aqaba, jordan (nov 13th, 2009)

so my time was done in egypt. on the advice of some of my teacher friends working in egypt, i'd decided to fly to jordan on my indirect trip home. i'd heard that it would be a sin to miss seeing petra when i was that close. i'd also heard something about aqaba, so i booked a flight there to jump off from. i really didn't know what i was going to do there. i was pretty burnt out from being in egypt so long, so i just wanted to relax. not even do vacationy things, i just wanted to catch up on sleep, have a few drinks, and wander aimlessly. that's pretty much what i did.

the taxi driver from the airport assured me he knew where my hotel, the golden tulip, was. i had a very general idea where it was from the airport because i'd checked on google earth just before my flight. now, my sense of direction is just south of shitty, but i still knew that we were heading the wrong direction as soon as we left the airport. i'd gotten him turned around with my broken arabic, and soon had him pulling over to ask directions from a police officer. after rounding the block several times because he kept missing the turn off, i was finally at my hotel. i checked in and went to my room to drop off my bags where i found this. yup, those are my bath towels folded on my bed in the shape of a heart and some swans.

i seriously didn't do too much here. as i said, i just wanted to relax. i wandered around town a lot. i made friends with the filipina bar maid at the hotel. she had a boys name like TheMax or something. that saturday night, she invited me to go out with her and her friends to a filipina bar. it was halfway up one of the taller buildings in aqaba. we went in through a shady back door, through some partially dismantled room with lots of insulation and not a lot of lighting. i was starting to get concerned, but soon enough the broken down rooms opened onto a rooftop bar with other filipinos. there was one or two other ex-pats playing pool or throwing darts. we ate pretzel sticks, and i drank beer while they chatted away in their own language, occasionally flirting or making fun of me. i couldn't tell, but then again, i never can. i dawdled doing nothing of much import for 3 days, reveling in the fact that i had no responsibilities, schedules, or timelines to follow, though in fact i did. not on those days, but i DID need to see petra while i was there and i was told i needed to see wadi rum as well. i was off to petra on the 17th, and i did an overnight in the wadi rum desert with a bedouin tour guide and a lovely british couple... kinda, but those are for upcoming and more frequent posts. until then, some pix from aqaba.

a tanker in the gulf of aqaba as seen from my hotel

one of the many mosques in aqaba

arabic burger king sign... and i can actually read it. there was a popeye's right next door too

i wasn't able to determine exactly what these domes are for

this is TheGateway. it's the westernized part of aqaba with a McDonald's, an irish bar, chinese restaurant, discos, shops, etc. i spent some time here.

this is possibly the first (oldest) purpose built christian church in the world, estimated to be built in 300 AD.

this weather station was pretty cool. i'd like to see more of these in bigger cities. i think it would motivate the people to take part in keeping the environment (and the government's part in it) cleaner. today was a good day, just a bit dusty.
sadly, social networking, work, life, etc., has dragged me away from this original form of getting the word out for me. i'm going to try harder. i should have posts about petra and wadi rum coming up soon. thanks for sticking with me. as per usual, you can click on the pics for bigger versions, and click here for the entire set.

U.S. religious knowledge survey

recently, the pew forum on religion and public life released the results of their recent U.S. religious knowledge survey. sadly, 86% of THE PEOPLE SURVEYED (not americans as they would suggest... it IS an extrapolation afterall), believe in "god" or a higher power. the problem is, most of these people who believe in god/higher power don't really know the tenets or history of what they believe in. it seems they know that church means dressing up the family on sunday, going to church, feeding the kids cookies so they are quiet during the service, listening to the sermon (a.k.a bible cliff's notes), eating some stale bread and wine, and then going home to watch the game. it's tradition, it's a habit (and a bad one at that, in my opinion). many of these people base their personal beliefs and political stances on a book they haven't read. they cherrypick the parts of their book that support their prejudices (homosexuality is bad) but ignore the ones that just aren't fun [no premarital sex, no pork, no eating lobsters, no rare meat, shaving, or cutting of the hair (still, i think that link is a bit strange too. i think since jesus was basically raised a jew as far as we know, he was a jew who stirred a following and started an offshoot that was probably still based in part on judaism. similar to how islam is based on judaism, acknowledges jesus, and is just a 3rd iteration / prophet from the original judaism)].

