Invisible Atheist

A Short Story

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:10:35 +0000

I looked around at the faces all around me. I was one of them too; an unimportant lump among a pile of unimportant lumps. Some of us were fat, others skinny, and others with strange deformations and lumps all over the place. My life was shit. One day I just popped into existence, out of some asshole that didn’t bother hanging around. It wasn’t just my story; it was everyone else’s too.

The place I called home was only slightly less disgusting than a sewer; it was constantly flooded and usually rained, a warm, stinging acidic rain. Very occasionally, one of these pieces of shit would seek greatness and rise above the rest of us; that is until the inevitable swirling vortex of despair took him down (along with the rest of us). Others left their mark, mind you it wasn’t permanent. All existence of it was quickly erased when the “overlord” found out.

You might be thinking: “is this some kind of dystopian future?” No; this is happening all across the world, every second of every minute of every day and in every country.

How is no one worried about this? Well, the answer is simple. I spelt “faeces” wrong in the first sentence.

Sandy Hook

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:49:51 +0000

On Friday 14th December, as I’m sure everyone knows, there was a shooting in a primary school in Newtown, Connecticut which resulted in 28 deaths. Once again, the mainstream news approached this story in completely the wrong way, as they have done in every other school shooting.

Firstly, Fox News reported the wrong name of the murderer. The 20 year old who they reported did the shooting then received numerous death threats, hate mail and hundreds of groups telling him to “burn in hell” were set up before Fox News realised their mistake and issued an apology. This man has to live with the fact that for a few hours he was the most hated man in America.

This brings me onto the next thing the news did wrong. They made the killer the subject of the story. Forensic psychiatrists say you shouldn’t make the killer or the body count the subject (see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4&feature=player_embedded#! ) yet they always do. I would be willing to place money on the fact that everyone would be able to recall the killers name but would be hard pushed to remember the name of a student or teacher who was murdered. Victoria Soto, the teacher who hid her students and then sacrificed herself to save them, will fade into obscurity within a year but the killer’s name will be forever etched in our minds as “the guy who killed all those kids”.

The Sandy Hook shooting was being called “the worst shooting since Columbine and comparing the body counts. For any mentally unstable person watching this who may have the capabilities in themselves to shoot a load of kids, they would see this as a league table or like some sort of competition.

While I realise that the news is there to report the facts, it also has to have a sense of decorum, sensitivity and respect for the people involved in a story and needs to think about how to present the story to make it not seem like the shooter died a martyr. It’s possible on Wikipedia to read a step by step account of what the shooter did,which may very well inspire others to do the same.

Various news networks tried contacting the parents and relatives of the deceased immediately after they were informed that their child won’t be coming home, parents who have cupboards full of presents with no one to give them to, parents whose children have had their lives ended before they had even begun, so that they could be interviewed on their reaction to the news. There were 6 year old kids being interviewed about what happened moments after experiencing the most traumatic and terrifying event they have ever and will ever experience.

News outlets in America were blaming the shooting on everything from a lack of God in schools to the relaxed gun control laws, avoiding at all costs to talk about the mental health issues that were clearly a major part of the problem. There are stories of children who have pulled knives on their parents, threatening to kill them, so are taken to a mental healthcare institution, only to find that it is full before being dismissed with some medication and nothing else.

That is not to say that mental health care and awareness are not the only issues here, the ease of access to firearms is clearly a major problem. To quote the TV programme “The West Wing”:

“If you combine the populations of Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden Denmark, and Australia you would get a population roughly the size of the United States. We had 132,000 gun deaths last year, they had 112. You think it’s because Americans are homicidal by nature or you think it’s because those guys have gun control laws?”

Since handguns were outlawed in the UK in 1997, there has not been a single school shooting or mass murder by guns. A gun has never been used by a civilian to stop a shooting in a school. Every time a shooting like this happens, the President says that he will reform gun law. This has been the case for the last 3 Presidents and none of them have. Will Obama be the first to actually do something about it? At the time of writing, BBC News has reported that Obama wants to outlaw assault weapons again. We’ll have to wait and see.

An Encounter with a Jehovah's Witness (and her mute friend)

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 16:45:41 +0100

Just this morning, I was visited by a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses. While I didn’t invite them in I did have a long conversation with them on my doorstep. The following is a brief recount of the experience.

I opened the door to two women standing on the doorstep. One was american, I don’t know what nationality the other was as in true religious preacher fashion only one spoke, the other was thankfully mute and stared at me in a creepy way the entire time.

“Hi, how are you?” the taller woman said. “I’m here to talk about God.”

This quickly brought a smile to my face. “Are you a religious person?”

“No” I replied. “I grew out of that around the same time I grew out of my belief in Santa.”

The woman smiled. “Why is that? Why do you not believe in God?”

“Well, I thought about it for a bit and realised it was, in my opinion, a silly belief. Can I ask you why you don’t believe in Zeus, Odin or any of the hundreds of other gods that people have believed in? Why is your one the right one?”

The question goes unanswered. “You thought about it? Have you actually read the Bible? What did you think about it?”

“I thought it was a mess of contradictions and out-dated morality.”

“How so? How is outdated?” she asked.

“Well, it says that you should stone people for being gay, it says that you can’t wear clothes made of two different materials. It even says that women should not preach religion as they do not have authority over men.”

“Are you familiar with the story of Noah?” This non sequitur of a question caught me off-guard, not just because it was completely unrelated to what we were just talking about but also because I didn’t realise that people still believed in passages in the bible that were this comical.

“Yes. It’s a silly story with absolutely no evidence, either geologically or historically or scientifically.”

“How do you know it’s not true?”

“Well firstly there are millions and millions of different species of animals around now. Let’s say there are 40 million species of animal. Noah needed two of them so that’s 80 million animals. How could you fit that on a boat?”

The next sentence is one of my favourite sentences uttered by a religious person ever. “You don’t know how big the boat was”.

Regardless of all the killing that would come about by putting a lion and a gazelle on the same boat, this woman thinks that one man would be possible to fit 80 million animals onto one boat.

I was too confused to come up with a reply. It was at this point my housemate walked up to the house, saw I was talking to some people and continued straight past. A few minutes later, he finally plucked up the courage to come in.

We then had a brief discussion about evolution (which in the interest in time and both yours and my sanity, I shall skip) in which both me and my housemate made essentially the same points made in this post.

She went onto say that the world is headed to its own impending doom unless we change our attitude to God and asked how I thought the world was going to end.

“Either through over-population, war or pollution,” I replied.

“And you think you should just wait around for that to happen?”

“No, hopefully science, technology and engineering will present us with solutions.”

“Oh so you’re going to rely on science?”

