Creationists: I can't find your opinion on these two things.

Will any creationist who reads this (or anyone who rejects evolution at all) please lend me answers (of your own or from the web or in book-form) on the following two subjects.

1.
Influenza Viruses evolving to resist vaccinations:
Creationists completely reject evolution based off of "incomplete evidence" (but really because it conflicts with their archaic scripture and they wouldn't believe it anyway). So, if evolution doesn't exists, is God updating the flu virus to kill those with weaker immune systems--such as elder folks and children--similarly how he caused AIDS as the curse/cure for homosexuality, or what? How are these flu viruses evolving a resistance if evolution is a lie?

2.
Tiktaalik:
If you don't know what this is, and you reject evolution, then close your mouth until you study the evidences against your stance. If you do know what it is, what is your explanation for this if evolution doesn't exist. I'll even provide you a picture and wikipedia link.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik

For Serious Consideration...

What is the most beautiful thing in the world?



Why?

Diversity

is a good thing.

Currently Reading:

• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
• Evolution for Dummies
• Edgar Allan Poe poems (complete works)

Soon to be reading:

• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
• The End of Faith by Sam Harris
• Repetition by Soren Kierkegaard
• Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
• Reason, Truth and History by Hilary Putnam
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
• The Man Who Heard Voices (about M. Night Shyamalan) by Michael Bamberger
• Voyage of Discovery (History of Philosophical Thought)
• Experiments in Ethics by Kwame Anthony Appiah
• The Tunnel by Russell Edson

and anything else in between and also whatever else I am prescribed to read at school.

Understanding Memetics by way of Evolutionary Philosophy of Mind

If any random person (or person I know) can lead me to reliable research resources in this field, let me know.

My current interests can almost be entirely summed up in the title of this post.

Darfur

I have nothing to say other than this: I cannot believe this has not been "fixed" yet. The world is dying.

I Wish It Wasn't Extinct

The Quagga. Went extinct in 1883 (unfortunately). This is (or was) a Half Zebra, Half Horse. This is the first extinct species to have its DNA studies.



I only wish I could have seen one.

Interesting Animal Senses

Ants:

• Can detect small movement through 5 cm of earth.
• Can see polarized light

Bees:

• Can see light between wavelengths 300 nm and 650 nm.
• Have chemoreceptors (taste receptors) on their jaws, forelimbs and antennae.
• Worker honey bees have 5,500 lenses ("ommatidia") in each eye.
• Worker honey bees have a ring of iron oxide ("magnetite") in their abdomens that may be used to detect magnetic fields. They may use this ability to detect changes in the earth's magnetic field and use it for navigation.
• Can see polarized light.

Cockroach

• Can detect movement as small as 2,000 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom.

Dragonfly

• Eye contains 30,000 lenses.

Fly

• Each eye has 3,000 lenses. (Simmons and Young, 1999)
• Eye has a flicker fusion rate of 300/sec. Humans have a flicker fusion rate of only 60/sec in bright light and 24/sec in dim light. The flicker fusion rate is the frequency with which the "flicker" of an image cannot be distinguished as an individual event. Like the frame of a movie...if you slowed it down, you would see individual frames. Speed it up and you see a constantly moving image.
• The small parasitic fly (Ormia ochracea) can locate sounds within a range of only 2^o of the midline. (Mason et al., Nature, 410:686-690, 2001)
• Blowflies taste with 3,000 sensory hairs on their feet.

Octopus

• Retina contains 20 million photoreceptors.
• The eye has a flicker fusion frequency of 70/sec in bright light.
• The pupil of the eye is rectangular.
• Has chemoreceptors (taste receptors) on the suckers of their tentacles. By tasting this way, an octopus does not have to leave the safety of its home.

Cat

• Has hearing range between 100 and 60,000 Hz.
• Olfactory membrane about 14 sq. cm. For comparison, humans have an olfactory membrane of about 4 sq. cm.

Sparrow

• Retina has 400,000 photoreceptors per sq. mm.

For more interesting facts, go to: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/amaze.html

Religious Quotes:

"The male homosexual is the most dangerous preditor that is allowed to walk free on the earth."
--Sam Woodgeard

"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."
--Pat Robertson

"We've got to have some common sense about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts."
--Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC)

"When lawlessness is abroad in the land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals--the two things seem to go together."
--Pat Robertson

"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."
--Reverend Jerry Falwell

"The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian."
--Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC)

"When a woman wishes to serve Christ more than the world, then she will cease to be a woman and will be called man."
--St. Jerome

"For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man."
--The Bible; 1 Corinthians 11:8-9

But let's not forget, men, you must love Jesus more than any woman.

Remembering Carlin and Hicks.

