Halloween?

Can anyone explain to me what the point of Halloween is? I've been baffled for years, a celebration of a bunch of evil entities that don't exist but apparently still scare the crap out of some people (Catholics I'm looking at you!) at a time of the year when its always cold and drizzly, why? And just don't get me started about "trick or treat", what a stupid (American) tradition, if you're going to go to the bother of dressing up and wandering door to door extorting sweets from people by threatening them, at least be prepared to follow through with something that's original and ideally amusing or even ironic (which it never is!)

At least we've got bonfire night coming up, now there's a proper celebration grounded in reality....

Digitally touching cloth...

This little clip made me smirk today, it's a totally serious piece of engineering research and hugely impressive it is too (so long as the obstacles aren't pre-programmed); the thing that made me giggle was simply the thought that scientists and engineers have probably spent millions of dollars and many years of effort to produce a robot that looks just like the average drunken youth staggering around our town centres come Friday or Saturday night, I love it, especially the bit at the end, is it me or does he look desperate for something?

I'm a C grade sinner..

Here's a picture taken outside the recent Texas Freethought Convention held in Austin; it's a Christian chap (of some sort) warning the attendees of what awaits them if they continue on what he thinks is the path of un-righteousness, destination hell of course; presumably the fiery, infinite torment variety so bafflingly beloved of so many of our religious brothers and sisters, love em.

Possessing a liberal perspective on life, but mainly just being a grown up, I'm not offended at this kind of thing; my normal reaction would simply be a quick roll of the eyes before moving swiftly on, but being a devilishly competitive soul I paused to take a closer look at the list and realised to my horror that I only score 5/10! A rather paltry C grade (or B* if you measure it by modern A level standards) I really must try harder.

Now, where can I get a cauldron full of stolen golden cows?..

Elitism for dummies

Hat-tip to my fellow blogger and Archdruid over at that epicentre of Beaker culture (near Milton Keynes) for this little story. It's about 11 year old wannabe boy scout George Pratt, resident of Midsomer Norton near Bath who has been chucked out of that movement after 10 months of service because he doesn't believe in God.

I posted on this subject before when I learned that the boy scout movement is an openly elitist organisation who insist that members must believe in God (they're not particularly fussy about which ones) in order to attain full membership. A unbelieving cynic (like me) simply sees this as a way of ensuring the maintenance of an unquestioning "in-group", i.e. that regardless or your character, ethics, ability or background, as long as you have an invisible friend that you are willing to make a promise to then you're in. This is a shame since what I fear this constraint actually does is make unnecessary bluffers of a good proportion of it's young members (great moral lesson for future life there!). Anyway as any parent knows, forget Yahweh, Allah and Buddha how many 10 year old kids actually have enough insight into anything to have strong convictions about it? (other than PlayStation or XBox of course...)

As the good Archdruid points out (and she should know!) this entry qualification is actually more onerous than those required to join most mainstream religions in the first place, entry into those organisations seems to rest with some third party mumbling a few words whilst dribbling magic water on a baby's head or hacking at some body part or other of an unfortunate infant, in both cases reassuringly far too young to understand what the hell is going on.

Hopefully if Pratt junior can manage to dodge the multitudes of murderers that live in places called "Midsomer" long enough to accrue some broader perspective on this matter he will realise that he's actually lucky to have avoided yet another mechanism for religious indoctrination, but more importantly as he gets older he'll realise that you don't need a woggle to have fun rubbing things together outdoors!

Human traffic

I've blogged on the subject of Gary McKinnon before it's a matter that's been around for quite a few years now. Today I'm pleased to learn that the extradition case against him has been dropped and he's going to stay here in the UK.

The thing I could never get my head around was why the US authorities felt it necessary to conduct legal proceedings against McKinnon in the USA when his crimes were actually committed in the UK? The potential double standard at work here always seemed inedible to me, it wasn't so long ago that a New York judge refused to extradite an IRA terrorist to the UK on the grounds that his murderous acts were "political", a somewhat optimistic interpretation of events. No doubt questions will now be asked about the differences between a rejected case like this one and that of Abu Hamza; one major difference that I can see is motive, McKinnon was looking for UFO's; Hamza's beliefs are much less credible.

