Pascal's Wager

You two give me the same reason to believe which is called Pascal's Wager.  You are ok if you accept the gift and it is true, nothing to lose if it isn't.  Well, that isn't true.  I have a lot to lose if I accept and it is wrong.  I lose thousands of hours of my one and only life hoping/praying/working for a better life afterward, I lose the ability to make decisions for myself in order to follow dogma, I lose the ability to look at the world objectively and have to say "god did it", it would cost me my sense of awe, wonder and importance of this life, the one life I have, since  "god did it".  Prideful?  We are insignificant smears of carbon on an insignificant pebble around an insignificant star.  What pride is in that?  Pride is thinking that there is a god who has a plan for you out of this hugely massive universe.  That is some serious pride.  Have you read any of the links I sent you?  I watched the crap movie on ID.  Scripture means nothing to me other than a source of ridicule.  The other problem with Pascal's Wager is, which god is the right one?  The Jewish one?  The Muslim one?  The Christian one?  Which Christian one?  You gotta get it right, especially since the Muslim and Christian ones are mutually exclusive.  Rational thinking and evidence tells me there is no heaven, hell or god(s) and belief is a waste of time.

Good Friday?

Today we celebrate the torture and execution of a wandering homeless man who heard voices and spoke about what he thought of the world he lived in.  And also the great zombie uprising that resulted.

Paul Ryan: corporate shill in the highest order

Paul Ryan Refuses To Answer Obama's Open Mic Critiques. Why Did He Vote For Two Unfunded Wars And Unfunded Bush Tax Cuts? | Crooks and Liars

Obama: “Eliminating the health care bill would cost us $1 trillion dollars,” the president said. “It would add $1 trillion to the deficit. So when Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he’s just being America’s accountant and trying to you know be responsible, this is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill — but wasn't paid for. So it’s not on the level. And we've got to keep on you know, keep on shining a light on that.”

"I would like to hear what Ryan has to say on why when Bush was the president, being worried about spending and deficits didn't matter.

Bob: So what about that Congressman?

Ryan: Look, I can go point by point on all of those things, but I don't see how productive it would be to get into a partisan bickering match with the president. I'm just not going to do that because we got things to do.

Yes, "America's accountant" says he has things to do like destroying Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He can't answer for his votes under Bush honestly because then it would shine a light on him that confirms he's nothing more than an ideological partisan hack and professor of junk science.
Why hasn't the media asked the same of all Republicans who voted to destroy the government's budget surplus under George Bush by voting for his tax cuts for the rich and not funding two wars? If you look at real dollars, those funds could have fixed Medicare and Social Security possibly for generations.
I'm sick of hearing that Ryan's plan was courageous. I like Fareed Zakaria's show and find him credible on many levels, but he said the same thing about Ryan. It wasn't brave, it is a bill of lunacy aimed at destroying everything FDR and the Great Society stood for. It's like the Beltway hasn't noticed what Tea Party and conservative lawmakers have been doing the last few months. Everything that ensures this country will protect the working class, the sick, the poor and our seniors has been targeted. Ryan's Junk Science plan would not only make the rich richer, but painfully cripple the other 98% of America for generations to come. That's not bold, that's mad. Ryan absolutely should have to explain his votes under Bush--and what he thinks Americans 45-54 should do under his plan if something catastrophic happens.

Oh, and Ryan also voted for TARP and the auto industry bail outs if any Tea Party patriots care to remember? If anything, it shows he's a corporate shill in the highest order."

Little Ricky Santorum

Unlike Palin, Trump, Beck, or Bachmann, Santorum scares me. If he were to win the Republican nomination for 2012, the culture war that would erupt in this country would be ugly. It would have to be a no-holds-barred street fight. Nothing civil or democratic at all about it. He is as bat-shit crazy as Beck and doesn't look like it.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/little-ricky-santorum-healthcare-act-

The One-Percenters - Roger Ebert's Journal

The One-Percenters - Roger Ebert's Journal

What puzzles me is why there isn't more indignation. The Tea Party is the most indignant domestic political movement since Norman Thomas's Socialist Party, but its wrath is turned in the wrong direction. It favors policies that are favorable to corporations and unfavorable to individuals. Its opposition to Obamacare is a textbook example. Insurance companies and the health care industry finance a "populist" movement that is manipulated to oppose its own interests. The billionaire Koch brothers payroll right wing front organizations that oppose labor unions and financial reform. The patriots wave their flags and don't realize they're being duped.