So, as everyone has now heard--I'm sure--George Carlin passed away at the age of 71. Here's part of his act for the memory (and below some words in memory of Bill Hicks).

Carlin:



Hicks:
The world is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round and it has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and it's very loud. And it's fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: 'Is this real? Or is this just a ride?' And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and they say 'Hey! Don't worry, don't be afraid - ever - because... this is just a ride.' And we kill those people.

'Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride! Shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry; look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real.'

It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that - ever notice that? - and we let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because... it's just a ride, and we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort. No worry. No job. No savings and money. Just a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy bigger guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.

Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, into a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defense each year and, instead, spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would do many times over - not one human being excluded - and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever. In peace.

RIP

War in Iraq... Breaking Down the Numbers

Congress just approved another 162 billion dollars for war in Iraq, and with little conflict. Democrats are becoming weak; or maybe this is all a game. But 162 billion dollars FOR WAR should NOT be taken lightly. Let me break this down for you in a very simplistic way.

In the 6 years we've been at war, an estimated 1.2 million Iraqi civilians have been killed, and over 4,000 U.S. troops. And JUST THIS WEEK we've approved 162 billion dollars for the next YEAR of war. So, let's break this down onto a daily, monthly, hourly, and yes, even to a second by second basis.

This means on average 1.8 American troops die PER DAY. Every DAY that troops are over there "fighting," an average of two (of the troops people supposedly support) DIE. Dead. Never come back. But that's not the worst.

In the 6 years of war, 1.2 MILLION Iraqi civilians have died (the vast, vast, vast majority innocent men, women, and children). Breaking this down day by day is still to high. Because this equals to about 550 Iraqi civilians killed PER DAY. That means 22 civilians are killed every hour in Iraq on average! Which means that about every 3 minutes, an innocent civilian dies in Iraq... a country that had nothing to do with September 11th.

Now, to look at this 162 billion dollars for the next year of war. 162 billion dollars equals out to $443, 835, 616.40... PER DAY! Yes, that is nearly 450 million dollars per day. There are research grants requested to cure diseases such as AIDS that don't even get 1% of that in any given year; some, not even in a decade, or ever! Hurricane Katrina victims got 10.5 billion for all of that damage. We spend that in Iraq in about THREE WEEKS!
But, let's break this down even more, this means that congress just approved (in the form of money we don't even have, mind you) $18, 493, 150.68 (over 18 million dollars) PER HOUR for WAR. Which is also about $308,219.18 per MINUTE. Which is over $5,000 per SECOND! Per second!!!! Our congress just approved 5,000 dollars per second for WAR in Iraq. A war in which we kill an average of a civilian every 3 minutes. So how much does it cost to kill one civilian (how much do we spend every 3 minutes in Iraq?): just barely under $1,000,000 (one million dollars)! Let me say that one more time in case it didn't sink it. WE! SPEND! ONE! MILLION! DOLLARS! EVERY! THREE! MINUTES! ON! WAR! IN! IRAQ! AND! KILL! A! CIVILIAN! EVERY! THREE! MINUTES! TOO!

It takes me about 5 minutes to drive to the grocery store and buy a bottle of water that costs one dollar. But we Americans, as a country, spend one dollar on war in less than 1/5000th of a second, every second... and have been doing so for over 6 years.

And finally... the cherry on top (so to speak). We spend this much and kill this much in a country (2 countries counting Afghanistan) that had absolutely nothing to do with the September 11th, 2001 attacks. The attacks were supposedly orchestrated by Bin Laden, who lives in Saudi Arabia. Coincidentally, Saudi Arabia is where we get most of our oil from, and who we just met with to try and find a way to keep oil at $4 a gallon, instead of having it rise even more. That's the "country" we deem responsible for Sept. 11th. And they are the country we are doing business with.

That is all.

Comparing "god" and "terrorism".

When looking at the parallels between the definition of god and the definition of terrorism, the similarities are striking. Granted this will seem extremely offensive right off to any theist, look for yourself before condemning the messanger.

Definition of “Terrorism” (according to onelook.com’s online dictionary:
The calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.

Compare this to the biblical god (and surely any pagan, Muslim, etc., god) and you will see striking similarities.

Terrorism: The calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are religious in nature.
God: Threatens violence upon people who won’t follow religious ideals. Does so by threatening eternal hell and punishment.

Terrorism: This is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.
God: Quoted many times throughout the bible issuing threats and saying “fear me” and so on. All three: god uses intimidation, coercion, and fear tactics.

Terrorism: Uses fear as an instrument to cause change in individuals.
God: Uses fear as an instrument to cause change in individuals.

