the wish I'm granted, but I won't hold my breath.

Suckers and Clever People

2013-05-19T19:43:00.001-07:00

It really amazes me that so many people invest so much of their thoughts and money into fairy tales. I know it really shouldn't, because people are very easily manipulated. I just hang my head in sorrow that most of the people I know are still incapable of seeing that there are explanations based in science that cover a good deal of the mysteries of the universe, and some deity didn't do it. We have been searching for the answers since humans were capable of thinking about things beyond just survival. Early man didn't have the tools to test the world around him, so a lot was chalked up to spirits or gods, and the rituals to appease these entities came with it. However, we have been improving upon the knowledge that started with primitive humanity, explaining the things which were inexplicable previously, and proving the natural causes of things once thought to be magical.

To me, it seems like a great many years ago in almost every tribe around the world, there was a conniving individual who didn't want to work like the rest of the tribe yet wanted to reap the benefits of the work itself. This individual claimed to know things that explained what the rest could not, and made up these mystical forces which only he/she knew how to appease. This individual would tell the tribe what it needed to give in order to keep these forces happy with the tribe, and that would end up being this individual's cut for being the conduit between the tribe and the mystical. Knowing that the mystical was really imagined, the swindler could enjoy the fruits of its tribe's labor and never have to lift a finger to actually gather any resources or defend the tribe from attack.

Now, this is just my opinion on how the whole religion thing got started, but that's because I'm basing my idea on the people who run churches now. All swindlers who live fat off the toils of those who work hard to eek out a meager existence themselves. I could be making a faulty parallel, but I know that people are pretty much the same as they have always been. Easily manipulated people get preyed on by those who think they are clever, and the clever ones either get enough suckers to sustain their scams or they fail and get replaced by another. History is rife with stories of clever people and suckers, with leaders and followers.

This is really how I see humanity, and I sigh when I look around. We start with the same ability to learn about the world, to become clever, to lead instead of follow. Somewhere along the way, though, most just stop trying to be great and allow others to propagandize them into submission. Religion, politics, and other traditions cause us to be lulled into a state of apathy, where the leaders think they're clever enough to keep screwing us, and all of us that are forced to follow just lay back and allow it to happen because the majority of us are the very suckers that believe the lies that are disseminated from them.

How do we fix it? How do we, the majority, the followers, change the way our leaders rule? How do we get the suckers to realize they're being screwed, and ally them to the betterment of the one world/life that we have?

Those are the big questions, and the answers aren't easily found. I have some thoughts on the matter, but they're unrealistic, because of paradigm shift necessary is beyond the grasp of a great portion of humanity due to the petty nature of all people (myself included). I would like to see the answers you come up with, and let's try to make the viable ones reality.

Back From Hiatus, To a Certain Extent

2013-05-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

I'm back on the Internets, having been on a shorter than normal hiatus from access to a computer. Typically, I am known to spend months away from any internet access because I still don't own a computer, even though I am very computer literate. It's nice having a roommate that allows me to occasionally commandeer the magic Internets machine, but I don't utilize that to my advantage nearly as often as I probably should.

I have been spending a great deal of time travelling between Mexico and southern California, as I live in both regions about equal amounts of time. It's really kind of awesome getting to immerse myself in the culture of a foreign society, and the Mexican culture is a rich one, if slightly bogged down by the immense amount of religious fervor the people down there have. The predominant denomination is Catholicism, as it is in most Spanish speaking countries in the world, though there are several other groups of Christian sects represented in the areas I travel through. An interesting development recently, though, is a seemingly sudden influx of Islamic Mexicans in the major cities like Tijuana. This is really kind of humorous to me, as it isn't something a great deal of Americans (myself included) would expect to see. There are a couple neighborhoods that have larger percentages of Muslims now than Christians, and the change in the population seemed to be nearly instantaneous in the last few years. I have been flitting back and forth for almost a year now, and it's been a great learning experience for me.

