Who cares?

But why does it matter if someone believes in x?

The problem is, there are many people that are in positions of power and responsibility, and it matters greatly, their level of critical thinking. Politicians, Police Officers, Judges, Teachers..... These positions are positions of trust among the general public. We trust that they have had the appropriate training and will perform their duties accordingly. Also, these positions require one who has a sharp mind, and understands how to evaluate evidence and take the appropriate action.

I just find it scary if our president, judges, school teachers or LE officers hold a belief that, the Earth is 6,000 years old, a supernatural deity sent itself to Earth to...commit suicide to itself, or any other woo woo.

As someone who has experience with two of the above professions, I understand that peoples very lives are at stake. If you can't separate fiction from non-fiction, if you can't distinguish what is reality, you do not belong in these fields. I hope you care too.

god damn 'agnostics'!!

Someone identified themselves as Agnostic to me the other day. To clear up any misconceptions, Agnosticism is the stance that, 'I do not know with certainty if gods exist or not'. Unfortunately it has come to mean, 'I don't know for certain, and the likelihood of gods existing is 50/50'.  50/50?!! It couldn't be much further from the truth. For instance, I do not know 'with 100% certainty' if Antarctica exists or not, therefore on the claim that Antarctica exists, I am Agnostic. Feel free to do that with ANYTHING. Gods, fairies, ...   Atheism is just 'a lack of belief in the claim there are gods'. I also had a few people tell me that Atheism is a religion, even after I explained it to them. ( actually, I'm not known for my communication skills :)  )     Aargh!  It is not a religion. It's just one stance on a particular claim in Cosmology/Cosmogony. I also hold that stance for goddesses, fairies and Atlantis. Each of those claims is not my.... religion.

I get it though. To the people around you, you wanna sound a bit...gentler. And Agnosticism is what you say when you don't want a believer to jump down your throat. I mean everybody knows that ATHEISTS are those people who cut themselves and eat babies, right?  I everyone knows they have these crazy rituals where they pretend to eat human flesh and drink human blood. Oh wait, Catholics do that one ;)
In all seriousness, the problem is we are all divided. No better than all of those silly denominations of Christian Mythology. What do we got? Non-Religious, Atheists, Agnostics, Pearlists, Free Thinkers, Skeptics.....
We all need to fly under the same flag. Honestly, I don't care which one, as they are generally all the same. Maybe I just like the way Atheist sounds. Kinda' gives people an aftertaste that I find amusing, I guess. Really though, we make up about 20% of America. That's huge! We outnumber American Jews and even they have a political voice. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a presidential candidate, when asked about what religion he/she claims, they reply, "I am an Atheist, and my worldview is based on Evidence, Human Reason and Logic? How comforting it would be to know that my president wouldn't send us to war, because a god told him too ( like G W ), but because the evidence suggests that it is the only reasonable option we have.

The Gateway Drugs

Sometimes people will tell me, "I get it. You don't like religion. Fine. But Astrology, crystal healing, psychics, etc. are just harmless. Why do you pick on them?"

Ok. Crystal healing and other stuff like that doesn't have quite the effect that Islam and Christianity has on the world. BUT, if you could be convinced that MAYBE crystals CAN heal you of illness and maybe the stars: Anteres and Beta Scorpii actually affect your personality and who you are, I mean, just THINK about what you may do next. They could lead you to the more hardcore beliefs.

You may start thinking that, maybe humans can come back from the dead. Maybe they can defy physics and walk on water. Maybe conception can occur without a human sperm. Maybe there is an all powerful deity that wants you to kill your son. You know it sounds reasonable that a person can live in a giant fish and come out alive to tell about his experience.

See. Look at how harmless they are now. Look what they warmed you up for. Now your partaking in religious rituals like the Eucharist, where they pretend to drink human blood and eat human flesh.  Look at you now. All into the hardcore stuff like Heroin and Crack. It's harder now to come back to the real world then when you were just dabbling in Reiki on the weekend and reading your horoscope in the daily news. Don't be in denial. You CAN stop using. I believe in you.

SAY 'NO' TO IRRATIONALITY (and drugs too)

Free Speech. More sacred than any text.

                

    And here's my 100 copies that I sent to the trash

                                                                                     

'My' Top 10 Creationist Arguments ( 1-5 )

1. Scientific 'theories' are ok, but if there are any discrepancies than you can throw your 'theory' out the window. 
              -Nope. That's not how it works. Here's an analogy:
Police have just arrested an individual suspected of murder. The crime scene, has the victim with the suspect's DNA in their fingernails and a knife with the suspect's fingerprints on them. However, when the police interview the suspect's closest friend, he says that the suspect was hanging out with him at the time of the murder. Oh no a discrepancy?!??!
Big deal. The other evidence is overwhelming isn't it?