“Well, it’s certainly more useful than praying all day in the hope that a magical super-being to fix it all for us”

She then said “Well, I can see this conversation will go on all day and we’ll just go around in circles with our arguments,” (did she just admit to using cyclic arguments????) “so let me give you this book. It was nice talking to you.”

She then gave me a hilariously scientifically inaccurate and naive book about creationism which I couldn’t bring myself to read as it was hurting my brain with its talk about how science is bad as it doesn’t take God into account.

I bid her good day and then wondered how many people she’d convert by preaching Evangelical Armageddon-focused Christianity in the most Muslim focused part of Leicester.

Are you an atheist or an anti-theist?

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:39:24 +0100

Personally, I am fine with people believing what they want to believe as long as that belief isn’t imposed on others or taught as fact or science without evidence. However, I also believe that all viewpoints should be regularly and rigorously challenged as a means of becoming a more well-rounded individual. I am always keen to see and try to understand others viewpoints on anything from abortion and euthanasia to religion and gay marriage.

Therefore I would say I am not an anti-theist but it may come across that way on the blog as it is usually just one viewpoint. Having said that, I do think although religion can bring good, the bad it inevitably brings with it may not make it worthwhile to begin with.

Apologies for the phrasing of that sentence, it’s late and I’m typing this on my phone.

The 10 Commandments

Tue, 08 May 2012 22:22:00 +0100

Before we get started, a little house keeping. It’s been a short while since I last posted and I apologise. Regrettably our creationist friend Gavin ceased replying to my messages after the Dawkins video and evolution in cetaceans argument below. I do not know why, maybe he saw it as a lost cause to try to convert me, maybe he couldn’t find a way to argue against the evidence, maybe he just decided to move on with his life, who knows.

But anyway. Recently I heard a “This American Life” episode (a podcast well worth subscribing to if you get the chance, every episode is fascinating) on the 10 commandments and I thought it would be fun to have a discussion of them myself.

I am sure as the educated people which I am sure you are (except for you, you halfwit), you have heard the 10 commandments before. They are presented in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. In the book of Exodus, Moses climbs to the top of Mount Sinai alone, where God speaks to him and gives him the Decalogue written on two slabs of stone (note that if Moses was actually alone, who wrote this rather detailed account of what happened?)

The first four commandments are practically the same thing: Respect God. These commandments perfectly illustrate the nature of the god of the Old Testament. He is a jealous god who does not want his followers to even question his existence. Included in the first four commandments are two of the commandments that I am sure are broken on a regular basis by those who try their best to follow them: “not to take the Lord’s name in vain” and “to remember the Sabbath”. The phrase “oh my god” when stubbing your toe is technically a sin and one could go to hell if they did not seek repentance. I always wonder if someone yells “Oh my god” the second before they get trampled on by an escaped elephant would mean that they would go to hell when their now 2 dimensional body reached the afterlife. The tone in which you say the sentence in or the rest of the sentence you were saying could completely change whether it’s blasphemy or not. The phrase “Oh God why are you doing this?” wouldn’t be blasphemy if you were asking God why he was doing this but it would if you were using his name to emphasise the point that you cannot believe that the action that is currently taking place to you is happening.

Moving onto the Sabbath, what constitutes as work? If there is one commandment that is broken the most, it may well be this one, simply because it’s so ambiguous and impractical. Does work mean your job or is it any kind of direct mechanical action like the Amish believe? Are you just meant to stop doing anything and remain in bed all day (not that this would be a problem for any teenager or student)? Anyway, I feel I have spoken far too much on pleasing our invisible friend. Let us move onto the other commandments, that overall have humanistic implications.

The fifth commandment is to honour your mother and father. There is a fundamental flaw in this commandment. Respect is earned, not given unconditionally. If you were born into an abusive household, as a child of a genocidal dictator or, even worse, if your father was a member of Nickelback, why should you respect your father/mother? There would be nothing to gain from doing so other than inheriting their abusive/genocidal/music-destroying ways. Sure, if your mother and father are good, kind people, honour/respect them. They’ve eared it. If they enjoy a light racial cleansing at the weekend, maybe think twice before respecting them.

The next commandment has two translations. “Do not kill” or “do not murder”. At first glance, these may seem the same. However, murder is only the pre-meditated killing of someone. If we were to accept this translation, war and manslaughter would be fine in the eyes of God. However if we were to accept “do not kill” as the translation, it would outlaw all wars (even though the Bible is full of killing and wars). There is nothing to say it only applies to humans, should all Christians/Jews/Muslims be vegetarians?

We now arrive at the most preposterous of the commandments: “Do not commit adultery.” Staying faithful to your wife/husband should be easy enough except the Bible then throws in a curveball in the form of Matthew 5:28: “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”. Just thinking about a woman (strange that it doesn’t acknowledge women’s sex drive here) is considered a sin. A libido is a basic human urge which cannot be controlled yet the Bible is here teaching that it is abnormal. Bear in mind that sex outside of marriage is also considered adultery and “spilling your seed on the ground” is abhorrent. Of course what Orthodox Christians do not seem to acknowledge is that in Biblical times people got married between 13 to 20 years old (the Islamic texts have girls being married off as young as 6 and 9 years old). In an age where the average age to get married is around 30, is it reasonable to expect people to be able to suppress their basic urges to this point? If you want to be remain a virgin until you get married, by all means do. But if you expect to be able to do it without single-handedly keeping Kleenex in business, you’re insane and will probably turn into someone who hangs around supermarkets in the hope that the cashier will bend over and you might be able to look down her top.

The next commandment is the only one that I would agree with almost entirely (except if you were to describe things like helping political prisoners escape as “stealing people from their captors”). On the issue of stealing, I do not consider piracy of music/tv/movies/games stealing as I do not see them as potential sales in the first place. If anything, I see them as a means to introduce yourself to content that you would not have had an interest in if it were not available for free and may even go on to purchase related content in the future (i.e. pirating a CD of a band you haven’t heard before then going to see them live). This is a topic for another day though.

The penultimate commandment is “not to bear false witness against thy neighbour”. As Jesus points out numerous times, everyone is your neighbour. If this commandment was obeyed to the letter, Anne Frank’s story would be very different.

Day One

“Do you know where there are any Jews?”

“Yes they are upstairs in my attic. DAMN YOU BIBLE AND YOUR COMMANDMENTS”

The End

This brings us swiftly onto our final commandment: “do not covert”. Again, this is asking for the suppression of a basic human urge that is beyond our control. Sure, you can try not to be jealous of people with the latest phone or who own a particular piece of art or who play an instrument incredibly well but in the end you can’t control it. If anything, is it not jealousy and the want of things that you do not have which causes aspirations? The world’s economy runs on capitalism and the desire to have the next best thing or to be better than others. The act of coveting may not be a negative thing when it is not in overwhelming amounts.