Many of my personal friends ask me what it's like down south, as most are also Americans who haven't spent much time in Mexico. "It's really not that different than the U. S., except there's more Spanish being spoken and the water can kill you," I reply, with a laugh. And, it really isn't dramatically different. The police are just as crooked, the rich subjugate the poor, religion runs rampant in the populace, and you can get robbed just as easily any time of day if you aren't observant. Just like everywhere I have lived in the U. S.

I haven't really gone into the deepest parts of Mexico, yet, Rosarito is where I live when I'm down there, but I eventually plan on going to some of the Aztec and Mayan ruins to see the amazing architecture that those civilizations built before the "Western Civilizations" erased the empires with disease and guns. It fills me with awe and wonder to think that most of the work was done without the use of the wheel, because most of the terrain where the monolithic structures were erected were not conducive to rolling wheels through. Jungle and mountain landscapes were easier to walk through, and so the wheel wasn't as great a tool for the purpose of transportation as it was in the Old World. Not to say it wasn't used for other things, pulleys were very likely a crucial component to getting large stones from the ground to the higher places within the buildings that they were needed. (In the case of the Mayans, the wheel was also where they put their calendars, as it really didn't have many uses; I joke about that with my roommate in Rosarito, because he knows a great deal more about the history of Mexico than I do, and we laugh.)

The thing that is really the most inconvenient about travelling back and forth is really the border crossing itself. The waits are usually insufferably long, plagued with vendors and beggars that target anyone that dresses even remotely nice (like a collared shirt of any kind, even a tacky polo shirt or a collared sweater, seriously, and I'm not really any better off than the beggars themselves as I am also nearly penniless), the obnoxious people in the lines also waiting to cross that cut into a lane that seems to be moving faster but isn't, and of course lastly, the inhospitable border patrol agents that seem to find new ways to make the line move slower than a 3-toed sloth crossing the road. I swear that they do it intentionally, it's like they really want everyone to spend a minimum of 3 hours waiting to taste the sweet air of freedom. That's not to include the time they spend searching vehicles, they get a bye for that, but most days, the agents just lag and don't search more that 10% of the vehicles crossing. They appear to lag for no reason at all the majority of the time. They're worse than the DMV and Health and Human Services COMBINED in terms of expedience and attitude.

I am just glad that I don't cross everyday, and crossing south is a breeze, normally the Federales don't even stop you unless your vehicle is loaded down with a lot of stuff. Even then, they usually just ask for your registration and peer through the windows to vaguely see what weighs so much, and send you on your way. No sonar pillars, no IR tags, no facial-recognition cameras, and no gigantic X-Ray death machines radiating everything in your vehicle on the southbound side; instead a standard stoplight weight sensor, a tollbooth style gate, and some speed-bumps, easy-peesy.

Enough about that, though. It's starting to depress me. I hope to be posting more regularly in the near future, and I have a bunch of ideas for the next few posts on this blog, as well as a possible redux of the appearance soon, to make it more visually pleasing. Any suggestions will be considered, and probably implemented if they pertain to readability or format issues specifically, I want this to be easy for you to enjoy. Suggestions on topics will require me doing some research, and may not get priority, but if you want to see something, let me know and I'll try my best to accommodate.

And as always, thanks for reading. Here's something extra for those of you who have been anticipating this as much as I have.

Venture Bros. is making a triumphant return after 2 year hiatus.

God Vs. Science 1

2013-04-26T02:23:00.000-07:00

Well, you knew it was only a matter of time before I weighed in on the most heated debate in Midwest School Board curriculum setting meeting rooms and public hearings related to it. So ready yourselves, and I'll try to power through it without getting obnoxious.

First, I found a #Psychiatry study that proposed an interesting premise, though finding any summarizations that remained untouched by bias was difficult, but I think I found one. Either way, upon reading the various different synapses, I got the impression that they gathered 159 subjects of varying age and religiosity, and all diagnosed with some variant of depression. The subjects were essentially rated on a scale of 1-10 in terms of belief, and then rated on a similar gradient for severity of their diagnosis. It seems that those with a high amount of faith tend to be more receptive to this specific treatment than those who are more disillusioned about magic. I don't know what to make of it, so I'll post the results of the study, and also a link to a peer-reviewed site that has the short form of the findings and processes.

