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“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubt.” —Bertrand Russell

Couldn’t be said better.

New one from Pat.

Typical thought process of a creationist.  Let’s call him… Earl.

• I am at the center of the universe.
• Universe had me in mind when it was created.
• All laws of physics and universal constants solely exist just to form me.
• Evolution (if true) knows that I am here, and it cares about me.
• The whole world, including animals in it, is here just to serve me.
• The whole universe with stars is out there just to serve me and for mine benefit only.
• World is a beautiful place; Everywhere I turn I see God’s mighty creation, however that is not good enough for me. I want something much better and greater.
• I live very fulfilling life and have a wonderful family and friends, have excellent job that I like, but I know that after I die, I will go to a much better place.
• I know that God loves me so much that he gave his only son so that I could be saved.

I don’t know about you, but I think after we knock down all the walls and remove the ceiling in Earl’s house, we should have just enough room for his EGO!

The whole money system (including sub-prime mortgages) explained in about nine satirical and hilarious minutes.

It’s truly sad to find out after almost 8 years of W’s rule, not one good thing he accomplished in his “presidency”. Not one! I have really tried, but the best republicans and conservatives can do is: Banned partial birth abortion, signed no child left behind bill and cut taxes. All of those three turned out disastrous, and republicans should hide under the fucking rock every time any of those disasters are mentioned.

This… “walking disaster” we call president, did more to fuck up this country, than all of the republican presidents combined (ok so I’ m biased against republicans. I consider it to be the healthiest thing citizen can do, so sue me for caring). He actually fucked up this country (and some of the others as well) so much, that the next president will actually have an easy job unfucking it. Yes, an easy job! Everyone is saying how the next president will have a tough job, will have to really be on his/hers game, will have to work overtime, bla bla bla, but I really don’t see how’s that possible. The fact is, things cannot get more fucked up than there are now; no matter who’s in the office. It really does not matter who you vote for next year. We’re at the bottom right now, and the only way to go is up. On the fuck scale, this is fuckup of tantric proportions.

As a matter of fact, qualifications for the next president should only be that he’s a human being, and maybe that he can wipe himself with no external help, and conditions in this country would surely improve. You can even put a fucking chipmunk in the oval office, and things would definitely be less fucked up, so whoever is the next president can look forward to a walk in the fucking park.

Note: If you’re easily offended by the use of the word “fuck” in this article.. Fuck off!

BTW: Here’s a uhm… satiric look at Bush’s resume.

I thought I knew a lot about Albert Einstein, but this little article put me in my place.

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” So said Albert Einstein, and his famous aphorism has been the source of endless debate between believers and non-believers wanting to claim the greatest scientist of the 20th century as their own.A little known letter written by him, however, may help to settle the argument - or at least provoke further controversy about his views.

Due to be auctioned this week in London after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, the document leaves no doubt that the theoretical physicist was no supporter of religious beliefs, which he regarded as “childish superstitions”.

Einstein penned the letter on January 3 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. The letter went on public sale a year later and has remained in private hands ever since.

In the letter, he states: “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.”

Einstein, who was Jewish and who declined an offer to be the state of Israel’s second president, also rejected the idea that the Jews are God’s favoured people.

“For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

Here’s a great article from NPR about evolution and scientist that actually studies it.

Short excerpt:

“I believe evolution. It’s easy. It’s my life. I’m a paleoanthropologist. I study fossils of humans, apes and monkeys, and I teach college students about their place in nature.

Of course I believe evolution.

But that is different from believing in evolution.”

Full article can be found here: I Am Evolution

While in my teens and good part of my twenty’s, I used to love B horror movies and reading different stories about ghosts, monsters and pretty much anything mysterious or haunting. I used to get high on that mysterious feeling you get from conspiracy theories or just simple feeling of the unknown. However, I am in my thirties now, and I’ve noticed that my tolerance for uhm.. bullshit is starting to wane. And quickly at that. Just by observing my father, my grandparents, and just the world around me, I concluded that this is a very normal characteristic in my family (and I think in most people). I cannot really explain it, but as I get older, I am becoming more and more skeptical, while at the same time, less and less tolerant towards the unexplained or what some call “mysterious”. This includes (but is not limited to) : Big Foot, Loch-Ness, Physics, faith healers, ghosts, fairies and yes… all of the gods of the earth, including Judeo-Christian Gods, Thor, Zeus, Vishnu etc… BTW: Full list of gods can be found here. Let me try to elaborate this little bit further.

Does something exist if we cannot: smell it, feel it, see it, touch it or detect it via any means? Have no any kind of interaction with it, and have no evidence of its existence. Would we still be able to say that something exist? I’d say that even if none of the conditions I’ve named are present, answer would be yes. However, what kind of existence would that be then? I would be no more concerned with that kind of entity, than with the existence of Santa Claus. The existence of such entity would be meaningless to us, and any claim of something like that existing, should be worthless or at least not to be taken seriously in our society - because if not, we’re opening doors to all kinds of lunacy and pseudo-science.