The commandments are flawed from the start, simply by being labelled as “Commandments”. They’re not “The Ten Guidelines”, they’re orders. They treat morality as a black and white issue when in reality it is anything but this. One’s morality should come from intelligent internal and external debate and rational discussion. As soon as one starts using the Bible or any religious text as a source for absolute morality, you have to accept acts such as stoning for adultery and homosexuality as moral things. Of course, a religious person would argue that we have grown out of these vile opinions on morality. This has not been through religious means. This has been through secular, humanist, and rational debate.

Feel free to ask any questions using the ask me anything function at the top of the page.

A Brief Interlude from Debate

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 13:22:00 +0000

It has been a few days since I got a reply from Mr. Creationist (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here) so I thought so that I don’t get out of the swing of writing these posts, I would write about a couple of interesting things about evolution. The first is a video involving the dissection of a giraffe which is essentially proof that intelligent design is not real. It comes from Channel 4’s “Inside Nature’s Giants” and can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1a1Ek-HD0&fb_source=message

The second is a fact that I learnt last year and found fascinating. Below is a picture of the skeletal structure of a Bow Whale.

The part circled in red are essentially the remains of when the whale (along with other cetaceans such as porpoises and dolphins) used to be land mammals and had legs. Whales evolved from a small fox-like creature called an Indohyus (seen below). This slowly evolved back into a creature kind of like a large otter which then lost its legs and became a sea creature.

More info on how cetaceans have evolved can be found here

Now, onto the few tiny updates from the debate itself. After some discussion, I managed to convince Gavin that table sugar (i.e. sucrose) was completely natural and is not the reason why most people get ill. He said that this was an irrelevant point even though the majority of his “body near perfection” argument was based on the fact that we get ill because we mistreat our bodies through things that aren’t natural. Surely if the evidence for your argument falls apart, so does the argument itself?

I sent the dissection video and information about the evolution of cetaceans over Gavin’s way and he said that he would take a look at them and that he also has creationist videos which supposedly disprove evolution. I am highly looking forward to these and I should hopefully have a full reply in the next day or so.

An Encounter with a Young Earth Creationist (Part 3)

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:00:26 +0000

Previously on “An Encounter with a Young Earth Creationist”: Creationist Gavin replies that there is evidence for a Christian god that is found in nature, one should look for evidence to support ones beliefs and goes on to suggest that the human body was perfect in its design. Our atheist friend, the dashingly handsome and not at all arrogant Alex, retorted saying that the human body is far from perfect, beliefs should be based off an evaluation of all evidence (not just that which supports your assumptions) and requested that Gavin would present some form of evidence that supports his claim for a Christian god. Will any progress be made towards finding answers or will new questions appear while older ones are ignored? Find out on this edition of An Encounter with a Young Earth Creationist!!!!

G: I disagree with your examination of how science shouldn’t look for answers it wants to support. That is the scientific method. First you create a theory of what YOU think happens and then you try and find evidence to support that theory as well as perform experiments centered on proving or disproving it. If you can’t prove it then it’s a false theory. So the scientific method consists of thinking of a reason and then trying to prove that reason. But it is a fine line between proper scientific method and a wrongful use of it because it is easy for other people to be so convinced of something that they search without an open mind to find the answer.

The design of our body is actually near perfection (why God wouldn’t have created us all perfect is a debate that has been going on since the beginning of Christianity so I wouldn’t expect us to get very far in our discussions compared to the trail which has been walked before us.) Take it from someone like me who is a personal trainer and studying to earn his doctorate in chiropractic and holistic medicine, our body’s are incredible and anything they do wrong is because of us and our ignoring of nature. Our eyes fail because we don’t spend enough time outside in the sunlight to keep them healthy, our organs explode because they lack the proper nutrition to sustain themselves, we get cancer because of the sugar we eat (sugar alone is not a natural product in nature) and because of the electrical frequencies being emitted from man made electronic devices. Our body’s are failing because we are mistreating them. Through everything we eat we are slowly mistreating them. In fact almost all brain diseases are linked to bad gut flora. This is your gut health and how well your gut can absorb nutrients. If its in poor health, like it is for most, then you have brain issues like bipolar, multiple personality disorder, ADHD, etc. As to the biting your cheek comment, this is the cost of having a movable jaw which can bit at certain angles. But yet again, if we all ate right and had no tissue inflammation you would hardly ever bit your cheek.

As to your ankle statement I disagree and have no idea where you got this information from. The ankle joint is the most complex joint in the human body and one of the most efficient. It doesn’t consist of one joint but actually two. It is a duel joint complex system as it is termed occasionally. This joint has hundreds of bones, ligaments, tendons, and tissues. This means that it is capable of being wonderfully flexible and incredibly resilient. It can make thousands of adjustments within a second and continue to do so in order to stabilize itself and best perform in all types of conditions. Without all these bones, ligaments, and tendons, it would actually be far less stable. Think of it this way, because of all the variables in your ankle joint your ankle can react an infinite number of ways to the unlimited types of terrain and the uses of your foot. The only downfall of this system is how difficult it is for your brain to keep up. But the brain learns, it always does. Therefore In this area of ankle joints, simple is not better. Because it is so complex it is able to better distribute damage and if a part of the joint does get damaged it can use many other bones, ligaments, and tendons within the joint to fully compensate. I have not a clue where you heard this idea from but my father can guarantee its false. (i had to ask him because no one has ever made that statement to me before haha) My father is an exercise physiologist, rehabilitator, and former teacher of human anatomy (now he owns his own business in exercise and personal training). The ankle is simply incredible.

Next, I think we can all agree that just because a majority exists does not mean the majority is correct. For instance, a majority or scientists believe in evolution. Does this mean it’s correct? Not necessarily. A majority of scientists a few years ago believed in spontaneous generation. That theory definitely was bull shit. I believe that within a few decades science will yet again change its theory as to the origins of life. It always has and it always will while Christianity remains the same. Does this mean Christianity is right? Again, not necessarily.

A: Again, right from the start you’ve misunderstood the scientific method completely. One does not come up with a theory before looking at evidence. I could not say “I believe I cannot find my keys because invisible leprechauns stole them” and then say the evidence is “i can’t find my keys” and you can’t disprove the theory because you can’t disprove the existence of leprechauns.You seem to be getting confused with the terms “hypothesis” and “theory”. A hypothesis is an educated guess as to what you might find in a certain experiment using previous knowledge. A theory is a repeatedly provable statement that takes into account all evidence, it is not something that someone can just come up with by thinking about it.

I’m sorry but I simply cannot take your points about the body being near perfection seriously. Firstly, I have NO idea what you mean by sugar isn’t a natural product. Sugar is the basic building block of life, it’s found in abundance in fruits (which last time I checked are natural), it makes up carbohydrate chains and is what gives us the ability to live. Where do you think energy from food comes from??? Now that we’ve got past this massive oversight of basic biology out of the way, let’s move on.