Weird ideas, pt. 1

I think therefore I am (or not)

I must remember to speak to the Inland revenue about this...

TGIF

This one is for those of us that make a living by writing software (aka coders), it's a comparison between writing software and creating music; they are both similar in many respects and are things I love to do, but as can be seen from this chart only one pays the bills adequately ...

Dignity

This is Malala Yousufzai, she is a Pakistani school girl who had the balls to stand up to the bearded cowards who claim to be the custodians of morality in her region of Pakistan. We know these thugs as the "Taliban", and moral they are clearly not; by any standard, seeking out a young defenceless child on a school bus and putting a bullet in her skull is a morality and a system of ethics that most people would rather die fighting against than play any part in, regardless of their religious indoctrination or lack thereof. If you haven't heard of this story before it's about a teenager (Malala) who simply wants the chance to receive an education and live a normal life, her only crime is that she isn't afraid of saying so and speaking out against the oppression she and her fellow female Muslims suffer at the hands of these misogynists. Now she lays in a hospital bed fighting for her life. It doesn't take much intelligence, even for an "Islamic scholar", to realise that Malala is victim of injustice and along with all the other Women the Taliban have executed has more courage and dignity in a single blood cell than all the rug-butting retards that put her there have, or will ever possess. I wish her well and hope she makes a full recovery.

How can we be moral without religion?

Its Friday so time for a (nicked) cartoon, this one says everything you need to know about the relationship between theology, religion and human morality; from the excellent "Jesus & Mo" series.

I rubber stamp this art..

Occasionally you see a piece of art and think wow, that must have taken huge skill, persistence and effort! This is one such a work, it's by an artist called Federico Pietrella and can be seen at the Saatchi gallery; believe it or not it's made entirely from a simple rubber date-stamp, if you don't believe me then check the image below (which is a close-up) view.

Amazing!

Blasphemy R Us

Today is International Blasphemy Rights day, a day when people who value freedom of thought and expression can show solidarity by challenging reigning religious beliefs hopefully without fear of murder, litigation, or reprisal. Unfortunately for most people outside of the liberal countries such as the UK and the USA (excluding parts of Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina) this is something that would be unthinkable. In Bangladesh for example a mob of Muslims decided that a Buddhist man was out of order putting an image of a burning book on his Facebook page by visiting the Buddhist temples around their area and setting fire to them.

This kind of excessive religious response to non-violent protest, criticism, satire or even simple disbelief is increasingly common as the march of progress and enlightenment moves through populations of people stultified by years of oppressive theocracy and tradition. It seems like a non-issue here in the UK but if you notice these things there are many places in the world where people actually get locked up, harmed or even killed for simply being public about having intellectual doubts over the blatant hogwash that most incumbent religions peddle. What is even more noticeable is the nature of the reaction of those outraged religions, particularly Islam, the outrageousness of the claims seem to directly correlate to the excessiveness of the response. Even in moderate supposedly secular countries there is an alarming tendency for authorities to capitulate over harmless fun making or even spiteful fun making, take Greece for example where the Orthodox Church has a highly privileged position in society; recently a 27 year old man was arrested and charged for blasphemy, his crime, to make fun of a clergyman, he now faces a possible 2 years in prison for this act, which in most civilised places would be dealt with by a quick roll of the eyes and a rapid resumption of normal business. In places like Indonesia, Egypt and Pakistan it's not hard to find stories about people being abused, injured and jailed for thought crime gift wrapped as "blasphemy". Even Anglican Bishops seem in favour of international laws that protect their club from criticism, recently 4 of them wrote to the head of the UN asking for..