How can someone possibly ask me to “believe” in something without providing any evidence, or means of detection. I mean, come on. You have to give me something. At least tiny bity piece of something I can cling to. I really don’t ask for much. But nooo. Nothing can be provided, while at the same time, I’m still expected to believe in it. Not only that, but “they” will truly be surprised if I DIDN”T believe in it. With their eyes popping out their sockets, they would say something like “YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT YOU DON”T BELIEVE IN ALLAH???” As if believing in Allah is a default state of a human being or something, and the mare act of not believing would violate some cosmic law. I really have no way of knowing if Allah exists or not, but the burden of proof is not on me, so I will not even concern myself with his alleged existence.

I really have no doubt in their sincerity when they (whom I know really well) tell me that God spoke to them. They will say something like: ” I know that God exists because He spoke to me”. Or something like that. However, If they cannot provide any real evidence of that event happening, than to me, it’s meaningless. It might not be meaningless to them, but that’s not good reason to believe in it either. I am not saying God did not speak to them, but to convince me, or at least ignite my interest, they’ll have to do better then that. This would apply also to a best friend or a family member. It’s not that I don’t trust my best friend’s word. Of course I do, but he could be mistaken too, without knowing it. Schizophrenics see and hear voices all the time, and those voices ARE real them, but that doesn’t make it into reality. It’s not that I don’t believe them, but they could be delusional, hallucinating, tricked by brain, have brain lapses, have dreamt the whole thing, have carbon monoxide poisoning, optical illusions etc… There could be hundreds of different reasons why would a sincere and healthy person think they saw something that isn’t really there. It happens all the time. Therefore saying that Allah (don’t have to be Allah; just take your pick) spoke to them is not much different than saying “Santa Claus promised to bring gifts this year”. Brain is the best 3D software we know of. I personally see only three possible explanation for these kind of phenomena:

1. Brain tricks - Anything related to brain (not necessarily damage) falls into this category. Hallucinations, brain lapses, high fever, optical and audio illusions, carbon monoxide poisoning, drugs, dreams etc…
2. Intentional lying - Two types of people fall into this category: First, people who want you to believe something so bad, so they make stuff up. And secondly, conscience charlatans and deceivers. Pretty much all evangelical preachers on late night infomercials, most physics and mediums of any kind etc…
3. They trick themselves into believing - Emotions over reason is the key word here. You want something so bad so you make yourself into believing it. Happens all the time. Cult followers would fall into this category.

My point here is: even if you’re convinced, without the shadow of the doubt that something exists, there would be no way of knowing if what you saw is: made up in your mind, or real. Not without some kind of independent non-biased evidence. Scientifically controlled experiment would probably be the best thing, but sometimes that’s not really a practical thing, and the best thing to do is to be very skeptical, and to wait for new evidence. The moral of this story is to be skeptical. And I mean about everything. Even yourself. Because one of the worst things that can happen to us is to loose our ability to reason. One of the reasons I call this article Belief - Loosing our ability to reason is because that’s exactly what it is. We are taught through out our lives that belief or faith is a good thing. It can be. But belief without questioning will always lead to a total mind submission. Maybe you can live with it, but I certainly can’t.

I just thought I’d share a paragraph from Richard Dawkins Ancestor’s Tale. Mr. Dawkins proves mathematically that we all share same ancestors. His logic is truly remarkable and undeniable. See it for yourself.

“All your ancestors are mine, whoever you are, and all mine are yours. Not just approximately but literally. This is one of those truths that turns out, on reflection, to need no new evidence. We prove it by pure reason, using the mathematician’s trick of reductio ad absurdum. Take our imaginary time machine absurdly far back, say 100 million years, to an age when our ancestors resembled shrews or opossums. Somewhere i the world at that ancient date, at least one of my personal ancestors must have been living, or I wouldn’t be here. Let us call this particular little mammal Henry (it happens to be a family name). We seek to prove that if Henry is my ancestor he must be yours too. Imagine, for a moment, the contrary: I am descended from Henry and you are not. For this to be so, your lineage and mine would have to have marched, side by side yet never touching, through 100 million years of evolution to the present, never interbreeding yet ending up at the same evolutionary destination — so alike that your relatives are still capable of interbreeding with mine. This reductio is clearly absurd. If Henry is my ancestor he has to be yours too. If not mine, he cannot be yours.”

None of us (sane ones) are really surprised when we hear demeaning remarks from Fox News commentators, but the latest Fred Barnes comment kinda surprised me. Even heavy capitalist-hitter Brit Hume apologized and distanced himself from this fascist bigot. All I can say is: wow! See it for yourself.
In a normal and healthy society, this guy would be out in the streets long time ago, but we know that’s not going to happen.