Where is the outrage? People are not paying attention.

End of the day at the airport

Storm

Yay! Storm (The Movie) is out!

Cobert... very funny on Royal Wedding

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

It gets funnier and funnier! OMG! Help me, I am peeing my pants!

Why am I moral?

Another rabbi embarrasses me « Why Evolution Is True:

"I’m pretty sure that Rabbi Jacobs, like nearly all Christians and Jews, picks and chooses his Biblically-based ethics. Why? Because he has an innate sense of what actions are right or wrong, or because he doesn’t think that god’s expressed will comports with modern secular reason and “well being.”

Those, by the way, are also the sources of atheist ethics."

Why, as an atheist, am I moral? Why don't I take and use as I please? Because not following reasonable social standards would not promote the well being of me, my family, my community. Where do those standards come from? From rational reasoning and consensus in the community. Sometimes that consensus isn't all that rational, especially when it is based on theology and belief in magic. But there is no sign that any of it had to come from any gods. Except for the commandments like not to worship other gods and to stone unbelievers to death. Those sound like rules to help keep the priesthood in control of the masses and are not really morals.

In addition to the rational, reasoned morals, there appear to be innate morals that we come pre-wired with. Most of us couldn't abuse our children or harm our parents or attack for no reason our neighbor. There is plenty of evidence this is not learned but innate in our brains. Religion tries to claim ownership of these morals but it is clear we and many mammals come with them ingrained. Thus the free will argument rages, I am not free to harm my daughters because I have these ingrained morals holding me back. The religious say without god, I could. I don't think so. Could you? Seriously?

Godless in Tumourville: Christopher Hitchens interview - Telegraph

Godless in Tumourville: Christopher Hitchens interview - Telegraph:

"His outspoken advocacy of atheism made Hitchens a very public figure, and has made his illness a very public one, casting him as some sort of antagonist in a battle with fate, the Almighty or, if you believe in neither, random and merciless bodily malfunction. As he has written, 'To the dumb question, “Why me?” the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, “Why not?”’"

First LockMart-Built Milstar II Satellite Marks 10 Years In Service

First LockMart-Built Milstar II Satellite Marks 10 Years In Service: "The first Milstar II military communications satellite, built by a Lockheed Martin team for the U.S. Air Force, has surpassed its 10-year design life of on-orbit service, providing our nation's warfighters with secure and reliable communications since its successful launch on Feb. 27, 2001."

My, time flies... That was actually a rough time in my life and for my daughters. Their mother and I had just separated the summer before and nobody was happy. The greatest regret in my life is the hurt I caused my daughters in that time period. I don't know what I could have done better. It was a hard time. The good thing is I met Liz two months after this launch, things got better after that.

One of those days.

Liz is grumpy, Ernie had poop stuck in his butt, my car had an inch of water in it, and the cat is dying.

Update:  The cat is not dying.  Yet.  He is 20, it could happen any day.

AC Grayling on the evils of earthquakes

Thanking god for what?

"For if he is not competent to stop an earthquake or save its victims, he is definitely not competent to create a world. And if he is powerful enough to do both, but created a dangerous world that inflicts violent and agonizing sufferings arbitrarily on sentient creatures, then he is vile."

Why bother worship that which can't help, won't help, or is incompetent to help.

Rapture on 21 May 2011

We'll see if it happens...

I drive by this every day on my way home.  I understand these may be all over the country since this is a nationwide radio network.  Or maybe not, am not sure.

"THE END OF THE WORLD IS ALMOST HERE! HOLY GOD WILL BRING JUDGMENT DAY ON MAY 21, 2011"

The crank's name is Harold Camping out of Oakland, CA.

I am not sure I want this guy's image on my blog, but he's been at it for years, he graduated from Berkley as a Civil Engineer, he had to have been halfway intelligent at some point.  But then engineers aren't known for being the most skeptical.  A guy who works for me knows he hears ghosts.

The faith of idiots

"God said it, we believe it, that settles it."

A Condell video, short and concise.