Fish in Space

This is a very tricky subject that delves deeper into philosophy than I'm really comfortable with. I enjoyed my introduction to philosophy class in college, and the professor clearly enjoyed debating with me, but I got turned off the topic when I started encountering people claiming Aquinas' Five Ways as proof that their god must exist since the concept is logically sound. The problem is that logically sound arguments don't always translate to physical evidence; just ask the Nineteenth Century scientists trying to verify cosmic ether . So let's begin at the beginning. What is "free will?" The definition provided by that link gives us a good place to begin: “Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Summarized even further, it's our ability to make choices free from interference. "Determinism" then is the polar opposite of fr...

Fred Phelps is dead . It seems that Elder Drain was lying when he claimed on Sunday , "The source that says he's near death is not well informed." My condolences to his family and friends.

With the rumours of Fred Phelps' impending demise the Internet (or at least the tiny corner I haunt) has been buzzing about what to do and how to do it. Fred Phelps is, after all, the founder of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church who go out of their way to provoke people until they react in such a way that the church members can sue. This is their primary source of income : Fred Phelps and his small congregation provide WBC's funding; the group neither solicits nor accepts outside donations. In addition to this income, the church makes money by winning or settling civil lawsuits involving the church. During the 1990s, the group sued Topeka multiple times for failing to provide sufficient protection during its protests. Although they lost most of their cases, WBC did win $43,000 in legal fees in 1993. According to Shirley Phelps-Roper, they also won more than $100,000 in 1995 in a lawsuit against Kansas' Funeral Picketing Act, which they claimed violated their First Am...

Lots of religions claim the power of prophecy, to make predictions of the future that will come true. The New Testament claims fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in various acts and events depicted of Jesus, but since the writers weren't themselves eyewitnesses we should dismiss that as attempts to shoehorn Jesus into messianic prophecy. Certainly, the Jews themselves aren't convinced. I know of no religion that can legitimately claim the power of prophecy. All of the claims of prophecy fulfilled I've seen from Christians and Muslims are either so vague as to be meaningless or once again shoehorned by reinterpreting events to match the prophecy. Did you know that the Book of Isaiah predicted airplanes ? Yup. A metaphor of people flying is meant literally flying although the prophecy somehow neglects to mention that the flying people are riding in a vehicle. Of course when the Bible records Jesus explaining how to distinguish a true believer , that's just metaphor...

A little over a year ago I bought a car for my Lady to replace the very comfortable Acura whose transmission had started to eat itself. The new car was also a very nice car: a limited edition 1996 Mazda MX-6 (M-Series). She once owned a 1995 MX-6 and loved it, but her ex-husband killed it. Getting her another one was satisfying. Unfortunately, the mechanics I trusted let me down by recommending a car that was on its last legs. Eighteen months and several thousand dollars in repairs later the car has finally given up the ghost. It started with a light rattle and occasional problem with stalling at stops. The mechanic at the dealership claimed they couldn't hear what I was talking about. Another mechanic said that it was a piston starting to slip that could go in four months or four years. A friend of mine who worked as a mechanic swore it was a lifter starting to fail and the repair should cost less than a thousand dollars. Then six months ago something broke and it got really bad b...