Category: Psychology

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.

How to drive your pastor wacky & get the spice back in your spouse

Fortunately, since I’m not a Bible believing Christian, I don’t have to bug MY pastor with any of these questions.  Actually today was the last day Beacon meets at Place Maillardville, so I kinda sorta had to go.  Twenty five years! 

 But what I like the most about the list shown in the previous paragraph is that it was developed by a seminary trained former pastor, which means that there are inconsistencies here I haven’t heard of before – not having spent years poring over the text.  And I don’t have a problem with Jesus.  I have a problem with there being some kind of a code that says that I have to hand my brain over to a bunch of people who don’t act as if they like me, let alone love me, to follow Jesus.  Jesus himself lived his principles, and damned few of us can say that.

And now for something completely different.  I’m reading a book called Mating in Captivity, and it is one of the best books about how domesticity and sex duke it out in married life I have ever, ever seen.  It is nuanced, humane and accessible and I highly recommend it.  You can’t miss the cover.

News roundup

Hurricane forecast accuracy is reduced, but you’re not supposed to complain about it.

Pride has two faces. 

Alcohol protects against rheumatoid arthritis?  I’ll drink to that !!  Ooh, and further down it says that breastfeeding longer than 13 months protects against rheumatoid arthritis as well!  (May protect, anyway, according to preliminary research…)

Junk DNA isn’t really junk?

Monty Python was wrong…. there is no Universally Funny Joke.

The majority of mammalian genes tick to a circadian clock.