"RESULTS: Belief in God was significantly higher among treatment responders than non-responders F(1,114)=4.81, p<.05. Higher levels of belief were also associated with greater reductions in depression (r=.21, p<.05) and self-harm (r=.24, p<.01), and greater improvements in psychological well-being (r=.19, p<.05) over course of treatment. Belief remained correlated with changes in depression and self-harm after controlling for age and gender. Perceived treatment credibility/expectancy, but not emotional regulation or community support, mediated relationships between belief in God and reductions in depression. No variables mediated relationships to other outcomes. Religious affiliation was also associated with treatment credibility/expectancy but not treatment outcomes." -
Faith aids Psychiatric treatment of depression?

It's weird to see any kind of credit given to faith being constructive to the human experience, right? Especially in a peer-reviewed journal. even if it's not a really accurate type of experiment. However, now that religion has had it's short moment in the sun, I must attempt to drown it in torrential storms of #logic and #morality that will flood that news for 40 days and 40 nights, because this next study is amazing news for the morality debaters.

#Frans de Waal,
a prominent primatologist, recently completed a long-term study on chimpanzees and bonobos that explored their capacity to display morality. Understanding, without any outside entity bestowing the knowledge of, what was right and wrong to do.
"For example, Lody, a bonobo in the Milwaukee County Zoo, bit the hand -- apparently accidentally -- of a veterinarian who was feeding him vitamin pills.
'Hearing a crunching sound, Lody looked up, seemingly surprised, and released the hand minus a digit,' de Waal said. 'Days later the vet revisited the zoo and held up her bandaged left hand. Lody looked at the hand and retreated to a distant corner of the enclosure where he held his head down and wrapped his arms around himself, signs of both grief and guilt.
And here's the amazing part. About 15 years later the vet returned to the zoo and was standing among a crowd of visitors when Lody recognized her and rushed over. He tried to see her left hand, which was hidden behind the railing. The vet lifted up her incomplete hand and Lody looked at it, then at the vet's face, then back at the hand again.'"That's right, a lower primate understanding that they did something wrong, and felt bad about it, and bore the guilt for at least 15 years afterwards. How much of it came from some deity claiming to be the source of all morality? None, and the study continues...
The chimpanzees and bonobos also display empathy for the less fortunate in their troops, mothers will take in orphaned young, thievery is punished, and other amazingly moral-like mechanisms are in place in these species. There's so much more, but I provided the link and I don't want to spoil the best part.
Primates answer God and morals debate!

Now that I have provided scientists that have straddled either side of this issue, the time has come to weigh in myself, I suppose. Those of you who know me already know where I stand on this debate, and won't be disappointed by my vote. I have to go with science, the evidence is still in favor of it actually existing and doing useful things, unlike God. I was really surprised to even find any real scientists entertaining the idea that God affected any kind of treatments since the last batch of #prayerasmedicine experiments that pretty much resolved that issue. If that study didn't get the point across, then I refer you to the #PAcouple prays baby to death instead of getting it medical treatment, PART 2!!! Meaning they failed to have that work before, in 2009, had a child die from a totally curable illness that God was powerless against. The parents got a smack on the hand, charged with "Unintentional Manslaughter" for the first instance of this. Now that it's happened again, to the same family AGAIN, and another child of theirs died AGAIN, and their prayers failed AGAIN, these people and EVERY member of the congregation they are members of should be arrested and tried as accomplices and hazards to public safety, as well as intentional murderers that allow defenseless children die from something that could have been treated by science instead of faith.

There it is, the first of an inevitably long series of #GodVs.Science articles that I will probably end up writing for the sheer amusement of reading the source materials.

This article uses excerpts from outside materials, and is intended to be used for educational and satirical purposes only, any infringement is strictly accidental, and will be noted in future revisions if any action is brought forward. All sources cited and linked, except the smartest family in PA, but you can Google them later.

The Silver Lining on the Global Storm Cloud

2013-04-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

There's an ominous storm a-brewing in the distance, over yonder. Tensions run higher than ever, and the fever-pitch inches ever closer to the breaking point. The possibility of global war is very real, but it can be avoided if we the people of the world work toward real peace and set aside our cultural differences for a while.