2. It's just WRONG to 'judge' people by their 'beliefs'. You're a jerk. 
             -Is it wrong?  I don't think so. It's actually 'key' to our survival. This one's gotten me into trouble on a few occasions. I understand what you mean but, let me explain. Let's say one of our next presidential candidates believes that the Earth is flat ( oh yeah, they exist ), the Holocaust never happened and that white people are superior to everyone else. Would you vote for him?

3. There really IS division in the scientific community regarding evolution and intelligent design. 

          


4. Yeah, well it's true 'for me', and just what's wrong with 'believing' something? 
            -When I was about 5 years old, I use to watch Superman all of the time. I watched it so much I would recite the entire movie as I'd watch it. I watched it so much, I started to believe that I could be Superman. I thought I'd test my hypothesis. I climbed all the way, or maybe half the way up a flight of stairs. Convinced myself I could fly, and leaped. I can still feel the sense of my face smacking against the cold floor. lolz   Funny right?
Khalid al-Mihdhar 'believed' he would go to heaven when he hijacked AA Flight 77 to crash it into the WTC.        Irrational beliefs = ridiculous and sometimes dangerous behavior.


5. Why do you atheists hate God so much?
           -Hehehehe. I love this one. Well I have a question for you. Do you believe in Poseidon, the God Of The Sea?  No?!   Why do you hate him so much?  Get it now?

Don't forget to watch

Ummmmm, what are you all doing?

You know that feeling you get when you figure something out?  You know, when everything falls into place or some kind of realization?  Back in the 80's when I was a kid, say seven years old, I would spend the weekends with my dad. One of the things we would do together was go to church.  I can't say for sure why he became interested in Catholicism, but my suspicion is it was being used to help him battle alcoholism. I'm not so sure I was ever a believer but I did really enjoy going. I understand why many people like the other methods of worshiping better, like singing, dancing etc. But I would've never enjoyed all of the noise. Catholic mass is very quiet and structured. I enjoyed listening to the priests and all of the interesting rituals they would have. Probably my favorite was the 'incense burner'. They would walk up and down the isles holding these chains, which at the end had a pot with incense burning inside. They're just plain cool to a kid. I also enjoyed hearing the priest speak Latin and that funny singing they would always do.  Oh you remember don't you? " ........, forever and eeeverrrrrrrrr"

 At some parts of the service though, there was always a moment where we would all have to pray. The priest would say something like, ".......and now let us pray"   At that moment the priest would go through some type of prayer, or sometimes it would just be a completely quiet one. Everyone in the church would bow their heads down and close their eyes. I would too. But after about 2 seconds, my head would slowly come up. I remember the feeling very vividly. I would look around the entire room, and remember just being perplexed in curiosity. "What do they all think they're doing", I'd think to myself.  Occasionally you'd see another kid in the room doing the same thing. The two of you catching each other's eyes. It's quite the feeling.  Knowing your not the only one. Knowing that your secrets are safe with each other.  I also remember never being afraid of being reprimanded by an adult since, if they saw me looking around the room, then they were doing the exact same thing as me. Not praying to a god.  If you are a believer, the next time you are at church or a mosque or whatever, look around the room for a second.

( hehhehe. I can't lie go check out my man Phil Hellenes on youtube. While I was thinkin' about writing about my experience with this, he beat me to it with a great video)

'Beliefs' in the martial arts

Matters of 'faith' seem to permeate just about everything in our society. Rather than start bashing Christianity or Islam for my first blog attempt, I would rather bring to light something that is very similar.  As a person that is always in search of knowledge and truth when it comes to matters of science, I share the same 'belief' when it comes to knowledge and truth in the martial arts.  If someone tells me they are a master baker, I naturally assume they can bake a cake. If someone tells me they are a physicist, I naturally assume they could intuitively demonstrate there knowledge of basic Newtonian mechanics. If someone tells me they are a martial arts master, naturally they should be able to, crudely put, whoop someones @ss.  Right?  However just as there are many scientists, there are also 'pseudoscientists'.  It's the same in martial arts.  In the scientific world, they have what is called 'peer review', which is a process where if someone makes a scientific claim, others in the scientific community will try their hardest to verify if the claim is true or not. Well, in the martial arts community, we also have a 'peer review', which entails putting on gloves, headgear and a mouthguard, and then backing up your claim or exposing someone else's claim as falsifiable.  Yet there exist many claims that have yet to be backed up by physical evidence and reasoned logic. They have not proved themselves or their claims through our 'peer review'. Yet they have many followers who pay good money for their superstitious nonsense.  Sound familiar?