as usual, i digress. i find it entertainingly ironic that of the people polled (and again, this is but 1/1000 of a percent of the population) that atheists/agnostics topped the poll with the best scores followed by jews, mormons, and the best catholic score coming in 5th. if you are here, more than likely you know i am an atheist. i was raised lutheran until the age of 14 or so when i went to TheMom and said i didn't believe in god. it didn't make sense. math and science explained a lot more than church did for me, and even though there's a lot that science couldn't explain, that set grew smaller every day, something that doesn't happen with religion. TheMom was heartbroken, thinking she raised me wrong, but i assured it had absolutely nothing to do with that. it had to do with my free will and the thinking/analytical mind i was born with. as i got older, she came out as an agnostic. i hope this wasn't from my doing as i'm not much for proselytizing... as long as no one gets hurt, i think everyone has the right to believe what they want. i believe she was agnostic far earlier in her life, but that just wasn't accepted so she fell in line with what she was supposed to do culturally. i don't blame her for this. it is certainly a safer environment now to walk away from religion, at least in the western world.

i've lived in the hindu culture which i am quite fond of in their acceptance of other religions. sadly, those other religions were massive missionary expeditions which i thoroughly despise. i personally witnessed the bringing of clothes, money, food, and classrooms to the young. the parents were hindu and the children converted to mormonism via the missionary church that was set up. i asked the parents how they felt about their children leaving the religion they themselves were brought up in, and they said as long as their children were happy, the parents were happy. i half believed this. hinduism does seem to be a happy, peaceful religion trying to better oneself. on the other hand, they wanted their children to be happy and children are simple creatures. a new pair of shoes, a crisp clean white shirt and new tie all their own, a snack after the service that the parents couldn't afford. the children would be happier, but could it be said their happiness was bought? still, the hindus i met weren't angry about it, they were just trying to give their children a better purchase on a properous life by selling out their religious beliefs.

as for christianity, i've been reading the bible off and on for years as an education tool, a piece of literature. while i was in egypt, i read the qu'ran during ramadan as is typical of most muslims. i read this, too, as an educational tool. many of the muslims i worked with were excited that i was converting. when i explained that i was reading it to educate myself on the culture and the people, i ran in to quite a few who asked me stop reading it because that was not the purpose of the book. that's not to say they are any worse than some christians i've told about reading the bible keeping in mind a high degree of "suspension of disbelief". there are always going to be moderates and fundamentalists in every religion. i fear the fundamentalists in all of them. the same bible-thumping christians who tout their 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms are usually the ones who claim this is a christian nation, forgetting that the 1st amendment, aside from protecting freedom of speech, also explicitly prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion. we are NOT a christian nation, we are a nation of many, believers and non-believers, and a diverse spectrum in between.

i believe over the course of civilized man, religion on the whole has done more harm than good, but on a personal level, i'm sure it's helped it fair share. for fun, why don't you go here and take the abridged test. i was hoping for a score of 100%, but i missed one. :-(

it's good to have time to be back.

my whatzit

so, my trip down to tampa was more sociable than usual. what seems like eons ago, i was working in trinidad, and i’d taken a book about how to make people like you, or how to start conversations or meet people or something like that. i don't remember much about the book except that the author used several really weird terms like "have sticky eyes" and "have a whatzit". the one thing i took away from the book is the "have a whatzit" to start conversations. that was easy for me because i like gadgets.