The nations of the world are all beginning to awaken from the nightmare of unjust oppression, wanting to really create a life filled with actual peace and happiness. There is civil war and revolution in the Middle East, there is unrest in Africa, posturing in the Koreas, protests in a large percentage of the rest of the world. The people want change, they want to all stand as equals on a global scale, not to be oppressed by corrupt governments.

This is a great time to be alive, with all this going on, not knowing which country is going to bomb which, or which government is going to needlessly destroy its own citizens and infrastructure to display its waning power. As the global economies falter, and the world realizes that the big players are not such great business partners, war will come, and nations that are prepared for it will at least hold for a while. The U. S. will try to "spread democracy" to more resource-rich (oil, namely) countries to try keeping the price of it high for the world, while the oil companies continue to line their pockets. This will continue until the entire world comes to realize that petroleum backed money holds no value when there's no more petrol, and that inevitability draws nearer everyday. When it does, what will back the moneys of the world? Would it be possible to return to the gold standard?

Muammar Gaddafi was in the process of switching Libya's monetary system back, and away from the U. S. backed petrol dollar before he was removed from office, but we all know how that played out. I'm not saying he was a benevolent leader to his people, but he knew that it would be better to re-establish gold-backed finances (because oil won't be around forever) than to kowtow to the U. S. and the failing petrol dollar. It makes sense, but we'll never know if it would have worked.

China is being surprisingly patient with the U. S.'s continual stalemate on it's own budgeting issues and failure to pay down the loans that have only grown larger in the last few years instead of shrinking. It's only matter of time until one side declares war over the issue, and both sides will lose more than either side could possibly gain. It is a frightening thing to have looming in the foreseeable future, and may never come to pass, but it's better to err on the side of caution than to be ruined in a state of false complacency.

If a war breaks out between the Koreas, then the U. S, will back South Korea, and China may or may not back the North (they are contractually obligated, but if N. K. is flexing beyond logical necessity, they'd be smart to stay out of it). If China and the U. S. get involved, then the proxy war from the 1950's will start all over again, this time having nuclear armament on three sides of the conflict. With that possible scenario, and the willingness of Kim Jong Un to push the button, a nuclear exchange is almost guaranteed, and that would spell disaster for the targets, as well as the entire planet's ecosystem. The radiation would render the immediate targets uninhabitable, the area miles around as well, and the fallout would affect the environment for hundreds of miles in every direction. Weather patterns would severely shift, which would probably ruin agriculture on a wide scale, causing starvation in a way not seen in many places since the early 1800's. There would be a great deal of cooling if there were enough fallout, but that is really dependent on the amount of missiles that manage to avoid the defenses and actually hit their targets.

I don't want to panic anyone, but these issues are serious. I know that as intelligent as we claim to be, there is a better way to resolve the global unrest and inequities, but I fear that the herd mentality may cause us to stampede into extinction and the destruction of all the surface dwelling organisms because we can't play nice.

So, how can we fix it? The question on everyone's lips, it seems. Not an easy fix, and not all parties involved are going to be affected equally, because the parties that are the larger parts of the issues will have to put more effort into reducing their parts.

My proposal:

Place the global economy on a static commodity that the value is fair stable, gold is a good choice, being as the amount of it doesn't diminish when we use it.
Either completely disarm the entire nuclear compliment of every nation on Earth, or have all of them committed to help build something that will benefit humanity instead of destroying it. I like the Orion Project, personally, because of the additional benefit of exploring space in a greater capacity becomes realistic again.
Find common ground with the leaders of the nations that are not on the friendliest of terms with yours, learn about how they see the world and really take interest in helping them become a part of the global age.
Elect people who will actually strive to improve the lives of the citizens of their respective nations, if elections aren't an option, then protest until the demands of the people are met. Do not allow tyranny to take root anywhere, stamp it out and burn it at the root.
Separate religion from all politics. The politics of religion are hate, oppression, and seclusion from those outside of the ideals of the faith. Religion is the enemy of reason, it will poison any effort to establish a global dialog of peace.