If the only reason problems happen is because we mistreat our bodies, then why are kids being born with mental disorders completely unrelated to any previous condition the parents may have? Why do people with low cholesterol levels sometimes have heart attacks? Why are people born blind or deaf or with cleft palates? None of these have anything to do with any kind of mistreatment. Also, there has been no solid evidence providing a strong positive correlation between electronic devices and cancer. I accept that as an engineer, I don’t know a huge amount about nutrition. However, as a scientist I cannot just accept your word that gut flora directly effects mental health so would appreciate a link to some evidence for this. In future, I’ll just put “Citation Needed” rather than writing out a full sentence. You just have to look at how life expectancy has increased as our knowledge of germ theory (notice how germs definitely exist yet it’s still a theory. Same as evolution) has also increased. A few thousand years ago I could hope to live for maybe another 10 years if I was lucky. Are we more perfect now than we were then? No, our knowledge has increased meaning that we can artificially improve our shitty bodies.

I still believe the ankle is pretty poor at its job. It’s job is to support the bodies weight and keep people balanced. However, you can trip someone up just by sticking your leg out. You cannot do this to a dog or a cat, it’ll just look at you like you’re insane. You can also easily damage your ankle by falling on it from almost any height. They’re clearly not designed to withstand high impact forces (which is bizarre seeing as they’re probably the part of the body that is subjected to the most high impact forces). Just think about how many people you know who have sprained or broken their ankle. Cats can be dropped from huge heights with absolutely no damage to them at all. Therefore, I would say that a cats ankle is far better designed than a humans.

I agree, a majority does not mean they’re correct (please be aware that you’ve now shot down any points you may make in the future regarding how Christianity is THE true faith because more people believe it which is usually their claim for validity). However, scientific progress has increased dramatically in the past 200 years. This has been because of a revolution in the way we create and refine theories. The spontaneous generation theory (which was dismissed in the 1800s, not a few years ago) was formed when science was more guesswork. This is how alternative medicines such as homeopathy were born but that’s a discussion for a later date. Nowadays, scientists are less willing to believe something until it has been proven to the best that we can with the technology available to us. Our modern day scientists aren’t accepting theories because their parents believed them and they were brought up that way, they’re accepting them because of their own independent research or research done over many years by many sources all with the same conclusions. It’s discovery, not indoctrination.

Gavin later replied briefly to clarify that he meant table sugar is not natural (even though it is found naturally in all fruits and is refined from plant sources). Unfortunately, he is busy this weekend so I’m not sure when to expect the next installment of this. Once again, thanks for reading.

An Encounter with a Young Earth Creationist (Part 2)

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 23:34:00 +0000

Welcome to Day 2 of what critics are calling the “biggest waste of 10 minutes ever.” I received a brief reply from Gavin today explaining that he’s busy this weekend so he’ll write a full reply later. However, his post did feature some interesting points which I couldn’t resist but to call him out on. Let’s jump to it, shall we?

G: You certainly are a very learned and logical one aren’t you haha. I’ll rebuttle some of these arguments and I’ll probably have to drop a few others because I personally know little about them (it will have to be a debate for another individual) but I’ll be sure to acknowledge your argument first before i do. Nothing is more annoying then someone who just ignores a good argument.

Anyways what I think it’ll come down to is breaking away from scientific evidence. After all there is in fact an absolutely OVERWHELMING amount of evidence for Christianity just as there is an absolutely OVERWHELMING amount of evidence for evolution. What it comes down to is that if anybody looks hard enough they can find evidence for their beliefs. So we might need to move away from this type of discussion. For instance, our bone structure can be viewed as evidence for evolution and creationism. Our bone structures are incredibly similar to other species as you are aware of. This can suggest common ancestry. But, it can also suggest a common designer. After all, if God did create us why would he reinvent the entire bone structure? Why not just reuse it and adapt for specific species? If God created us he would have known the best skeletal structure and stuck to it. You see the murky waters? I assume that you’ve read lots of books and information against Christianity yet I can assure you as a Christian I’ve read lots of books and articles that rebuttle your arguments and add there own evidence to the pot. In the end two Harvard or cambridge students can debate each other on creationism vs evolution and neither one will come out on top. It will be a draw with the audience split down the middle as to who won the argument. It simply is fascinating.

I do have to thank you however, you have shown me I do not know as much about defending my faith as I want to know. I’ll be sure to hit the books after our debate and get myself back up to where I should be.

A: Just to point out a few little points in that reply: Any evidence that may be found to support a Christian viewpoint will also support that of a Muslim or Jewish or Hindu viewpoint. I challenge you to present to me any evidence obtained outside of the Bible that supports specifically a Christian viewpoint.

Secondly, I quote this from above “What it comes down to is that if anybody looks hard enough they can find evidence for their beliefs.” This is a massive problem about the validity of evidence. You shouldn’t look for evidence that support a belief. This inevitably leads to cherry picking and false hypotheses. In order to form a valid, balance opinion on something, one must view all evidence and base their conclusions off that. This is where science and religion differ; science looks at the evidence and draws conclusions, religion has its conclusions and then tries to find things to support it. This means science has no agenda, if the evidence suggested that god was responsible for something instead of a natural process, science would say that.

Thirdly, our bodies are terrible at what they do (however they are no less amazing). Our ankles are the worst possible design for balancing, our appendices explode without warning for no reason, we stub our toes, we bite the inside of our cheeks, our eyes fail etc etc. Clearly our design is far from perfect. Why would a perfect creator make something so flawed?

Also please understand that there is a distinct correlation between religious faith and education. It has been shown that there is a hugely clear pattern where the higher educated someone is, the less likely they are to believe in god. The United States sits apart from this (generally a cultural thing, as I understand it atheists are generally looked down upon or scared of coming out to their families as atheists in the US). However, over here in jolly old Britain, 40% are atheist and this is rising every year. In my life, I have met precisely one person who did not believe in evolution and he didn’t seem to know why he believe what he did.

I’d just like to say thanks to everyone who has shown interest in part 1 of this series and I hope you continue to read these. Thanks :-)

Update: Part 3 can be found here

An Encounter with a Young Earth Creationist (Part 1)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:58:00 +0000

Recently, I have come into contact with a “Young Earth Creationist” from America called Gavin and we ended up talking over Facebook about religion, creation, evolution and the like. I plan to post excerpts of these conversations (in context, as to not take sides) over the next few days as I believe they will make for interesting reading. I will try to split the messages up so that each point is addressed as we go along, rather than having all one view then the other. Here are the highlights from Day One (I’m A, he’s G).

G: First off we need to understand that we cannot prove the origin of life. We will never for sure know how we came to be except once we die. That’s why all beliefs take faith, even that of evolution requires faith because no matter how much evidence you compile you will still never prove it because we were not there.