"We hereby suggest that an international declaration be negotiated that outlaws the intentional and deliberate insulting or defamation of persons (such as prophets), symbols, texts and constructs of belief deemed holy by people of faith.”

Of course what they don't say or perhaps don't realise that this means EVERY two bit prophet and quack will be protected, unless someone draws up a list of course, just imagine the bloodshed that would initiate! How much hate crime would be unleashed on countless minorities and unfortunates around the world if such an abomination were made law, it would be shameful and in my view simply harden resolve and deepen the divide between faith and reason everywhere.

So, watch out, if the people of "God" get their way not only will we all have to suck up to mythical folks like Mohamed and Jesus but also real hucksters people like Joseph Smith, David Koresh and, God forbid, David Icke.. they'll have to pry the keyboard from my cold dead hands...

Humbling Hubble

There are many things in life that are humbling, watching the paralympics, listening to a great piece of music, climbing an Egyptian pyramid etc. but when I think about some of the big questions nothing could be more humbling than to better understand our place and significance in the universe we live in.

The latest deep field picture from the Hubble telescope illustrates this position very well. Actually it's not one picture it's 2000 pictures (all stitched together) of a minute patch of space (the little square next to the Moon) taken with a really long exposure in order to capture as much of the light as possible emanating from unimaginably distant objects. As you can see the little patch of space that, to the naked eye, looks utterly black and empty is crammed full of entire galaxies. Now, a galaxy is a collection of a billion or more stars, we live in a spiral galaxy called the milky way which itself has over a billion stars (like our Sun) in it and is so big that it takes light 100,000 years to get from one side to the other and light is no slouch! The number of stars visible in this one little square of space is simply mind boggling and each star is likely to have planets orbiting around it, so the number of possible places where life could possibly have evolved is boggling times 10.

I always think about this image when I hear about fellow primates getting over excited about who "owns" some little patch of land for an insignificant sliver of time somewhere on our insignificant planet. A small strip of semi-arid scrub at the Eastern end of the Mediterranean or some tiny Island in the middle of the East China Sea to name but two of many examples, in the words of a wise man, “The fundamental cause of trouble in the world is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

Kids (toys) in SPACE!

Here's a nice little story, it's about a guy who attached his kid's favourite toy to a weather balloon and let it rise to the edge of space, then he made this little video of events. We've been able to do this for quite a while now helium has been around for a few years, what's new is cheap (light) hardware to film the voyage and GPS so that the film can be located once it plummets back to Earth. I'm tempted to have a go at this, although I suspect you're not allowed to gaffer tape the actual boy to the balloon much as he's up for it, bloody health and safety...

Pointless

I came across this little story today, it struck me as an incredibly dumb and pointless way for someone to die. I can't imagine what its going to say on his tombstone but it probably won't be this...

Abdullah Ismail extinguished his fleeting and precious existence in this universe, giving up the potentially wonderful and luminous experience that Human life on this planet can be because he...

Believed a story about a super human man and a flying horse and was convinced by other men who believe the same story to be offended by other men who Abdul had never met. These other men don't believe the flying horse story and believe a super human zombie man story instead, they live on the other side of the planet from dear Abdul. The offence was caused because the zombie following men made a set of flickering images making fun of the flying horse man, which Abdullah never actually saw because he was too poor to own a computer with a connection to the internet. So, the best way that Abdullah and his friends could think of to protest about their offence was to set fire to a number of pieces of polyester 2 ply cloth. These pieces of cloth were coloured red, white and blue in the form of an abstract symbol representing a loose collection of land areas called "America", these areas of land contain millions of different people, some of whom believe the flying horse story and others the zombie story among other magical stories too numerous to mention. The cloth wasn't actually made in America by the zombie men but was made in yet another patch of land by people who believe a story about a fat man who said wise things about transforming yourself into an ant when you die. Abdullah died because he inhaled too many of the combustion products from the burning of all those pieces of cloth, the smoke that poisoned him would have included chemicals such as Benzene, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon monoxide and acetic acid, unfortunately for Abdullah science wasn't his strong suit, he preferred stories about flying horses, now he's dead and this is sad because no one, apart from the people who loved him, really gives a shit.