Bring education and infrastructure to places that need it. A great deal of people in Africa and Asia are starving and illiterate because the only way to get food is either listen to some religious sermon and surrender to the church, or to hunt animals that are equally likely to either escape or kill you. Bring irrigation and farming equipment to them, teach them to read, and don't pollute them with unnecessary dogmas until you teach them to think critically about every aspect of a presented idea.
Redistribute global wealth to equalize the playing field for nations that are struggling to be world players. A reduction of super-conglomerates like Monsanto into smaller companies that each have someone that is accountable for the actions of the companies is essential in assuring equal standing for all global players.

These are my suggestions for trying to improve the living situation of the one world we have. Until we learn to play nice with our own species and maintain the only world we can verify sustains life, we shouldn't consider anything beyond ours as a high priority issue.
It's going to take all of us working together to ensure we don't destroy the most precious thing we have, and that thing is life.

Enjoy this kind of article? Want to see more? Follow The Ranting! on Google+
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/108874034068351089258/108874034068351089258

Beer! A Small Taste of My Upcoming Class

2013-04-24T12:20:00.001-07:00

Sweet, delicious beer, the drink of the ages, as much a part of human existence as wheat. Mainly because beer couldn't really be made until there was grain, which required agriculture, which is literally why humanity isn't still scraping by on what few berries and fruits that grew in the areas near each band of hunter/gatherer people. A serious population spike caused resources to become even more scarce than the changing climate was already making things for those post-Neanderthal Sapiens.

They needed to find something better to sustain their ever-growing numbers, or they might end up like the recently extincted cousins they seriously out-bred and out-smarted not all that many generations ago (compared to the periods of Ice that had also dissipated relatively recently).

You have to imagine that the one who figured out that the grass could be eaten was probably not the one who got to pass on his genes. He (or she ) was probably starving because the alphas were taking a larger percentage of the dwindling hauls which left the ones lower in tribal status with little or nothing afterward. At some point, one member of the hypothetical tribe my story starts with was so starved that he/she would be dead in only a few short hours if they didn't try something. Withered and hardly capable of crawling, a patch of grass finally gets near enough to make it to our ancient ancestor's mouth, though the crawl sapped what little stamina they could even muster, almost assuredly dead now, our not so fit relation tries to make a final faceful of the only thing near enough to resemble false hope waiting to reveal the immense disappointment and failure that must lie anxiously waiting to regale in another foolish creature dying because it didn't have the strength to pluck a couple blades of sweet survival. This time was a last second victory for the frail Sapien with the seed pod in his mouth.

As time went by, the tribe got good at growing mostly the seed bearing grasses, and were healthy enough to break an aurochs so as to help the tribe move the soil in such a way that it left the choicest soil ready to grow more grass. With a solid 2/3 of the food that the tribe eats grown all around, they could start focusing their attention to bigger and better things, like irrigation and free standing buildings, as well as diversifying the plants they were able to grow reliably, starting to take shape as the urban dwellers of their late ancestry.

Finally, one day a pitcher with grapes is found, smelling like nothing humanity had experienced to greatly, so instead of tossing it away, one of them decides to eat some. Euphoria unlike anything he had ever conceived possible. So he shares with the people closest to him, and amazed to see similar reactions in them. So at that moment, he decided that he must learn the secret of its magic, able make that feeling on a regular basis.

After a few seasons of trying, also got a grain solution to cause the same effect as the fruit. AND beer had made it's first appearance in the human saga, true wines following about the same time. Now civilization was truly ready to drink away the troubles that would beset it into the modern era. It spread forth to the furthest tribes and soon all of humanity was blotting out the terrible memories of living in the #StoneAge. As time passed the ability to make it got easier, becoming more entwined with the tribes as they became more powerful in numbers and started to kill themselves over a land that they shared for generations. After each day of fighting, came a night of equally intense drinking in memory of the brothers lost. So the symbiosis grows deeper still. This wondrous discovery has been a shaping force in how we arrived where we are now. The demand for it is still so deeply human that to turn away from this tool of change would be like devolving back to a cave dwelling Neanderthal. http://skl.sh/14OTlxX

People Who Believe Crazier Things Than Religion, or Damn Close

2013-04-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

It's a wonderful night to make fun of conspiracy theorists, especially the ones who are guests on #CoasttoCoastAM, the radio show whose current and former hosts entertain some of the most ridiculous people who make claims that would cause religion to be almost verifiable by comparison. Not only do they condone the perpetuation of pseudosciences and extreme conspiracy suspicion about everything you can imagine.