on the flight from pittsburgh to DC, i was seated next to a middle-aged woman who noticed my kindle DX. i was testing the DX because in the "portait" position, it shows an entire page and also what page you are on out of how many the book has. when you turn the kindle to the "landscape" position, the text turns accordingly, but it also sizes up the font. for some reason this does not change the page count (i determined that you have to use the joystick to scroll down the page in this position). the lady next to me noticed my experiment and asked how i liked it. i told her it was good, but no backlighting. she told me she was looking for an e-reader for an elderly friend of hers who wanted to learn calculus and figured and ebook would be the best way. i don't know why i didn't go further into why an elderly man would want to learn calculus. my excuse will be that i was nervous that i was having to converse with someone without prior preparation. i let her check it out, she apologized several times about interrupting, but i had no problem with it. i learned she works for a company that organizes clinical trials for HIV/AIDS treatments, and they are showing some promise in, not a cure, but a drug that makes it more difficult to transmit. fancy. as our conversation was reaching it's natural end (because i'm still learning how to do this whole talking to people thing), the pilot made the announcement that we were about to land and all electronic devices had to be switched off. that, i told her, was another drawback of the e-reader. she apologized again that i didn't get to read very much at all, but i re-asserted that it was no problem, and that i enjoyed the conversation.

on my connecting flight from DC to tampa, i was seated in the middle. from the way the guy to my left was glued to his blackberry, i figured he was a business type. he had on slacks, collared shirt, and had a clean haircut. i thought the lady to my right was just a crotchety old ethnic grandma. she seemed inconvenienced when she realized there would be a big man sitting next to her. once we were at cruising altitude, i whipped out the kindle to try to get some reading done. it didn't take very long at all before the lady to my right asked if you could change the font size on the kindle. i'm pretty sure you can, though i wasn't able to figure out where while trying to show her the functions that i DID know how to operate. i mentioned how it was very convenient for me since i travel a lot, and that it was much easier to carry 400 books on this than in a steamer trunk. the man to my left asked what i did, so i elaborated a bit. in trying to fit in with you humans, i then tried to bounce the question back, asking what he was doing in DC. i found out that he was there for an interview at a new church, and he actually lives in tampa. after some brief shit-chat, we found out that the lady to my right was a principal in england. she splits her time between london, where her husband works, and sarasota, where they are snowbirds. they got into a conversation about separation of church and state (he believes it should be, she experienced the opposite being in england, there is no such thing). he was concerned about the downfall of morality and traditional values. he spoke of how dysfunctional families breed dysfunctional families, so soon we would be exponentially out of control as a society. i tried to bite my tongue through most of this. i shouldn't try to be confrontational AND sociable. that's just too much on one plate. apparently, the pastor started out as an engineer in college and then found (lost?) his way to god, so he went to seminary. somehow it was thrashed out that i was an atheist, so he wanted to pick my brain. at least that's what he said. while i was curious about what a pastor does when it's not sunday, what does a church interview entail, and how can seminary last so long when there's really only one book, it seemed to me that he just wanted to know where i went astray, what caused me to lost faith so young, etc. he wanted to re-convert me rather than actually converse. it wasn't abrasive by any means, just disappointing. the first half of the trip, i thought he was kind of a normal person, open to new ideas, but then he fell into the same religious role i'd expected in the first place. we briefly talked about evolution and "irreducible complexity" and there having to be a maker. i hadn't expected to get into a theological debate, so i was a bit scattered, though sufficient, in my defense of what i think is right, but i got my point across.

before we knew it, the flight was over and we decided to introduce ourselves (somehow, i always do that backwards). i'd met ThePastorJohn and ThePrincipalDoris. his wife and four kids were waiting to pick him up, she was driving down to sarasota, and i was going to rent a car to get me to my hotel and my next assignment.

and all these things happened because of my "whatzit".


oh, and on a completely unrelated point, florida drivers are fukking nuts. they can't drive for shite, they speed, tailgate, and cut people off all willy nilly. you guys suck, really.

mr. deity

i just found this vid from a prof i had in college, and i have to say, IF god exists, i think (if he's worthy of existing) he has to be pretty much the same.

INNNNNNNDOCTRINATION!

