Nes’ Ramblings

I don’t use this blog very often and so it took me a month to see it, but Todd Katz/theistscientist (or whatever your names were), I don’t mind if you comment here, but going completely off topic (seriously, claims of atheists seeking political power with implications that we would all act like infamous political leaders on a post about medical quackery?) and bitching about what happened on another blog are, well, not the kinds of comments I’m looking for. In fact, that’s pretty much the only reason aside from spam or being a complete asshole (which, frankly, you came pretty damn close to doing) that would ever make me do what I did your yours: delete them. Given what you had to say here, I’m not terribly shocked at you being deleted/blocked/whatever at the other place.

Please don’t post more off topic comments.

Greta had a post about a book meme that I decided would be interesting to do, though I’m not going to tag anyone. Here’s the rules:

1. Grab the nearest book (that is at least 123 pages long).
2. Open to p. 123.
3. Go down to the 5th sentence.
4. Type in the following 3 sentences.
5. Tag five people.

I knew that the closest book, unfortunately, would be a computer book; the bookshelf with the computer books is, of course, in the room with the computer. So I look over, and one of the books definitely sticks out further than the others; a clear winner! I reach over and grab it and it’s… Macintosh User’s Guide for Macintosh Performa computers. How disappointing. Oh well, here’s the required sentences, from the section “Creating a Template”:

1. Click to select the icon of the document you want to use as a template.
2. Choose Get Info from the File menu, or press ⌘-I.
3. Click “Stationary pad” near the lower-right corner so that an X appears in the checkbox.

Interestingly, those were the complete set of steps, so it fits in perfectly without having to add another line like Greta to fit in the context!

So I load up my browser the other day, and what do I see on my home page? Why, a post about a “medical device” of rather dubious efficiency called the “Detox Box.” Go check out that website. Aside from possibly melting your brain, it shouldn’t hurt.

Read more »

I read an article in the Pioneer Press today (NY Times link, which seems to be a fuller article than what I had read) about a Baptist church that has made changes to accommodate and welcome the increasing non-white non-English speaking populace in the town, which I applaud them for (while booing the “KKK” segment that left the church). Not that I want people to go to church, but at least they seem to be not only tolerating, but accepting, (at least some) differences.

Anyway, that’s just to provide a bit of background. The part that made me laugh out loud in the break room while eating my lunch at work was a quote from an imam at a nearby mosque. In reference to this Baptist church proselytizing while providing aid for the needy:

“It’s inappropriate,” Mr. Wazir said. “Playing on the minds of small children or desperate, needy people — that’s not the way to preach.” [emphasis added -Nes]

*Cough*

I don’t know if Islam has this story or not, but I’m sure that this Jesus fellow said something about a beam and a speck… if only I could remember what…

John Maynard Keynes again, from Wikiquote.com:

It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.

I think some creationists could take a lesson or two from that…

No, I’m not really missing, I just haven’t had time to do anything at all. Hell, I’ve only dropped a few random comments here and there on the blogowebs the last few months instead of being a semi-regular.

I’ve taken over a full time position at my place of employment, which has me working about 50 hours a week — and that’s only counting the time I’m actually there! I’m also trying to train someone to be my backup (thus a lot of time on the phone with her on my days “off”). I’ve also moved recently, which resulted in a loss of intertubes access for a few weeks. I’ve also got a new computer, and I didn’t get everything copied over from the old one, so I no longer have that creationist PDF I was going to tackle. I’ve also got to stop starting sentences with the phrase “I’ve also.”

In order to get me motivated to actually use this blog, I think I need to start doing some sort of weekly or biweekly column. Find something in the news, or maybe something mentioned on one of the other blogs, then write up and polish off something to post at the end of the week. Given that today is 9/11, there’s a lot of obvious topic choices to look in to… religious extremism, politics, terrorism, etc. I don’t know yet, I’ll have to look around later and find something that strikes my interest.

Ok, so it’s been nearly 2 weeks since the showing of “The Secret” at my town, and I’m a bit late posting about it. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately, depending on your perspective), I missed it because I was late for work and had to stay late to finish up. Oh well.

In other news, I had my first ever visit from Mormons today! Sadly, I didn’t have a lot of time to debate them, so I did my best to just get them to go away as fast as possible, which involved a lot of nodding at the crappy arguments and such. They really didn’t have a whole lot to say. Upon hearing that I was an atheist, and that they shouldn’t waste their time, the first argument was the anthropic principle. The sun is the perfect distance, blah blah blah, so their god had to have done it, and how could I believe it was chance? I responded, first, that if the sun wasn’t like that, we wouldn’t be here to complain about it, and, well, consider that there’s like a billion suns in our galaxy alone, then look at how many galaxies there are… the odds really aren’t that bad. Then he shifted gears and said that there really isn’t any scientific evidence for their god, you have to take some faith. I told him if that works for him, I’m not going to argue, but it doesn’t work for me. Then he (this was all one guy, the other one just kind of stood there) talked about the history of Mormonism, somehow neglecting to mention Joseph Smith by name, or how exactly the book of Mormon was revealed to him (and assuming South Park is even remotely accurate, no wonder!), and how Mormonism is different from other forms of Christianity (it’s the real one, of course, those other ones were twisted and misinterpreted), and blah blah blah. Finally, he must have seen that he wasn’t impressing me, so he gave me some cards for free videos and their website, and they left.

All in all, I really wish that I had had more time, as I would have loved to have invited them in for an actual debate.

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Spring Equinox to you all! (Or Autumn Equinox for you crazy people in the Southern Hemisphere.)

Some people are going to be showing “The Secret” for free at the local high school on Saturday, April 14th. I’m going to go so that I actually know what I’m talking about when I criticize it. Who knows, I may even be impressed by it (though from what I’ve read about it so far, that’s extremely unlikely). I’m hoping that there’s a Q&A session afterwards, so I can lay into it and hopefully undo some of the harm that I suspect it is going to inflict on the locals. Any western Wisconsinites (holy giraffe legs, Firefox’s spell checker recognizes “Wisconsinites” as a word! And western Wisconsinites, in this case, means you know where Stillwater, MN is located, and live in that general area of Wisconsin) with some knowledge of QM available that weekend? I’d love to go there with someone who could knowledgeably point out flaws in the presentation of QM. I have a very basic (largely from Wikipedia) understanding of QM, but probably not good enough to point out flaws (aside from trying to apply QM to the macro world). I can be reached at “nes.ramblings” at that gmail.com place. (Sans quotes, obviously.)

Wow. I was browsing some older posts at The Indigestible when I came across this parable in the comments.

Imagine there is a giant boulder sitting on top of a high hill. One rainy and windy day, the boulder’s purchase is so eroded that it finally tumbles down the hill scouring a huge groove in the surface of the hill. The way down is rocky and clogged with debris, so the boulder, as it tumbles, bounces this way and that, popping up in the air when it hits an outcrop or a fallen tree. At the bottom of the hill, the boulder bounces off the ground and falls into the lake beyond, where it sinks into the mud and is covered over by water.

Hundreds of years later some men come by and notice the great furrow cut in the surface of the hill. The furrow is incomplete because over time parts of it have weathered away, and a subsequent landslide has destroyed portions of it, and there were times when the boulder was airborne. The rock itself lay hidden beneath the muddy floor of the lake. The men try to explain what caused this furrow. One man, the theist, says that God created the furrow. The other men like this idea and they go back to their village and spread the good word, culminating in Fred Franklin writing a book that tells about God creating the furrow.

Several hundred years after that a theist and a scientist come to visit the furrow.

Go read the rest.