Alien abductees, remote viewers, "high-clearance rogue agents," ghost hunters, hollow-earth theorists, and that's just one week worth of guests. I can only laugh at the silly premises these people assert as factual event that they were witness to (though they usually end up contradicting themselves by saying they weren't actually present). It never fails to amaze me that #GeorgeNoori can dig up these ludicrous hacks that all hallucinated their way into believing they lived through some sort of supernatural/paranormal experience which either renders them helpless or somehow causes them some kind of injury (mostly to the brain, I'm pretty sure). Seriously, I would love to see the #CoasttoCoastAM loonies take on an equal number of #fundamentalist_theists over which mental illness should reign supreme.

Seriously, the world needs to have this epic spectacle of delusional mayhem, everyday, in a stadium, to the death, of all involved in either ideology. Who wouldn't enjoy that amazingly efficient way of cleaning out the gene pool? Really, who could think that would be inhumane?

There would be dancing in the streets as the rational minded people finally could live without having to injure themselves from excessive face-palming. There would be nearly total peace on the planet, and the way of peer-reviewed studies and general neutrality would dominate our societal model, potentially leading to a great boom of technological acceleration in every discipline (especially in stem-cell research and cloning of limbs and organs, you know, the taboo and immoral sciences?) and we would also have more area to place windmills and solar panels, reducing the need to use fossil fuels, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which will eventually lead to a decline in the slow annual temperature increases.

This idea could seriously save the Earth, but we all know it could never go down like I outlined. It doesn't mean I can't dream, though.


Believers in crazy ideologies that lack evidence	of legitimacy

                  It would be the battle of the ages!
                              Just imagine it.
                              Save the World!

Can We Make it to a Nearby Star Yet?

2013-04-23T14:05:00.002-07:00

How long would it take for humanity to colonize a planet in a nearby star system? With our current level of technology and available materials, and hypothetically choosing Barnard's Star (as it is the closest star to us that remotely similar to our sun), which is 6+ light years away from us, estimated travel time would be around 12,000 years with the fastest propulsion we can muster, and that's only if we can use the gravity wells around the Jovian planets to increase the ship's velocity beyond what we could normally reach (New Horizons will be travelling at about 15km/s when it finally crosses the orbit of Pluto), and we'd need to keep accelerating to approximately 10x that to keep our itinerary of 12,000 years. There are other drive technologies that have been tested on extremely small scale, but no full scale tests have been attempted.

The #OrionDrive could get us there in either 1330 years or 133 years (to Alpha Centauri, according to Dr. Freeman Dyson's calculations in his paper "Interstellar Transport," Physics Today, Oct. 1968 p.41-45; reasonable conjecture to add 50% to it, as the distance is 6ly not 4ly) depending on the design we used. The larger one would be ideal, being as its top velocity is about 0.1 light speed, which compared to the other options available is fast. Now that is approaching a reasonable amount of time, on the order of 5-8 generations, given we can accumulate enough fuel to maintain for that long. It would require a megaton of Deuterium to detonate at a rate of once every 100 seconds, for about 200 years, possibly only the first half of that, but even that is an obscene amout of fuel to accrue. It could be possible to find more deuterium along the way, but that will increase travel time and make other supplies diminish during the mining (for lack of a better word).

#SolarSails are another option, though in many ways is far more limited because it relies on photons to accelerate, and as we all know, photons disperse more quickly the further away from the source you travel. One workaround is building a high-power photon emitter as part of the sail rigging, and keep it in reserve until the nearest natural sources become to weak to continue being efficient. With ideal materials, sail size, and course (one that optimizes the #Oberth effect, as described earlier), the craft can cruise at about 69.6 km/s, which is not even close to what the #OrionDrive is capable of, but requires almost infinitely less fuel to operate. But now were back into the 1000's of years of travel time, though food and water are seriously the biggest concern, with outside forces being the next biggest threat to the ship and crew.