One Indian, One Normal - Watch more Funny Videos

i don't think these girls are smart enough to be acting. i fear they are this ignorant and, thus, dangerous. this is like brain-washing fundamentalism and general lack of education. is india in africa? why aren't your eyes slanted?

rehabilitating mr. wiggles

i just found this webcomic today, i figured i'd share it with you. it's your lucky day.

when is terrorism not, AND when it's your time, it's your time?

two articles i've come across lately that have piqued my interest enough to get me to read them. the first, here, has to do with how americans label terrorism. it is a sad and blatantly racist judgment made by the american people. in short, when is terrorism not? when it's done by a white christian, that's when, or at least, that can be strongly inferred when comparing the two recent cases in this article. please give it a read and let me know what you think.

and here is just a a strange coincidence straight out of "final destination". it's sad that after having missed a huge catastrophe, she probably felt like she got a new lease on life, only to find out each day has it's own dangers.

biblical observations III : samson was CRAZY pussy-whipped (and possibly severely mentally retarded)

i'm back into reading the bible since i'm out of books. i'm just about to finish JUDGES when i come across samson. i didn't realize that samson was actually a king of israel. well, that might not be technically correct but i'm not exactly sure what he was judging since israel was being oppressed but all the neighbors at this time (and that is another observation post). so i'll call him a king, of sorts, a leader, and he did that for 20 years.

the story starts that his mother was barren, but an angel came to her and said she would conceive, but the boy had to be raised a nazirite (that just looks so much like nazi to me, but that's not a funny joke since we are dealing with the jewish people here). nazarites weren't allowed to cut their hair, they weren't allowed to drink alcohol, and they were supposed to avoid the dead and places of the dead. in short, he was a strong mother fucker. he's the equivalent of hercules from greek mythology.

STORY #1 that proves he's a crazy badass, completely fukking pussy-whipped, and soft in the head (note: all quotes are paraphrased):

one day, he's walking through the woods on his way to hit on this philistine chick he was diggin' on when a lion comes up to him. the force was strong in this one, so he tore the lion a new one bare-handed without even breaking a sweat. apparently he did the biblical equivalent of getting her digits AND getting her to accept his marriage proposal in not time and went home. a while later, he was walking back to pick up his wife, when he walked past the lion he had disemboweled and found a bee hive growing in the thing, so he grabbed some honey and went to his wife. when he got to her town, there were 30 dudes hanging out waiting for the 7 day wedding feast to start and end. samson posited to them a riddle to solve in 7 days. if they got it right, he'd give them 30 new linens and 30 changes of clothes; if they didn't, they had to give HIM 30 linens and changes of clothes. the riddle was:

out of the eater came something eat
out of the strong came something sweet.

since you know the backstory, you might be able to guess the answer.

well, the mob pulls his wife aside and threatens to burn down her house like in a WWE studios / john cena movie if she doesn't get the answer for him, so true to a typical wife (i can say this because i'm not married, hah), she nagged the ever-lovin' shit out of him for the answer even though his mom and dad don't even know. on day seven, she tells the mob "nothing sweeter than honey, nothing stronger than a lion", they regurgitate it back to him, and he goes postal. he knows the got the answer from his trollop wife, so true to his word, he retaliated by giving them their 30 linens and changes of clothes... by killing 30 of their bestest buds and giving the mob THEIR clothes, then he stomped back to his house.

it gets worse. after a while, maybe a few weeks or months, he goes down to her dad's house and tells him "i'll show her, i'm gonna lay some pipe on my wife ans show her she screwed up". her dad's kinda like "um... we're sorry, but we didn't think you lied her so we decided to give her to your best man. wouldn't you like her younger sister better?" BURN!!! re-retaliation. if samson wasn't rip-shit pissed already, when he found out he wasn't getting any tail, that was it. he went out and captured 300 foxes, tied their tails together with a torch in the knot, and set them free in the philistine fields (if anyone's counting, this is retaliation 3, R3). when the philistines found out samson had done this, they (you guessed it) retaliated (R4) by burning down his wife and father-in-law's house. samson said "ok, mofo's, i'm getting tired of this back and forth, so i'm just going to get even ONE MORE TIME, then i'm done... we're even... OK?", then he whopped some major philistine ass (R5).