The Buddhists postulate correctly in saying, “The Buddha, like modern sociologists and psychologists, believed that religious ideas and especially the god idea have their origin in fear.”


Rom 1:18 (Wey) For God's anger is being revealed from Heaven against all impiety and against the iniquity of men who through iniquity suppress the truth. God is angry.


No one would believe in these gods without the fear of punishment for not doing so. It is the fear that keeps people conscious of both terrorism and of god.

I wonder...

Does anybody even read anything I post here? Is this my own personal corner where I schizophrenically accompany only myself?

Faith

By faith, a murderer can be understood as a saint.
By faith, a hallucination can be understood as a psychic premonition.
By faith, no evidence can be understood as the greatest proof of all.
By faith, the best evidence can be disregarded with no counterclaim.
By faith, free will can be predetermined.
By faith, three gods can be one, and one can be three.
By faith, a perfect law can be changed for a better one.
By faith, something “begotten” can be eternal.
By faith, prayer can change what is already determined.
By faith, a snake can talk to a human.
By faith, those who don’t have faith, can be burned for eternity.
By faith, Santa Claus flies around the world in one night.
By faith, a giant bunny hops around the world in one night.
By faith, a fairy will pay you for your teeth.
By reason, all of the above are completely preposterous.

A Poem I Had Published by the literary journal at my college.

Atheogony

Thick snow pours upon us
Like the ashes of heaven!
God’s schizophrenia now
Manifesting its own bleak
Contemplation.

The mountains succumbing
To the evergrey clouds,
Screaming as if they had
Never been caressed by this
Immortality.

This perplexing moment
Of clarity, as God loses
All self esteem, unintentionally
Becoming an atheist – a
Reality!

The cinders cover all
The nouns of the earth,
Gaia propped up gently
On her back, absorbing
Sunlight

That scorches her to death.
For the first time in my life
The sun rises – not The Son –
And drenches the masses with
Redemption.

Soon the blanket that covers
Gaia’s immortal corpse
Will be lifted, and I will
Embrace the beauty like never
Before.

I no longer have to wait to go home –
I am already there.

Final Thought About Christianity's Origin

This is my “closing argument”—so to speak—when concerning Christianity. Can we definitively “prove” without a doubt that Christianity is a false doctrine? Probably not. But can we narrow the probability of it being a true doctrine? Yes.
All of Christianity, every single teeny tiny thing that Christianity has stemmed from, comes back to one point. Every single sin, every single death, god sending himself down to issue the redemption challenge, every kitten and child drown in the great flood, every person condemned eternally to hell, every person of another faith stoned to death (and also every religious person of the same faith who was simply picking up sticks on the Sabbath, who was stoned to death), every misfortune in the world, every disease ever to exist, the very reason both the Old and New Testaments were written, the reason for prayer, the reason to sit in church every Sunday, and yes (as I can not epitomize this enough) EVERY SINGLE THING that has to do with Christianity; whether killing in the Old Testament or saving in the New Testament—EVERYTHING!—comes down to one action: That a woman, who was deceived by a talking snake, ate a piece of fruit. That’s all. That’s the reason for all of this. It’s the reason we wear clothes, the reason we fight, the reason we feel pain (not only in child birth, but all pain), the reason we must work for a living, the reason we sin, and yes, the very reason we all die. A woman listened to the words of a snake and ate a piece of fruit.
So if your child dies, if you get your leg crushed in an earthquake, if your animal dies of some obscure disease, if your son rapes the neighbors daughter, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, John Gacy, Hitler, and all other deplorable things… these are merely the CONSEQUENCE! OF A WOMAN! WHO LISTENED TO A TALKING SNAKE! AND DECIDED TO EAT A PIECE OF FRUIT! It all stems from this one action.
Is this “proof” definitive, absolute, conclusive, et cetera enough to say that Christianity is one big fat lie? Sadly, no, it is not (somehow). But it is up to you to decide. Do you believe, and I mean truly believe as a true fact, that everything horrible in the world that has EVER happened, is the direct result of a woman being deceived by a talking snake? If you do not believe this, you are not a true Christian. And if you do believe this… what a horrible god to follow.

Please Recycle

A (boisterous and primitive) Nietzschean look at Hesiod's "The Hymn to Hekate"

Abstract - or in the evolution process:

The thing considered most universal among all of humankind—when specifically regarding corporeal nature—is the concept of mortality. We quite literally bet our lives on the fact that nothing physical persists eternally. As rational beings we compensate for this lack of the eternal by conceptualizing abstract realms of infinity: such as in the case of mathematics. Unfortunately, theoretical reasoning tends to produce no empirical evidence for anything eternal—rendering the mathematical equation for infinity as the least objective.
Consequently, nearly every culture that has existed has possessed a will to immortality. Surely, listing the various ideologies of our recorded history would seem rather trite, but I assume anybody can think of fifteen religions off the top of their head—if not fifty—dealing with a promise of immortality. If most of us admit that we are certainly mortal, why then do most cultures—and surely individuals—hold on to this will to become immortal? This will certainly persists in human nature alone, as animals don’t possess the rationality needed in order to conceptualize such an endless realm of existence.