A: The existence of evolution itself is scientific fact, the means by which it happens is a theory. This can be compared to the “theory of gravity”, we know it exists, we just don’t know fully how it works. Evolution can be seen to be happening in our own lifetimes if you look at things like the elephant. More and more elephants are being born without tusks because those with tusks are being killed off by poachers for their ivory. […]

The question of somethings existence is a purely scientific one, especially when dealing with something as important as how the universe was created. There is just as much evidence for a god as there is for unicorns, leprechauns or Harry Potter. I would include Santa Claus but in fact there’s more evidence for him: you can see him and talk to him at Christmas time and presents magically appear under the tree.

G: The existence of micro evolution is in fact a reality. One we see happening this very day. Species will adapt to there surroundings and will sometimes make very drastic changes to survive. Yet the problem arises when a species becomes an entirely new species. There is no evidence for it. While I understand that the vast vast vast majority of species are not fossilized you must understand that if we are in fact billions of years old at least one would have fossilized. To this date we have not found one fossil demonstrating a species that was in the middle of their changes. This is an issue. In fact, darwin himself said that if the fossil record did not demonstrate these changes then they in fact did not happen. (in fact Darwin later refuted the theory of macro evolution, but let that just be a side note) Studies show we have uncovered more then 90% of fossil remains yet still no intermediate species.[…] While I understand that most fossil will not stick around for a billion years, I also understand that we have found a fossil that is allegedly 3 billion years old. Since our earth is supposedly 4 billion years old… that means that that fossil has been there for the majority of earths existence. Doesn’t that mean other fossils are also billions of years old? Therefore, change should be demonstrated and it isn’t.

A: Firstly, millions of years of microevolution and tiny tiny changes happening result in macroevolution. People who don’t believe in evolution generally don’t understand it. Evolution is a process that takes millions and millions of years of tiny changes to produce any measurable effect. We didn’t evolve from apes, we simply share a common ancestry. You just have to look at the human body to see we haven’t been this way. We still have a coccyx from where we used to have a tail. We still have an appendix from where our digestive systems had to break down tough starches etc. I do not have the time or the patience to educate you about evolution, if you care to educate yourself about the overwhelming amount of evidence on the topic, please visit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent . Surely it must strike you as strange how almost every single scientist (not just those who study evolution, but scientists generally (around 94% of the National Society (I meant Royal Society here) )) believes that evolution happens, that we have evolved from a single celled organism and is either an atheist or agnostic? Also, if you are to claim that 90% of all fossils have been found or that Darwin refuted evolution (even though his discoveries led him to become an agnostic and according to his children and historians he never refuted his claims, that was just a rumor perpetuated about religious apologists), please present some form of evidence from an objective source (i.e. Wikipedia, a news site, not a creationist site).

G: Continuing, evolution has some major issues that have not been addressed and even then it will never be “proven”. You must understand that evidence simply states the LIKELIHOOD of something. In fact science itself is defined as never being permanent. You can never prove anything with science. Things we believed 50 years ago have been proven wrong and one day I will not be surprised if einsteins theory of relativity is debunked. Science is an ever changing organism of ideas, knowledge, and information and nothing is even proven even after it is deemed scientific fact. This is the very nature of science. Yet even scientists themselves cling to the idea of evolution and call it indisputable fact. How so? How is it fact if the very nature of science, the very thing that discovered it, is constantly morphing, changing, and proving and disproving new and old ideas. How can something as unstable as science suddenly say that a new idea is in fact truth when decades from now it might easily be proven false? These scientists are doing a disservice to science itself.

A: This next section is where you’ve got the whole idea of science completely wrong. Science is about looking at evidence, coming up with a theory for this evidence, testing this theory and then refining it. The theory that fits with all the evidence we currently have stands true until evidence suggesting something different comes along, which will then require the theory to be revised. The theory of evolution has been based upon years of research from multiple sources on thousands and thousands of pieces of evidence and the resulting set of theories fits the evidence. To this day, no contravening evidence of any significance has been presented meaning that our current theory holds. The best which science can do is look at all the evidence and come up with a theory. Religion, however, looks at a book which has been written, rewritten, edited, translated, rewritten, translated again, distorted and says: This. This is forever true. It is not a theory that god created the heavens and the earth or created animals or humans. There is no evidence for it other than a stone age book (which in itself is not valid evidence). In 200BC, it was understandable that we thought it was a god that moved the sun across the sky. In the middle ages, it was understandable that god healed those people in pain rather than a form of medicine. However, science has progressed and as our knowledge of the universe has increased, gods input into what he is used to explain has diminished.

G: Now as to your comments about God, the bible, and religion…. I ask that you maintain a bit of respect for it in our discussions for the bible and Christianity is a remarkable religion and a remarkable book. There is absolutely no book in all of history that has been shown to be more historically accurate then the bible. (For this discussion please ignore everything in the bible that cannot be historically proven such as a diety or miracles, we can address that in a later conversation but it currently takes away from the point I’m trying to make) There have been many times were the bible was “disproven” and later was shown to hold the actual accurate historical records of wars and empires. The bible is a solid historical document that has stood the test of time. It is also a book that has been unaltered. Several years ago we discovered the dead sea scrolls which were 2000 years old manuscripts of the old testament. These scrolls were compared to the modern day bible and found to be identical. While the words had changed the content did not. Regardless of your beliefs the bible is an incredibly remarkable book for its historical accuracy, and its consistency throughout thousands of years of copying.

A: I believe you have got your Bible facts completely wrong. The Bible is FULL of inconsistencies and things we KNOW are historically INACCURATE. The amount of inconsistencies are too great to go into here so I will pick out a few. If you wish to know more, a quick google search is your friend. Let’s start with “who wrote the Bible?” The answer is many, many people. The Gospels were certainly not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John who were all illiterate fishermen. They are written by anonymous sources. Bible historians (I’m taking this from the wiki article on “Authorship of the Bible”) generally agree that Mark was the first and it was written by a number of people who were basing it off the teachings of Peter who had learnt it from Mark. Right from the start, that’s a huge amount of hearsay and Chinese whispers. Then, Matthew and Luke were written in around 70AD and based their stories off Mark. Again, a lot of hearsay and rehashing. The John was written in the 2nd century. Notice how none of these were eye-wittness accounts. If you wish to compare inconsistencies, just compare the god of the OT and the NT, they’re clearly completely different characters.

Also, the Bible was clearly not written in English. It was written in Greek and Aramaic and then translated and retranslated again and again. In fact, in the original Greek the word “Virgin” as in Mary also meant “young girl”. Possibly a mistranslation? The Bible is far from a historical document and ANYONE who has actually studied its history will agree.