that wasn't good enough for the philistines, so they came to arrest him and take him back for judgment. he said, if you promise not to kill me until we get there, i'll let you tie me up. they promised, they tied, they went to philistine central. when he got there, everyone started yelling at him, and he got all pissed off hulk-style, so he grabbed the jawbone of a donkey and smote the shit out of 1000 philistines. afterward, he yelled into the sky, "this... is... JAWBOOOOOOOONE (heights)!", and "judged" for 20 years.

the FAMOUS story that proves he's a crazy badass, completely fukking pussy-whipped, and soft in the head (note: all quotes are paraphrased):

so toward the end of his 20 years judging, he took a vacation to gaza and banged a lady of the night. while he was there, the gazites decided they'd kill him in the morning when the sun came up. instead, at midnight, to show the gazites he was still "israel's strongest man", he ripped the gate of the city (along with the posts) out of the ground and took them up on a hill. i'm not exactly sure how this made them not kill him, except that maybe they were all still washing the shit out of their pants the next morning.

then samson met delilah. this is like the biblical version of forrest gump. samson is forrest: this soft-headed, i-love-the-first-girl-i-meet kinda guy, and delilah is like jenny: she's all "well, you're nice, but you're kind of a dope, i mean, i'll kiss ya, but i got other things to do", so the locals lords offered her some mad amounts of silver to find out his weakness. she's all about movin' on up to the east-side, so she takes the deal and starts pillow-talking samson. here's where we confirm both massive pussy-whippedness and never-before-seen brain damage.

DELILAH: so what IS your weakness?
SAMSON: 7 fresh bowstrings, not yet dried, and i'm bruce banner.
(delilah ties him up in 7 wet bowstrings that night, the philistines wait in his room)
DELILAH:SAMSON, THE PHILISTINES ARE HERE!!!
(samson tears through the bowstrings like thread, no philistine attack)
DELILAH: baby (maybe a bewb pops out), so REALLY, what IS your weakness?
SAMSON: new rope that has never been used, and i'm like superman and green kryptonite.
(delilah ties him up with brand new rope that night, the philistines wait in his room)
DELILAH:SAMSON, THE PHILISTINES ARE HERE!!!
(samson tears through the rope like it was smoke, no philistine attack)
DELILAH: (while putting on some BANGIN' frederick's of hollywood lingerie) samson, why do you mock me, i'm JUST curious, what IS your weakness?
SAMSON: new rope that has never been used, and shorty, i'm like superman around green kryptonite.
(delilah ties him up with brand new rope that night, the philistines wait in his room)
DELILAH:SAMSON, THE PHILISTINES ARE HERE!!!
(samson tears through the rope like it was smoke, no philistine attack)
DELILAH: (grabbin' his circumsized johnson), you're starting to PISS ME OFF! i'm just worried about you. baby...what IS your weakness?
SAMSON: if you weave my seven dreadlocks into the loom, i'm like rainbow brite on xanax.
(delilah weaves his frickin' HEAD in to a LOOM, and he doesn't wake up; btw, not drunk, can't drink alcohol... anyways, the philistines are still chillin' in his room)
DELILAH:SAMSON, THE PHILISTINES ARE HERE!!!
(samson gets up turning the loom into a pile of matchsticks... WTF happened, babe?, no philistine attack)
DELILAH: (promising something like BJs everyday for life) samson, this is the best deal your going to get. just tell me your weakness, and i'll get right on my knees... big daddy, what IS your weakness?
SAMSON: (tired of her bitching) GOOD GOD WOMAN (SORRY BIG GUY!) WTF IS YOUR PROBLEM? I LOVE YOU, BUT YOU ARE ALL UP IN MY BIZZLE, AND IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY! MY HAIR, IT'S MY HAIR. YOU CUT MY HAIR, AND THAT SCREECH KID FROM "SAVED BY THE BELL" COULD HAND MY OWN ASS TO ME, OKAY?! so there, now... get to it, sugarlips.
(delilah "lulls him to sleep on her knees"... it actually says that in the bible, then brings in the town barber and give him the first bowl-cut in the old testament, the philistines wait in his room)
DELILAH:SAMSON, THE PHILISTINES ARE HERE!!!
(well he wakes up a bit woozy, as close to a hangover as possible without drinking, and the philistines make their move. they whomped on him pretty good, poked out his eyes and made him the prison wheat grinder)