In ancient times, mortals realized that if one were to attain immortality, it must be through physical means. Thus they glorified the name of human beings for such acts as Olympic competition and especially the act of heroically dying in battle. This was all divined through Hesiod somewhere around 800 BCE.
However, this excluded the weaker human being from ever having the opportunity of attaining immortality. From this, Nietzsche speculated a revolt—or a sort of revenge—which grew out of bitter hatred toward the noble class. However, this possibly could have been a revolt, not against the noble class per se, but at the divine theory of a mortals possibility to attain immortality.
This so-called “revolt” first changed religiously, not politically or from any other seed. This movement was one of mere religious nature, which then grew out to other realms as it evolved memetically.
This revolt Nietzsche speaks of—in the context of master/slave morality—is probably more than likely correct, but not for the precise reasons he posited. It is, rather, the unbridled will to immortality that we, as evolving entities, possess intrinsically without our nature in order to better survive and persist as a species. All species (and all living organisms) possess this will intrinsically; but with the human beings more evolved and rational mind, we go beyond the physical in hopes of attaining this. But alas, this "hope" we wish to grasp at all costs will prove to be nothing more than the hope to win the lottery. It will always exist as something to look forward to, but something that will probably never exist.

NOTE:
The title mentions "The Hymn to Hekate" simply because of an interpretation I am currently working out from Hesiod's text "Theogony"; in which I argue that Hesiod (who first mentioned Hekate in literature) intended her to be the Goddess of Immortality, rather than the dark persona of witchcraft she is currently associated with. It's a rendition of how things can be hijacked and warped overtime: be it in making The Goddess of Immortality a Witch, or in making Mortal Life desired to a lesser extent than the unsure Immortal Life.

The Mind is a Curious Entity

Your mind is a logical system that works through hundreds of trillions of neural connections and sequences. Vision is simply an illusion that is processed by these connections, nothing more.



The image above never moves (obviously), however, when you move forward and backward your brain becomes confused with the information and compensates by rearranging what you see, which gives the illusion of movement. The image itself is not moving, but your brain causes this erroneously. The so-called "movement" is merely just "confusion".

So, does this cause any other problems when regarding reality? This is why the research persists. Is perception reality? Are there objective (mind independent) facts about life, or only what exists in our neural network? What other compensations do our minds make in everyday life? And so on...

The Mind is a very curious thing. Does it work independently of our body? No. Can it? Probably not, but who knows. One thing is for certain, it has the potential for limitless possibilities.

Do yourselves a favor... EXPLORE THE MIND!

Obscure Religious Conjecture

Morals:
The argument suggests that to have morals (or good and bad/evil for that matter) we need a moral law, and thus, we also need a moral lawgiver: a god. In order for “good” or “bad” or “evil” or “moral” to exist, it must—for some reason—be absolute and eternal and universal.
However, it doesn’t take long to see two peculiar and damaging points opposed to this claim (especially when concerning Christianity).
1) The so-called morals of the Old Testament vary almost completely from the New Testament morals. Isn't god unchanging and perfect?
2) If the average contemporary religious person acted a thousand years ago how they act now, they would be considered immoral, impious, or downright “evil”. It’s relative to time/culture.

God:
According to The Bible, this “all-loving” god became quite angry at all living things on Earth—excluding Noah and his family—and decided, what the hell… why not drown everyone and everything in the world save one family and two of each animal. That’s right, folks, every newborn baby, every relative of Noah and his family, every saint, sinner, toddler, baby kitten, adult giraffe, artist, preacher, panda bear, and so on—all of them! God became so enraged with society that he not only killed the sinners who encouraged his wrath, but also all of the innocent children, animals, and anything else that enjoyed life. The bugs, however, were spared, because they thrive on such conditions. Are bugs god’s favored species?

The Bible:
A book written by dozens of anonymous people that we have nearly no historical account of. A book canonized by popes and preachers, who debated which books should be accepted and which should be cast aside… all by reason; not by prayer, meditation, or revelation. A book that’s first half is the polar opposite of the second half, but claims to have an unchanging and perfect god as the author. Amen.

Post Script in the form of a Nietzsche quote: "It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn author - and that he did not learn it better."