Sticking to Your Guns

Interesting piece by Anderson Cooper (yeah there's going to be a commercial first) with a reporter trying to interview followers of Warren Jeff's church. Warren Jeffs who is now serving 45 year sentence for basically raping 12 and 15 year old girls that he called his 'spiritual wives'. Indeed!

If you watch the clip it is absolutely frightening to see the blank look on the faces of the followers as they refuse to even listen or talk to the reporter regarding the conviction of their prophet. Once guy says, "I know everything I need to know" reminiscent of Nixon's famous, "Don't confuse me with the facts". Another guy says he knows how the government can manufacture evidence.

That's a really interesting and telling comment since Jeffs never even denied having sex with the under age girls! There was nothing to manufacture. And, it shows how you can't convince a religious nut of ANYTHING using logic and when I say religious nut I mean anyone who has adopted a point of view based on faith instead of facts and research. Since the position was just selected because it makes the person feel good there is no way to 'backdoor' that with logic.

Rick Perry

Rick Perry recently had a discussion with a young girl about evolution and creationism. He said something to the effect that evolution was 'just an idea'. He said, " . . . in Texas we teach both. . .isn't that fair?"

No. It's neither true nor fair.

First off Texas recently turned down all additions to their textbooks that dealt with creation 'science' and in fact bolstered the factual and logical deductions of evolution.

Secondly, no it's not fair on two counts.

1. Science is not in the business of presenting every crack-pot idea that comes along (nor is any other discipline come to think of it) but rather the proven theories of science, how they came about (evidence and experiment), and science as a process of gaining truth. We don't (we meaning those of us north of the Mason-Dixon line) don't teach creation 'science' in the same way we don't teach the earth is flat, that gravity is stickiness, or that the universe is steady state and non-changing. We don't because those theories are unworkable, dis-proven, or un-provable.

2. As was decided in Pennsylvania, creation 'science' is just a transparent attempt to sneak Christianity into the public schools. It's faith based plain and simple and therefore has no place in our public schools.

It's sad that now 150 years after Darwin we have to keep beating this drum but beat it we must. Rick Perry is either that deluded by his fundamentalist position or, as I suspect, simply knows that if he says anything to the effect that evolution is 'just an idea' that that turns into significant numbers of votes. Let's not have that work. If your faith (and you are welcome to it) is threatened by well-founded work by decades of honest working scientists then perhaps it is your faith that should be challenged or re-thought and not Darwin.

Everything is FINE!

From today's Trib:

A teenager six months pregnant was shot and killed in the Marquette Park neighborhood on the South Side, but doctors were able to deliver her son, authorities said.

"The baby is pretty much fighting for his life," Debbie Jefferson said of her grandson. "He lost some oxygen and the doctors say there could be health issues. I believe in God, I believe everything is going to be OK."

Sure everything is going to be ok. . .EXCEPT YOUR DAUGHTER IS DEAD! What the hell?

I'm soooooo tired of this reasoning or lack thereof and it is pervasive.

Two Recent Ideas

Walking down Belmont Ave. in Chicago the other day and saw a sign outside the big Catholic church there. It read

Lord, take pity on me.

That's it. I assume 'me' means all of the faithful and they should be pitied why? Original sin I guess. It sounds more like,

Please don whip me massa!

The Lord as straw boss on a chain gang or plantation I guess. Yeah that's the lord I want to pray to.
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One way the God idea works.

One way the God idea works is that you get it screwed into somebody's head (at an early age mind you) that there is a being (not unlike Santa) that not only knows what you are doing but also what you are THINKING. And you know you can think some pretty naughty stuff. So you pray for forgiveness, etc.

I don't have a god but I do have a running goddess. My daughter is my coach, my running inspiration, she picks me up when I have a bad run, she leads by example, she maketh me to lie down by still waters I told myself today, and only in my own head that I could run past my old mark and up north to Fullerton. After passing my old mark I could stop anywhere as that would be farther than my old mark. I didn't have to run to Fullerton. I only said that to me. BUT THE GODDESS WILL BE ANGERED even though I never mentioned to her. That's how religion works! In my head I don't want to disappoint even though I never mentioned it out loud.

Weird.

I ran to Fullerton.

Amen!

SETI is back

Money for the SETI project was recently cut but now some donations (Jodi Foster for one) have raised $200,000 to get the array up and running again. I like that. Seems like we might as well be listening just in case someone is broadcasting.

Contact with alien species would be THE story since the beginning of time on earth. What will the religious say when intelligent aliens have never heard of God (any of them) or Jesus? On one hand it would be nice to think that they'd then drop the whole bad idea but then they could have thought that when they encountered the American Indians. The bend in your brain to convince you to believe in invisible people who have your best interests at heart does not have a back door for un-believing. No. You just figure the people in question (Indians or aliens) just haven't gotten the 'word' YET. Fire up the missionary rockets!