he didn't see THAT coming, come on! it's like every joke ever told. three guys walk into a bar, or a guy tried something three times... moron, still, he gets them in the end. they are all so drunk on the fact that they caught this one guy who bitch-slapped an entire battalion of them with the remains of a carcass, that they order a party with ALL the philistine lords and lordettes (about 3000 of them) to watch him do some pratfalls and slapstick for them. he does a little song-and-dance then asks for someone to help him to the central pillars to catch his breath. he pulled a popeye and opened a can of god-spinach, "bringing down the roof" by knocking over the main structural pillars, thus killing all of the philistines along with himself.

rock on, samson, you idiot!

for the actual text, you can go here. it's funny, i was trying to give the cliff's notes, but ended up making it longer. the original passages is only 19 verses). hope you like the re-enactment. i apologize that delilah was such a hussy, but that's the way it was (in my head).

are we seriously that sensitive/retarded/blind?

i hate to add to the "blogosphere" uproar over rachael ray's dunkin' donuts commercial fiasco, but seriously, wtf is up with people nowadays. it's a fukking scarf. look at the difference in these two pictures.

this is a keffiyeh. this is a black & white headdress commonly worn by arab men. it has a "connotation" attached to terrorism, though that's as ignorant an attachment as being terrified of all "brown skin people" because they are terrorists.
this is a black & white scarf... A SCARF!!! with a different pattern!!! around her neck!!!

are we that xenophobic that we have to CREATE racism/fanatacism where it doesn't exist? do we hate that much, that we are twisting in our heads what we see into something that is big, bad, and scary? it's not there. get over it. if i was a part of the dunkin' donuts franchise, i'd say "fukk ya, it's a scarf, i ain't pulling the advert, so shut up and go buy some donuts from me". i might bankrupt the company, but i'd be a broke man who didn't pander to a small racist faction in the community and their small-minded stereotypes.

that's my rant... haven't done that in a while.

fitna

i downloaded 'fitna', the controversial movie about islam written by a dutch politician, geert wilders. it's 16 minutes long, and it's easy to say that it is nothing more than a sensationalist propaganda movie. in this short film, he "highlights" 5 verses from various surahs (chapters) in the qur'an whose english translation lend them toward violence against non-muslims. i think the geert wilders, along with many others in the western world, is plainly muslim-phobic. the old testament bible speaks of similar actions, to rise up against those who don't believe in the christian god. i won't go too far into that because i've not yet read enough of the bible to not saying something stupid. that is why i'm reading the bible AND qur'an now, to learn about what christianity and islam REALLY stand for, instead of what people THINK they stand for.

i'm living in a muslim country, and i'm not afraid. these people aren't aiming to hurt westerners. there is no jihad. they are people, same as me: going to work, eating, having fun, living. no muslims here have tried to convert me. i've tried to engage in intelligent conversations about their religion because i know very little about it and am interested in learning more, but these conversations are typically fruitless, not because of ignorance, but due more to the language barrier. this movie shows one extreme of the muslim religion, the fundamentalists, the radicals. they are the minority that we know of because they make headlines. since those are the only way we know of islam, it's generalized that all muslims must be this way. christianity has this same type of fanaticism with our pat robertson's and jerry falwell's, the westboro baptist church. i would truly like to see a reciprocal movie made about these fundamentalist christians. both movies would be skewed in the manner that IS the definition of propaganda, but then watch the christians defend themselves with "we're not ALL like that" arguments that i fear they wouldn't find applicable to the muslims. people are hard-wired into an "us vs. them" mentality: family vs. strangers, lovers vs. friends, protestant vs. catholic. it's a dangerous and hurtful thing that we need to consciously try to change.