G: The bible has lead us to some interesting scientific discoveries. In the past scientists believed the bible to be absolute fact and many things were discovered through it. For instance, currents in the ocean. When reading the bible you will come across a passage that speaks of “pathways in the ocean”. Ps 8:8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. Matthew Fontaine Maury’s children read that verse to him while he was sick and afterwards he commenced on a search through the oceans. He was the one who discovered currents in and underneath the sea. He discovered this because he read the bible.

I’ve paraphrased the following for time’s sake.

There are other instances where the bible has foreshadowed scientific discovers. The earth is round: Isaiah 40:22
“He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth”

The earths position in space: Job 26:7
He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.

Space is expanding and ever “stretching”: Isaiah 45:12
It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands STRETCHED out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts.

There are valleys in the sea: (ancient races could not have known this because they lacked the equipment to see far below the surface) 2 Samuel 22:16
The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of breath from his nostrils

More then 2,000 years ago the bible was explaining the hydraulic circle: Job 36:27-28
He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind

Laws of Thermodynamics:
Psalm 102:22-26
In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded

In fact, the bible has shown us the way in which the word was created! (Genesis 1)

Just a few years ago our hubble telescope showed us how planets are created. They are created with a dust cloud which spirals around and around being compacted together in a violent storm. After the end of the storm all the dust has been pressed together and a planet is created. In this dust cloud there is no light. But in an instant as the dust cloud settles suddenly light shins overwhelmingly on the planet. The bible accurately told an aspect of how a planet is form over 2,000 years ago and only now have we been able to confirm it.

A: The Bible isn’t scientifically accurate either. It may feature brief observations (noting that currents in the ocean is not a discovery. It’s like me noting that there may be some wind outside or the sky is occasionally blue, it’s an observation not a discovery) but it also claims that Jonah survived in a whale (even though they can’t eat anything larger than a grapefruit) and that an old man built an ark that could hold every single species of animal, fish and insect IN THE WORLD. As for other “discoveries”, it’s amazing what useful tools hindsight, interpretation and metaphor are. I could quote things like how it repeatedly mentions how insects have four legs, how it claims it put the stars in the solid firmament over the world, how the earth was created before the sun, how light somehow appeared on earth before the sun, the earth is flat (Isiah 11:12 and Isiah 44:24) (also in the quote you used, if the author wanted to say “spherical” he’d have used the word “kadur” meaning sphere), the earth is the centre of the universe, it also goes into large amounts of detail over the value of “pi” which ultimately it gets, amazingly, wrong.

In the interest of time, I will summarise the conclusions. G goes on to say that the Bible is never wrong and is far more than “a book of fairy tales.” He then says that he believes the world is around 10,000 years old, dinosaurs did exist and god created everything as separate species that then evolved on a microscale to what they are today. I explain the basics of carbon dating and how it is relatively accurate and says the earth is 4.5 billion years old.

Now if you are insane enough to be reading this far, congratulations (and also you REALLY need to get out more). I do plan on posting more when I can (hopefully the discussions will be briefer, but who knows) and hopefully you found this interesting.

Update: Part Two can be found here

Pseudo-Science in Schools or "The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Learnt This Week"

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 01:06:00 +0000

It’s been a long time since I had a good rant on here. This one will be in the same vein as my previous post about Power Balance bracelets. Recently, I have been reading Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science” and I was rather ticked off by what I discovered in Chapter 2 of the book. It mentions an initiative which is in effect in the state school system in the UK called “Brain Gym”.

The basic concept behind Brain Gym is that supposedly performing certain actions can ”enhance the experience of whole brain learning”. Some of these actions involve the consumption of relatively large quantities of water which is generally accepted as a good thing (but not too much. The consumption of too much water is drowning.) If the Brain Gym publications were just “Drink more water to keep hydrated”, that would be fine. However, they go on to claim that as water is in blood, by drinking more you get more oxygen transportation and that holding the water against the roof of your mouth means that it can be absorbed directly into the brain. A note to doctors: if for whatever reason your patient cannot drink fluids, don’t bother with an IV in the arm, just go through the roof of their mouth instead. That’ll work.

Another exercise that can help brain activity is called “Brain Buttons”. Please perform the following exercise as follows:

“Make a “C” shape with your thumb and forefinger and place on either side of the breastbone just below the collarbone. Gently rub for twenty or thirty seconds whilst placing your other hand over your navel. Change hands and repeat.”

The experiment supposedly “stimulates the flow of oxygen carrying blood through the carotid arteries to the brain to awaken it and increase concentration and relaxation. This is because the “brain buttons” lie directly over and stimulate the carotid arteries.” Side-effects may include men in white coats taking you away and putting you in a padded cell.

I worry that the creators of “Brain Gym” may have confused Homo Sapiens with Data from Star Trek. Humans generally do not have some sort of “brain activation button” on their chest. Other exercises include tapping your fingers together in a certain order to “connect the electrical circuits in the body, containing and thus focusing both attention and disorganised energy” and a special yawn that leads to “increased oxidation for efficient relaxed functioning”. Oxidation is the process that makes metal rust. It’s almost as if this course was written by someone who didn’t have the faintest idea of how the body works…

All of this may seem ridiculous to you, dear reader, but somehow this crazy mumbo-jumbo pseudo-science is being taught in thousands of schools in the UK by teachers who for whatever reason believe it works. Personally, I find it rather scary that the “adults” who are teaching our kids (well, not OUR. I don’t have any (to my knowledge)), the “adults” who are teaching your kids (if you have any, you may not), the “adults” who are teaching kids, don’t even challenge this notion.

And the teachers have to go on a course to be properly “authorised” to perform Brain Gym. Courses which are paid for by the Government using tax payers money. Brain Gym has been criticised by numerous people and publications for not having adequate scientific proof for the theories that they perpetuate but, unlike Power Balance, they have not been told to stop selling their product.

Just a response to your 'could God create a rock so heavy that he couldn't carry it?' This is basically the old 'what would happen if an unstoppable object met an immovable one?' The laws of physics tell us that it would be impossible for both to exist simultaneously. And so if in this instance 'God' is someone who could lift anything, he could not then create something that he could not lift :) P.S. I know this isn't a question but I don't know where to post comments...

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:54:40 +0100

Before I reply, I would like to clarify that the question was specifically asking about the image believers have for god, rather than whether or not there is a god.

For an object to be unstoppable, it would have had to have had a force impact larger than the speed it is currently going at (due to friction/energy dissipation/etc). If such a force exists to impact, such a force must exist to stop the object. Therefore an unstoppable object is a logical impossibility. The same applies to an unmovable object, it would move under a large enough force. This is also a logical impossibility.

