Month: July 2007

Rocked out article on skepticism

Thank you thank you Skeptical Inquirer

Instant corollary – no Bible believing Christian actually can believe everything in the Bible because of the internal inconsistences.  We are all on the same side of that divide, folks.  Whether we’re skeptics or not, knowing is imperfect.

I’ve had a quiet time to myself to actually think about my belief systems, and how it relates to what I want.  Wouldn’t it make sense for me to invent a belief system whereby I get to believe the things I want to believe?

I believe that God was invented because humans do bad (reproductively competitive) things to each other. Those on the  receiving end of the bad behaviour wanted a fix where there wasn’t one.   In ape troupes there’s always the threat of the restoration of order by the meanest, strongest or closest ape up the chain o’ being…. when we got sophisticated in our use of language, the concept of the ‘ever present boss ape’ stepped out of our heads and became God.  God will punish you for the bad things you’ve done!!  There now, don’t you feel less helpless?  Your big invisible friend will help.

But somethin’ fckd up majorly along the way.  Cosmology and physics are conspiring to drive us through God’s gate, little skeptical sheep who do not believe the gate is there and are convinced it’s a cliff.  Run away, run away little sheep!  God will get you.

I don’t believe in a personal God… I find the idea ludicrous. I do believe in the essential unity of all things, a unity in matter, which needs affect consciousness.  (Matter wants to be conscious… consciousness requires matter).  I don’t believe anything I currently enjoy about my body will survive my death; I do believe that what I’ve DONE will survive, to the extent anything can survive on this fragile ball of mud.  To restate, some poor bastard will be wishing they never heard the tapioca song a hundred years from now, and curse the anonymous female who wrote it.  And there may be little hazel eyed three year old girls who can’t keep their clothes on  stalking critters at the beach, who have a  big  chunk of my DNA.  But that’s it for my survival.   Peggy has said, about  the existence of God, that she’s not sure it’s a meaningful question.  I’m standing over there, with her.

Got to get over to Paul’s today

and email myself all of my songs….  I have a request for one of my tunes from one of the guys out at Jericho so I need to scrape them off the hard drive and send them over to myself.  I thought I had actually backed them up, but I was wrong.

Tonight, Thai food with Keith & rest of famille.

Today, arranging books.  I have figured out how I’m going to do that now; it only took me nine weeks.

Keith’s B-day tomorrow – Robert Anson Heinlein’s today

The four of us are planning to get together for his birthday. I already bought his present but it will probably arrive next week.

Had the folks over for beers last night; in attendance, Melissa, Ryan, Brian C, Jarmo and Rob of Nine, who was, unfortunately, not able to massage my printer into compliance as there is no driver for it. Drat.

After they all left, Swampy came over for a beer and told me that things are going much more smoothly than he anticipated and it was just really pleasant to have him here – and we discussed a couple of books, including Focusing and The Dosadi Experiment (which is basically a fast forward through Dune without the religion and with a kickass courtroom scene at the end). Then at nine my date came over. We sat outside next to the fountain until about the fourth time he slapped a mosquito (imagine that… a guy who gets bit by mosquitoes more than I do!?) at which point I said that I found it unconscionably inhospitable to contribute to his discomfort so, and besides, there was beer and a bathroom back at my place…

So I guess I’ve had a very sociable weekend already and it ain’t even noon on Saturday yet.

Today is the 100th centenary of Heinlein’s birth. How I wished he could have become a blogger. Okay, I don’t but it makes me laugh to think about how he would have talked about the last three or four sets of American governments.

I talked to Kira on the phone today.  She was purring.  Zeek!, thank heaven, is back to his old self and the bloody spot under his chin has cleared up.  His bloodwork came back okay so the 1200 vet bill Paul and I were looking at turned out not to be necessary.

Keith will come by today before work with more Aubrey/Maturin for me.  (more, more more!) and some other media for me to peruse (hopefully Fables III and IV).

I watched Denis Leary’s music video of Asshole last night.  I always liked the song, but the video was brilliant, IMO.

Facebook is extremely amusing, and I’m having loads o’ fun with it.  Mostly poking people.  I’ve gotten into a poking contest with two people; I know that sounds rude, but it’s harmless virtual primate fun.

Here’s a cool “matrix style” domestic argument, from Japanese TV.

Self-indulgence in nostalgia

No one who comes here will ever want to watch this video. I’m putting it here so I can find it again.  I would like Keith to see it (and Kate too).  I fell in love with this girl; there are definitely flashes of brilliance in this self indulgent, heavily edited, stream of consciousness video.  I’m really having a lot of nostalgic moments these days so it’s interesting to compare my nostalgia with that of a contemporary young woman.

Also a friend forwarded a really nostalgic email recently, all about what it was like growing up in the fifties.  I grew up in the sixties and seventies so the stuff I get nostalgic about is a little different… but I remember being nine years old and allowed to wander around the neighbourhood (in daylight hours) with a punk stick and about $5 worth of firecrackers, which was a ****load of fireworks in those days.  Man, them was some good times.