wilders believes he made a movie to open the eyes of the world to islam, where he only promotes the same hate that he fears they have for him (and i'm sure, even the peace-loving muslims are offended now). he's carelessly poured salt in an already excruciating wound, all based on ignorance and fear. i hope i'm not coming off as too new-agey, but we're all people on the same planet trying to be as happy as possible and make babies so they can be happy someday. i'm hoping that people who see this movie don't take it as a documentary on the muslim culture. still, i'm afraid too many will.

you can DL it from this site if you haven't seen it, and go here (yeah i know it's wikipedia, and this is a hot topic so beware graffiti) to read more about it. let me know what you think.

happy easter to all the churchly folks

i didn't even realize it was easter until i saw all the easter vids on myspace and the easter messages on facebook. is that bad? i just started a book today, "the complete idiot's guide to world religions", and i'm dragging myself through a couple chapters of the bible every couple weeks. oh, the joy of learning.

anyways, i just popped in to say, last night i weighed in at the gym, and i've lost 16.3 pounds since i've started recorded which just over a month ago. jules and i decided i was allowed to have a "gift" or a "break from my diet" for one meal once i'd lost 15 pounds, because i'm ALL about the positive reinforcement. i don't even like ice cream that much, but walking past the baskin robbins is tempting just because i know i CAN'T have it. so tonight, i get to have a 1/4 pounder with cheese meal from mcdonald's DELIVERED. i'm so excited. now THAT is bad, being excited to get to have a cheeseburger that isn't even really good, and some greasy fries (i won't eat all of them). i don't get to skip the gym since there's no NASCAR race on today, so gym, mcdonald's, some billiards, and bed. i'm getting a migraine (i get tunnel vision and after-images more than intense pain), so i need to run, take some headache meds quick.

THEY'RE TRYING TO USE THE BACKDOOR!!!!

Penn & Teller Creationism Bullshit


not THAT backdoor, you pervs... oh, just me then? anyways, i think it's an amazing coincidence i ran into these two videos within the same relative timeframe. i've heard of the show called "bullshit", starring penn & teller. i may have even seen an episode or two at BTVJGJHo's house. this episode is about creationism and intelligent design. of course, since i'm on the side of P&T in this episode, i'd have to say, it's well organized, detailed, and thought out. of course, i'm a bit biased, but i HAVE done some formal debating (coincidentally with BTVJGJHo) and understand that you have to look at both sides of the argument critically in order to support your points and rebut to counter's points. i think this episode set a good foundation for that type of debate.

separately, i found a link to a CNN.com video about the anti-christian themes in the new movie "the golden compass". i think the movie looks good, i blogged about it many moons ago here. the president of the catholic league believes that this movie is trying to introduce children to atheism through a fantasy movie. they are afraid it's presenting christianity as a big, bad meanie society while promoting atheism as a free-thinking utopia, of sorts. this is what happens when grown-ups forget what it was like to be a kid. the kids are going to see witches, and fighting polar bears, monkeys, cats, and a cool story. that's pretty much it. the adults who, by this time in their lives, probably have their minds pretty much made up on this topic, might pick up some of the religious overtones, but that's a moot point.

anyways, i digress. the title of this post is such, because ironically, that paraphrase is used in both arguments, against creationism and ID in the "bullshit" episode, and against atheism in CNN.com report.

when will we ever grow up, er... i guess in this case, grow down?

you know me and my admiration of quotes

• Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
  --- Dwight D. Eisenhower


• We, on our side, are praying to Him to give us victory, because we believe we are right; but those on the other side pray to Him, too, for victory, believing they are right. What must He think of us?
  --- Abraham Lincoln


• A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
  --- Carl Sagan


• Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
  --- John Kenneth Galbraith


• It is hard to free fools from chains they revere.
  --- Voltaire


• Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion, several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.
  --- Mark Twain

and someone, please, buy armadillo run. i'm stuck on level 20 without a clue of how to build my next structure. it really is fun, and cheap.