The constraints that humans have put on a god by labelling him as all-powerful in itself creates a logical impossibility meaning that IF a god exists (which as science continues becomes less and less likely) he would not and could not exist (at least in the current physical conditions of the universe) in the form that people have given him.

I hope this makes sense, I am writing this half-asleep and a while after it was asked as it was sent to my junk mail :-P

People, Y U So Dumb?

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:00:27 +0100

At my job, I spend a lot of time people watching and one thing that I’ve noticed over the last six months is how many people lack any form of logic whatsoever. Society has fallen to a wonderful scam involving “Power Balance” bracelets.

The website described these bands as a bracelet that “optimizes the natural flow of energy around the body, and so improves an athlete’s strength, balance and flexibility” because a hologram on it has been embedded with an “electrical frequency” that restores balance to the body’s “electrical field” when it comes into contact with “the natural energy field” (what the fuck does that even mean???). And people buy this bullshit. And it’s not cheap either, the standard bracelet costs $30 and you can purchase sweatbands (also $30) and even pendants (for up to $75).

Clearly something is wrong here. I don’t know how someone could possibly justify to themselves that somehow by wearing a picture on their wrist it can somehow effect how your body distributes its energy or effects the fluid in your ear canal that makes you balance. The ONLY way that this thing can balance your body is if your right arm is 20 grams heavier than your left arm.

It doesn’t help the fact that the brainiacs of the world such as David “Dropped on his head as a child” Beckham, Christiano “I promise I didn’t rape her” Ronaldo have both worn them publicly, meaning many a hooligan has thought that they must work.

Recently, due to many court cases against the companies that make these, they have had to remove any claims that it improves your body in any way and any reference to natural energy fields from the website and the product themselves due to a lack of any scientific evidence.

Also, I have noticed that “Saints” bracelets (seen here) have been becoming increasingly popular. The majority of the people who are wearing these seem to be the same apes that would also own a power balance bracelet and I’m not sure if they realise who the people on their bracelet are or that it’s exclusively a “hide your kids” Catholic thing but that’s a conversation for another day.

On a completely unrelated note, I’m opening an aura polishing company where I’ll clean your aura so that you can transmit your photosynthetic mind waves more easily. This is not a scam. CALL NOW.

Pretty awesome billboard for Gu desserts.

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:56:46 +0100

Pretty awesome billboard for Gu desserts.

How to Create Awesome 8-bit Songs in 2 Minutes

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 19:24:08 +0100

Ever wanted to make an 8-Bit or Chiptune song but too lazy to do it? I discovered how to do this the other day and it’s awesome. You’ll need to download a couple of programs but don’t worry, they’re completely clean and you don’t need to sign up for anything.

You will need to download and install two programs:

TuxGuitar (found here). This program lets you download, play and convert various types of files into various formats.

GXSCC (from here). This program will let you play your MIDI file.

When you have downloaded these programs, go to Ultimate Guitar or a similar site which has either “Guitar Pro” or “Power tab” files. Search for the song you want to “8 Bit-ify” and look for either a guitar pro file or a power tab. Guitar pro works better.

When you have downloaded this, open it in Tux Guitar and click the following: “File > Export > Export MIDI select 0 and then “Okay” on the transpose dialogue box and choose your destination.

Finally, open the MIDI file in GXSCC and press play.

There you go, super easy and if you choose a decent tab with a high rating, you’ll get some awesome results. Enjoy.

Thought of the Day #1

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:31:00 +0100

Can God (or any theoretical all-powerful being) create a rock so heavy that he couldn’t carry it?

E3 Round Up

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 01:03:00 +0100

So E3 (one of the biggest gaming conventions in the world) has been and gone for another year. Personally I am a little let down this year, even though some pretty cool things were shown.

Firstly, Nintendo successfully found a more stupid name for a console than the “Wii” by announcing their next console: the “Wii U”. Nintendo, being Japanese and therefore completely fucking bonkers, decided not to give any details on the specifications of the console and barely even showed what the console itself looked like. What they did show was the controller, which as you can see below, is essentially a large touch screen tablet with some buttons and a camera. All in all, it looks like it could be potentially cool but I predict it will quickly turn out to be a hard-to-use gimmick and people will prefer to use a conventional controller.

They also said that they wanted to focus more on the “core gamers” (i.e. those who like to play games rather than mindlessly wiggle a stick while playing “Glitter Rainbow Pony Party 8: Extreme Edition”). I’m not sure if this will work for them as a marketing ploy because almost all the people who wanted to play hardcore games have probably bought an Xbox (or if they have a thing for unreliable online services, a PlayStation 3) in the past few years. From what was shown (which admittedly wasn’t a lot), the graphics don’t look quite as good as some of the more recent games on Xbox and PS3 (see Crysis 2, LA Noire, Assassins Creed) but are undeniably a step up from the Wii. And Zelda HD looks like it could be rad (but could easily be a cinematic for a game not currently in development).

Moving onto Microsoft: not a whole lot of surprises here at all. Lots of Kinect integration which the online community seemed to be pissed off about, but when you release the world’s largest selling peripheral ever (10 million sold since launch a year ago) you have to expect that the focus is going to be on it. Mass Effect 3’s integration looked cool; you command your team with your voice etc. It’s been done before but still, it’s a nice idea. Fable: The Journey looked interesting. This seems to be an on-rails game where you cast various spells to defeat enemies. Could be fun, could be the most boring game since “Lost: The Game”. A Disneyworld game and a Sesame Street game were both announced and I couldn’t care less about either of them (but I’m sure they will sell very well to kiddy gamers).

Kinect Fun Labs looks interesting; it takes the homebrew aspect which seems to be massively popular in the hacking community online and makes it available to the public. It is out now as a Dashboard update and with it currently you can scan in objects into a virtual environment, scan yourself in to create an avatar which looks exactly like you (clothes and all) and more. Also a renewed UI, YouTube integration and a deep search function are all included.

Finally Sony. A couple of interesting things here, most importantly their new handheld devices: the PlayStation Vita. This has been known about for a while but they finally announced a name and a price: $249 for a Wi-Fi only model or $299 for a 3G/Wi-Fi model. This is around the same price as the 3DS for a far more powerful system. This looks pretty nice but to be honest, I play my current PSP so rarely that I’m not sure I can justify a purchase myself.

There was also a continued push for 3D gaming with the introduction of a Sony-made 3D TV which uses passive glasses to convey 3D on a 24 inch screen. It also uses a technology so that the television can convey two images at once to two different players (both in 3D), allowing for multiplayer on the same screen but with each player using the full screen. The TV is included in a bundle with a 3D game, 2 pairs of glasses and an HDMI cable for $499. Word from conference goers say that Uncharted 3 in 3D is mindblowingly good looking while Resistance 3 is not so much.

Other highlights from other conferences included new footage from Battlefield 3, SSX, Need For Speed: The Run, Batman: Arkham City and, my personal favourite, Assassins Creed Revelations.

