Hmmm.....my Sarah Palin Ms. Alaska video is now my second most watched on YouTube with over 10,000 hits in five days. It's well on course to overtake my BSG in 7 Minutes one (just under 11, 000 views but it's been up half a year) around teatime today. Maybe I can swing the election? If Obama wins by a mere 10k votes you'll know why. m.
Currently
watching
:
Why We Fight Release date: 2006-06-27
One of my main issues with the concept of a 'god' is that, whichever religion you choose, the deity, or deities, always seem like giant douchebags. There was an interesting question from a poster on a forum I frequent from time to time:
I hear people wondering why should we have to fear God. Some Christians try to soften the word by saying it means respect. I am not saying respect is not a right answer but I believe is a deep respect with an amont of fear. And fear is not a bad word. It is necessary negative. The fear of God is protection from foolishly doing deadly acts. We can compare this to us intimidating our children when they do dangerous things out of ignorance. It is a shield of protection until they learn. When we speak firmly and with an attitude to our kids about a bad behavior, we are instiling in them an amount of necesssary fear. If you agree or not agree I wil love to hear your comments.
My reply follows:
While I think it's been fairly well established here that I'm not a believer, the 'fear of god' issue is one that has deeper implications, even for freethinkers.
I've long maintained that even if the Christian god (I choose this example because it's the one I'm the most familiar with, but the Abrahamic Yahweh of the 'big three religions' seems much of a muchness anyway) turned up tomorrow with a hearty "I'm back!" and told us all to bow down in praise, I would refuse.
Why?
Because any deity that is as petty and cruel as this one deserves nothing but antipathy and derision. The spitefulness and cruelty displayed in the bible by this god (and not, as many suggest, contained only in the Old Testament. The sequel has plenty too, not least towards his own kid.) is fearful, to be sure, but it's also rather pathetic.
Rafael, I understand your point about children needing to be steered, by their parents, in the right direction. However, I don't think the biblical god does this at all. His vengeful ways seem petty, arbitrary and sometimes downright immoral. Only the most perverse of parents would advocate the keeping of slaves, subjection of women, slaughter of innocent children, killing someone for their sexual preferences etc. etc. (I shan't go on).
I don't think the comparison works because parents, good ones at least, try to instill an understanding of ethics and morality in their children, not just frighten them into submission.
This is why I maintain that non believers will forever have the moral high ground. Freethinkers do not need the 'fear of god' to shake them to their foundations. To do good should be a reward in itself, not aimed at appeasing an angry, petty god (whether real or not) in order to ensure a place in the everlasting.
Now I'll just sit back and wait for people who have completely missed my points to call me a 'hater'. As usual.
Sarah Palin - No Maps.
Current mood: disgusted
Category: News and Politics
I had to do it, even though listening to this inane, grating moron makes me feel physically sick. Seriously, did anyone actually believe there was someone out there who could make George Bush sound like an intellectual giant? I suppose, in some odd way, that's something of an achievement. Anyway, here's Miss MILF Alaska vs. Miss Teen South Carolina. I'm sure someone will knock out a better version of the same idea at some point, but until then enjoy my effort, if you can stomach it....
Currently
reading
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God: A Biography
By
Jack Miles
Release date: 1996-03-19
Anonymous: Now with added Palin emails!
Current mood: amused
Category: News and Politics
Because it's not all just about Scientology...... How safe do you feel when members of Anonymous can guess the password of the potential next vice president of the United States? I'm sure she's very busy taking her kids to hockey practice and everything, but using 'password' as your password probably isn't the smartest thing to do when you're discussing politically sensitive material with some of the worlds most powerful people. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was a total moron. Remember folks, this person is going to be second in charge of National Security should she and McSame win the ticket. Do you really want someone who can't even keep their Yahoo! email account private wielding that much power? Or, for that matter, someone moronic enough to use a public webmail account to conduct governmental business? WikiLeaks are currently working with the members of Anonymous who hacked the account to sift through all the porn and Jesus-related spam mail and will make public any mail of political significance that they find. Palin has deleted the account but all the mail was backed up before the deletion. Although there's been some debate as to whether the hack was performed by members of Anonymous, one look at the other tabs on the screengrab below should be more than enough to put any doubts to rest - the /b/ random tabs are clearly from a chan site (most likely 4chan). Now one can only hope that David Miscavige's email account is next.....
Want to see more? Right click on the zip file here. posted by miles
The Big Bang Machine.
Current mood: impressed
Category: News and Politics
It's so nice to see people being engaged by science, especially at a time when scary fundie fruitcakes like Sarah Palin speak of 'God's will' and idiots eat the crap up. But I digress.... Most of us hadn't even heard of a Higgs bosun a week ago, and my spell checker still hasn't it seems. Most of us still don't know what the fuck a Higgs bosun actually is, or does, despite best efforts to get our minds around this and other elements of theoretical physics. However, that LHC can't really fail to impress (whatever it does) because it's big, expensive and, according to some, could possibly blow up the universe. Those three things (size, cash and explosions) excite most Americans, so it's hardly surprising this particle accelerator (whatever that is) has caught the public imagination. If it had four wheels and a gun attached it could probably get elected president. I remember, many years ago, reading Carl Sagan's novel Contact. In that book a message of, seemingly, extraterrestrial origin includes blueprints for building a huge 'machine'. Even though huge resources and the worlds greatest technological geniuses are pooled to create the thing, nobody is sure what it's really going to do. They know it's some kind of transport device, but they're uncertain exactly what's going to happen when they pull the switch. I always thought that was the most unbelievable aspect of the book (and the subsequent film version) but doesn't the Large Hadron Collider feel a bit like that? Sure, the people who made it know how it works, but they don't really have anything but hypothesis as to what it'll actually show us, or where the possibilites for it's use end once they get into the full swing of things. Personally, I think that's pretty damn exciting. It's also one of the reasons I just don't get religious faith. There's so much cool shit going on in the universe, and so much we don't know about yet, that when I hear people say 'Well, y'know...some people need something to believe in. They need to know there's something more.' I just think 'More? How much more do you need?'. Anyway, it's 2.18 Pacific. Those clever folks at CERN have sent protons shooting around the 17mile long LHC one way, and then back the other. I've just looked out the window and the stars all seem to still be there. I've not yet been spaghettified in the event horizon of a black hole either. Weirdly, some birds were singing outside, as if it were the morning, a couple of hours ago - about the time they turned the accelerator on - so perhaps they know something we don't? Of course, the thing won't be doing any colliding for over a month yet so we might still get to play out our Half Life/The Mist fantasies when the EuroScientists open up portals into other dimensions. I'm just really chuffed that people are genuinely curious about this thing (whatever it does) and, for science geeks like me, it's pretty exciting that over the next twenty years this really, really cool machine could throw up all kinds of surprising new information about the universe. Want to know how culturally significant the 'biggest science experiment ever' is? Go and take a look at Google today. Oh hell, I'll even save you the trouble. Look....
An excellent article on Sarah Palin by Sam Harris in the LA Times was just emailed to me. Excellent, that is, if you believe her to be an overly zealous godbothering anti-choice gun nut. Which I do. Here's a short preview.....
Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the "Who would you like to have a beer with?" poll question in 2004, and won reelection.
This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages -- and loses -- both necessary and unnecessary wars.
Read the whole article here. I'm not a huge fan of Harris (I had some real issues with his book The End of Faith but I think he totally nailed her, and let's face it - who wouldn't want to nail Sarah Palin?)
Currently
listening
:
Alive 2007
By
Daft Punk
Release date: 2007-12-04
distractable
disgusted
amused
impressed
apathetic
obsequious
animated