home for a few days

i made it home pretty much without incident. edmonton to minneapolis was ok. we boarded the plane in minneapolis, pulled away from the gate, and stopped for about an hour waiting to get on the runway. a big storm had rolled over while we were boarding and all east-bound flights were grounded until it got far enough away to fly over/around it, so i was about an hour late getting into pittsburgh, other than that, not much exciting.

i've looked into flights, and i think on sunday, i'm going to fly to colorado springs, to visit a friend for a few days, then on to salt lake city on friday for a wedding, then back home on monday to wait for an assignment. i might be able to take a longer job than usual depending on how SLC goes. i was trying to get a greyhound or amtrak from colorado springs to SLC, but the timings were just awful for WHEN i need to be where i need to be. since i want to see a variety of people on the trip, the amtrak runs but has me leaving colorado springs far too early and arriving in SLC far too late. the greyhound is a BIT better, but not much. i guess i'll have to pop my train cherry some other time, and get my mass transit bus fix down the road. maybe i can drag someone along with me.

in other news, i'm still in night-shift mode. i want to go to bed but i'm not tired. i tried to go to sleep in canada around midnight to get some sleep, but slept awful through til 4AM, so i was tired the entire flight (when i would've normally been sleeping). now it's 1:30AM, and i'm not a bit tired. this sucks. and being that it is late night, i get to watch some strange things. does anyone know who pastor melissa scott is? she is the hottest pastor i've ever seen. i love her hair. there are some old 80's like pix on that page, but her new calmer yet mussed hairstyle is hot, the glasses are great, and i love the long coat she wears, yummy. i probably shouldn't speak so sacreligiously about a woman of the cloth, but i'm guessing that she gets more viewers than her late husband. i can't find any REALLY good pictures of her, so i guess you'll just have to stay up late like me and find her on late night TV.

intelligent debate

i liked intelligent debate on religion. being an atheist, i'm rather rusty at the gospel which does make for informed debate to be difficult. i know refutations from my side, but no refutations from the religious side which is much more effective. i'm reading the bible. been reading it since india. it's taking quite a long time. i usually have 305 books i'm reading at once on the road, and it's always in there. i think i was last in deuteronomy (yeah, i know, it's a slow read). i quite like this quote about an atheist and a believer in God.

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Stephen Roberts

intelligent debate...

a succinct observation

i was trolling around the web as per usual and stumbled onto ask an atheist. they have a quote page where if found this anecdote from samuel clemens (mark twain):

Mr. Clemens was once asked whether he feared death. He said that he did not, in view of the fact that he had been dead for billions and billions of years before he was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

i thought that was a brilliant point. wish i'd've said it. i've certainly thought it, but never in so witty a way.

several states blatantly violate the U.S. constitution

Article VI, Section 3 of the Constitution
"...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

as usual, bouncing around the internet, and i couldn't believe this. the site is called "one nation, under god". if you go to the "separation of church and state" link, it tells you the history of the "pledge of allegiance". on the second page of that section, it gives the true wording of the constitutional idea of "separation of church and state" which is only a paraphrasing by thomas jefferson.

then on the third page, it lists the states that believe they can change that part of the constitution to suit them. here's two of my favorites.

Texas
"No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being." Article 1 - Bill of Rights: Section 4

Arkansas
"No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court."
Article 19, sect. 1 of the 1874 constitution

texas goes so far as stealing the verbiage directly from the U.S. constitution, then adding their little discriminatory addendum. in arkansas, if you don't want to be a witness in court, plead atheism, hah, but you can't work for the government, you heathen you.

i believe the pilgrims came to this country to escape religious oppression, for religious freedom, which would also include freedom from religion. funny how we've kinda turned into the oppressive society our forefathers tried to get away from in the first place.

...and it was good

IQ vs. religiosity

i didn't look deeper into the research, but it kinda makes sense to me. what do you think the correlation would be? and keep in mind, this is on the AVERAGE. there are, of course, exceptions, i'm sure. check out the graph/data.

another funny (this time hyperbole)

how true...