Top 10 reasons the creationist museum is simply wrong

Neatly compiled, I’m sorry to say, by someone else.

What Kind of Atheist am I? The Best Kind.

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I’m not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future. Scientific Atheist 92% Spiritual Atheist 83% Angry Atheist 50% Apathetic Atheist 42% Militant Atheist 33% Agnostic 25% Theist 17% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You know you’re doing something right when Chuck Norris is scared of you

I really should take his paranoid tirade apart point-by-point, but I have better things to do.Let me just say that Chuck has officially made a jackass of himself in this article about how the atheists are trying to outlaw Christianity.

If only we could, fuckwad, you’d be one of the first against the wall just for being a particularly stupid Christian.

(Just an act of defiance targeted directly at the Texas Ranger’s paranoia)

I would have loved to have made comments on the actual article, but he doesn’t take comments, he only preaches. Strong evidence that he cannot take the criticism he invites with his weak arguments.
[update: I suddenly cannot get enough of Chuck Norris mockery. Please send more!]

Ding, dong, Fallwell’s dead

Now, only Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn, the Phelps family, (I guess really this list could go on ad infinitum), and a couple of select questionably elected individuals to go.

I regret that his real victims are now going to go on about him as a martyr.

No, I’m not too nice to speak ill of the dead, thank you.

Oh, and make no mistake. I’m actually glad for once that the Phelps’ are going to protest at a funeral. Not exactly because I’m on their side. More like because this time it may very well get them killed.

Then imagine the protests at their own funerals.

Some would say I should feel bad about feeling giddy about the possibilities. I don’t.

The defining reality of my adult life.

Do not ever believe anyone who tells you that the best approach to sex education is “abstinence-only” in the schools, supplemented by whatever parents choose to teach their kids.

Mine never said anything about condoms, but I knew about them from school and had no moral dilemma from their proper use. Others near and dear to me seemed to have missed the point of sex ed, and paid dearly for it- and this was back in the late 90’s. There are two specific persons I have in mind, whom my friends would know about. I couldn’t tell you what they learned about safe sex in school, but I have read the pamphlets they received from church, and it is now certain that one didn’t think about safe sex because she didn’t expect to have sex at all, and the other simply had a broken attitude about what was safe and sane.

They were both wrong and this directly affected at least thirty lives.

Some other time I’ll probably expand on that.

Okay this needs work

Basically we’ve all heard of the seven deadly sins (they don’t really exist in the bible per se, but they’re used nicely in some later fiction). The seven sins seem to be:

1. pride
2. envy
3. gluttony
4. lust
5. anger
6. greed
7. sloth

I find dwelling on peoples sins (faults) to be wildly unhelpful. One of these days I’ll write up a really great spiel on the opposites- the seven lifegiving virtues:

1. humility
2. trust
3. frugality
4. temperance
5. patience
6. generosity
7. industry

Though I’m pretty sure the Eight virtues (can’t think of the correct term) of Buddhism are probably more useful.

[update May 21, 2007. Adding the 18 activities you shouldn't do from Jainism]

1. Pranatipaat — Violence
2. Mrushavaad — Untruth
3. Adattadaan— Theft
4. Maithun — Unchaste behaviour
5. Parigraha — Possessiveness
6. Krodh — Anger
7. Mann — Arrogance
8. Maya — Illusion
9. Lobh— Greed
10. Raag — Attachment
11. Dvesh — Hate
12. Kalaha — (Agitation)
13. Abhyakhyan — Accusation
14. Paishoonya — Gossip
15. Par-parivad — Criticism
16. Rati-Arati — Likes and Dislikes
17. Maya-moso — Malice
18. Mithyya Darshan Shalya — Wrong belief

Lovingly Stolen, again.

Which sounds less improbable to you?
1. The cosmos came into existence by a process we don’t entirely understand just yet, but we think that in the first few moments of its emergence most of the laws of physics and matter we consider de rigeur now were somehow coalesced into a reasonably predictable set of steady states. Following those simple rules all the heavier elements past hydrogen fused in the hearts of ancient stars, and some of those elements coalesced into compounds which developed a means to remain internally coherent and, eventually, a way to replicate their patterns with a reasonable degree of verisimilitude. However, the processes involved in that replication were so complex that occasional errors crept in, some of which caused replication failure but most of which had no apparent effect — until the setting changed somehow, forcing certain erroneous patterns into a state of greater success at replication. After several million years of such errors and successes, eventually some of the universe’s elements developed an emergent property called consciousness, contingent entirely upon a niche position in an otherwise entirely-reactive and nonstochastic field. Of course, this current understanding could well change with further iterations of discovery and refinement; science is a lot like a calculus approach to a limit, always working toward complete understanding but always bafflingly, tantalizingly just falling short — which is frustrating to many, but beautiful to some.

— or —

2. God did it. Now eat the cracker, drink the wine and stop asking so many questions