So, there are the options we have available to us with the technology we have today. In the future, we may figure out what is necessary to achieve faster than light travel, using propulsion like the Alcubierre Metric Tensor drive and then the length of time it would take to arrive would seem instantaneous. However, being as technologically castrated as we are, we must either discover the right mathematics or physical materials, or use one of the other methods covered previously.

Alas, we are not likely to set sail for the stars unless something threatens to destroy Earth entirely, given we detect it early enough to actually set an escape plan into motion. Until that time, we should make the best of the time we are here.

Sources:
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=915 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

All materials in this article are meant to be used in an educational manner, any similarity to other articles/videos/pamphlets/etc. is strictly coincidental, no animals were harmed in the production of this article.

Where Is Your Personal God?

2013-04-23T00:10:00.002-07:00

I have looked myself for the possibilty of some kind of deity. My family has a fair amount of religion, my grandfather being a Southern Baptist preacher(or minister? Maybe reverend? I never know which denomination calls them which title) and every member of the generation prior to me were all deeply involved with every aspect of running a church and being model fundamentalists. I came along and the indoctrination started from birth, practically. I thought the stories were fun, but never believed that any of the tales could be remotely true. I asked why God wanted to do such terrible things to us if He loved us, which never wound up with a satisfactory explanation. I decided that if there were no logical reasons for it, then I didn't need it in my life. I spent the first decade of my memorable life trying to understand the people who were supposed to be my family, knowing that alienation was soon going to cause me to move in with other relatives, searching for the feeling they called God, and never finding it in the places that others claimed to experience it.

As I grew older, I read more and more, studying the human condition as best I could in a poorly funded public library with books 35 years out of date. Eventually I stumbled upon hallucinogens, and found the feeling that so eluded me during my youth. The only difference was that I didn't find God or have any religious experience while tripping, and was fully conscious of the fact that I was hallucinating throughout that entire experience. It was the final proof I needed to temper my resolve in non-belief, I never wasted my time looking for something that isn't there again. I had found a way to feel the same mind-blowing awe that others felt by "communing with God," and I could control it, learning what it must be like to live with such heavy mental and emotional castration tainting every aspect of life in believers.

I am glad that I can at least put myself in the shoes of someone with untreated schizophrenia that is capable of living among hordes of similar patients. It worries me, however, because I remember the horrible things these ill people are capable of in order to maintain the illusion that they're disease is saving them from their inevitable, and hopefully sudden, end.

The quest to find my personal God led me down the path of actual understanding and wisdom. I didn't find any deity, I found the chemistry that makes people think a deity is there.

http://skl.sh/ZOpqwR

It Has Begun!

2013-04-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

http://skl.sh/ZOpqwRWelcome, dear readers. This is my first actual blog, on an actual blog site. Forgive me if I don't have a set theme or regular schedule yet.

What an exciting thought... a platform for me to really let my ideas flow, with all of you to read the depravity firsthand.

Now, to something of substance... I want to talk about the impending doom that awaits us all. We're all going to die, every single one of us will push daisies. Maybe not now, except those that literally did right now, but we'll definitely be worm food before we realize. Nothing can save us, no deity will even care (if any exist) that we died. Whatever fate we meet, it won't end well for us. Religious warfare, nuclear disasters, failing governments, asteroids, gamma ray bursts, earthquakes, tsunamis, pestilences, and more that I can't even imagine yet.

I want to comfort you, but I'll be dead, too. Rotting away to dust and soil, feeding the worms, other scavengers and the corpseweeds, starting the chain anew. It's the order of the natural world, everything ends up eaten by something. The delusion that many share called God won't help, a side-effect of being imaginary. When those poor deluded fools meet their end, they too shall be reincarnated as worm castings and grass. Heaven indeed, wouldn't you agree?

I know that death is an antithetical way to begin my blog, but to quote Smashing Pumpkins, "The end is the beginning is the end."

So,until next time, thanks for reading.