Sometimes I ask myself

David Cameron recently moved Baroness Warsi from being Conservative Party Chairman to a new role, that of "Minister for Faith and Communities", my question is, do we really need a "Ministry of Faith"?

I guess many people would claim that millions of UK citizens are religious and therefore some kind of reflection of this is needed in Government, but why? Do religious people require different services and laws from non-religious people, do they not use the same Health services, public transport and education system as the rest of us? Unlike properly secular countries, in the UK we already have 26 unelected Bishops in the upper house of our Government, does faith need any more special representation than this..

I fear this new appointment introduces unnecessary dangers of division and inequality among people in that it may further institutionalise the notion of a "faith community" as a demographic grouping defined by a particular religious belief. This idea is inherently troubling and problematic. It assumes that people have common political interests just because they share a religious label: indeed, it encourages these groups to adopt a religious identity for political rather than spiritual reasons, and that is bad both for politics and for religion. And it potentially privileges people who assert a religious identity over those who don't. Even though polls show clearly that half of people in this country aren't religious, there's not going to be a minister for secularism.

Morality distortion field

The expression on my fellow primate's face sums up my feelings about this. I'm talking about the fact that in the name of Muslim solidarity a religion and it's leaders are able to warp peoples innate morality to the extent that they feel it's their duty to destroy property and kill non-Muslims over a pathetic piece of trash film on the internet that nominally hurts their feelings whereas those same people remain silent as a Muslim government drops fire and death on it's own children.

This isn't moral, wise or even sane, Hitchens was right, it poisons everything.

ta, da, dada ... can't touch this..

Jesus and Mo, on the money as usual....

Brains, words and reality...

I've always wondered what people are talking about when they say "spiritual". Moderately religious people say it all the time, the classic apologist line of "I'm not religious but I am a spiritual person" springs to mind. I've always pigeon-holed people who say this to me as really meaning that they can't be bothered to invest in the ritual and paraphernalia of organised religion but can't let go of the wishful thought that they might have a  benevolent father in the sky that looks out for them. It always seems like a cop out to me, trying to benefit from in-group membership without putting the effort in, anyway, I've never had anyone adequately describe what it means or why this feeling isn't entirely natural and human.

When I think about this feeling my conclusion is that "spiritual" simply means a feeling of wonder or awe, quite natural and totally expected when you possess a powerful reasoning simulation engine like a human brain (some more powerful than others of course!) This feeling is usually invoked by observing something surprising or inspiring and seems to be because my reasoning brain calculates the effort involved and the achievement accrued or perhaps the improbability of the event. I suppose if I exclude thinking about non-existent (low probability) entities then most people must experience this at some point, and I suspect depending on their environment and conditioning different things will be agents for spiritual feelings. The photograph above was taken by wildlife photographer Bobby Haas in Mexico and shows the fleeting instant a flock of flamingos formed into the shape of, well, a flamingo! I don't know if Mr Haas is a religious person or not but in his interview he talks about the "holy grail" of wildlife photography and the moment he snapped this picture as a "spiritual" moment, his meaning is not clear but this is obviously a very low probability event.

Brain chemistry is a truly complex thing and in a rather tenuous and weak segue to other chemistry news I noticed on the BBC site today that the IBM laboratory in  Zurich has published some more pictures of atoms (see below)

The scale of this picture is mind boggling, what you're looking at are individual carbon atoms and the colours represent higher or lower densities of electrons, the shape of the molecule can clearly be seen. Now I don't know about you but when I contemplate the skill, intellect and resourcefulness (never mind financial investment!) required to produce a picture like this it's about as close to a spiritual thought as I think I'll ever get; my religious brothers and sisters are welcome to their allegories and their wishful thoughts but this stuff is ground breaking, highly inspirational and most importantly for me, real.

Friday smirk

About sums us up really...