For more info on the conferences, I’d recommend Joystiq, IGN and GameTrailers.

Some Music For Your Earholes

Sun, 22 May 2011 23:21:00 +0100

Some Music For Your Earholes:

Video link here. I know, I know. Nothing for ages and then three blog posts in a matter of days, what’s wrong with the world?? But lucky for you guys, this isn’t a rant from me. I thought I would do a little PSA and direct you to a cover by my best Danish friend Alexander Leistiko (talk about pretentious names, jeeze ;-) ). Anyways, I highly recommend that you guys watch it and show him some love. The cover is of a David Locke song called “Dreaming” and his channel can be found here.

A Reply to "The End is Nigh..."

Sat, 21 May 2011 20:42:53 +0100

The following is a reply to the question posed at the end of the previous post on the subject of the end of the world. It was sent in by a friend and previous colleague. Many thanks Michael :-)

“Orthodox Christianity does indeed believe in an end to this present world and a day of judgement, however it does not believe that we can use weird codes and and quite frankly terrible biblical exegesis to predict the date, as these people have. In fact in doing so they ignore what Jesus said, that no one but Father would know the hour (Matthew 24:36). The actual idea of the Rapture is a bad interpretation of one verse from 1 Thessalonians and some equally dodgy interpretation of sections of Revelation. It’s only really a prominent in the US and parts of Africa that have been influenced by American theology. So in summary we do believe in an end and a judgement day but not that we can predict the date or that all the Christians will be Raptured away in an instant.”

The End is Nigh...

Sat, 21 May 2011 17:32:08 +0100

(Sidenote: I have decided to write a relatively serious article for once. If you came here expecting witticisms, you’re in the completely wrong place. Getting stabbed in the eye is funnier than this site. Seriously. Plus, people have been making Rapture jokes as if there’s no tomorrow so I thought it was time for a rest.)

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few weeks, you will have probably heard about the prediction of the end of the world by the ~~lunatics~~ sane people who are completely entitled to their beliefs who feature on Family Radio in America. Surprise, surprise no one has been taken off into the sky and the world has continued almost as if it’s a completely normal Saturday.

According to these perfectly rational people (note; sarcasm), May 21st 2011 marked the beginning of a period known as “Rapture” where the righteous would be taken up into heaven, leaving the unrighteous on Earth to be destroyed on October 21st 2011. While the ravings of fundamentalist religious people usually goes ignored (let them have their imaginary friends and stupid ignorance of evidence for the age of the earth etc), the actions of these people cannot be fully ignored.

It has recently been reported that some of these mad people (and let’s face it, they are mad) have not only been spending their life savings on campaigns warning people of the coming rapture but have also been doing despicable things such as trying to get their pets euthanized (source) and attempting to kill their children in case they don’t get chosen (source).

Surely people like this do not belong on the streets, they need some sort of mental help. No rational person would think that this was a sane thing to do. And they would be willing to do this in the name of an event that isn’t even happening.

The people who are preaching this shite to the masses aren’t even convinced of their own predictions. A section on their website states the following (note, this is paraphrased):

In the Bible, God was thinking of destroying the city of Nineveh because it contained many sinners and wicked people. However, because of God’s threat to destroy them, they repented and God took mercy and changed his mind. The preacher Harold Camping explains on the site that if Rapture does not take place as predicted, it is because God has taken mercy on the world as they have repented for all their sins.

This, of course, explains the (clearly) incorrect prediction that Harold Camping also made back in September 1994. Yet, somehow, he still has many people who look up to him as a religious leader.

Anyway, who knows, maybe someone somewhere has been taken up to heaven by Jesus and his magical massive hoover. Only time will tell.

If you are still reading, then congratulations. You have more patience than I do, I stopped reading after the second paragraph.

There is one thing that I have wondered about this entire affair. Many rational Christians (i.e. non-fundamentalists/creationist) also ridicule the Rapture myth. I’ve always wondered how they think the world will end. Surely there must be a day of judgement of some sort? Isn’t that the reason behind believing? Believe and repent so that you can reach heaven with God? Is the only difference between “The Camping Group” and all other religious people just that a date has been set in one while it hasn’t in the other? This last paragraph isn’t designed as a quick stab at believers, I am genuinely interested. If you have an answer, please leave a comment in the Ask Me Anything section.

From Reddit: A Short Post on AV

Wed, 04 May 2011 20:26:39 +0100

The following is taken from this page on Reddit:

1. FPTP is unfair because it is very far from proportional.

2. AV is probably no more proportional than FPTP.

3. However, FPTP is also unfair because it puts pressure on large numbers of people not to vote for their favourite party. Under AV you don’t have to worry about wasting your vote. The right voting strategy is almost always to put the candidates you like in order of preference.

4. Under AV, everyone gets one ballot paper, just as under FPTP.

5. In each round of an AV count, everybody gets exactly one vote. It goes to their highest ranked candidate out of the candidates still left.

6. Under AV, if you vote for unpopular parties you don’t get more votes — you get more disappointments.

7. Under First Past The Post, there is no post. (FWIW, under AV there is.)

8. Under AV, the person who would have come second or third under FPTP sometimes wins.

9. Under FPTP, the person who would have come second or third under AV sometimes wins.

10. In so far as AV helps the BNP, it also helps everyone else. (The same could be said of women’s suffrage and votes for 18-year-olds.)

11. Anomalies can occur under AV.

12. There is no anomaly-free voting system.

13. Anomalies in a very small number of constituencies are very unlikely to affect who gets the power nationally.

14. AV doesn’t make your MP any more bland and inoffensive than FPTP.

15. AV won’t make your MP work harder.

16. AV wouldn’t have made any difference to the expenses scandal, which is in any case yesterday’s news.

17. AV might possibly lead to more coalitions but will not lead to a state of permanent coalition.

18. AV makes it easier to get rid of unpopular governments.

19. You think FPTP makes it easy to get rid of unpopular governments? Just look at the figures for 1987 and (especially) 2005.

20. Whatever system is in place, the Lib Dems will get a kicking at the next general election.

21. The Conservatives like FPTP so they can exploit the split on the left and often get a majority of seats with a minority of votes.

22. It is hard to predict what will happen in the future, but in the past AV would mostly have benefited the Lib Dems and Labour at the expense of the Tories.

23. It’s not true that bringing in AV would cost £250 million. The correct figure is more like £25 million (which is needed to explain to people that when the ballot paper asks them to put the candidates they like in order of preference, then they have nothing to gain by not doing so).

24. The outcome of the referendum will affect us for decades. Whichever way the vote goes, Nick Clegg will be forgotten about after five years. David Cameron and George Osborne want you to vote no and Ed Miliband wants you to vote yes.