Fish in Space

It's often observed that we don't have a lot of heroes to look up to any longer, not a lot of role models we can point to for behavior we can emulate. Part of this is human nature; there's no one who is perfect so there's always someone who disapproves of something you said or did. Another part, and I think it's a big one, is that communication has never been easier and there are cameras everywhere. Little mistakes get picked up and broadcast worldwide in proportion to the extent of your celebrity status. Hell, there's an entire subculture dedicated to celebrity gossip. So there's no one I could point to and say "I want to be that person. That person is the epitome of a moral role model." But that doesn't mean there aren't people I can admire. Who would they be? Just off the top of my head, here are four of them. First there's Stephen Hawking . Aside from his academic brilliance, he's a man who was stricken by a debilitating dis...

The story of Abraham binding Isaac from Genesis was brought up as one of several examples why the god of Abraham, if real, is an evil god. Someone then replied to complain how this story shouldn't qualify because "the whole point of the fucking story was to differentiate the God of Abraham from other gods that required human sacrifices." This is the same logic that tells us Biblical slavery is okay because it wasn't as bad as other slavery, but it prompted me to examine the story a little closer. We have a god who orders Abraham to sacrifice his son. No winky-face emoticons to indicate Poe's Law , just an outright command that Abraham has no reason to assume isn't sincere. This is okay because this is Yahweh, the source of all morality who therefore has the moral authority to order immoral actions and still have them be moral. Abraham, rather than telling his god to shove it, dutifully obeys and goes through with the preparations, right up to the point w...

I still see this being brought up, so here are some reminders of why the US is not a Christian nation. http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1.html Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. http://www.usconstitution.net/tripoli.html As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian ...

In the news today, Obama has finally done something to help unions, only six years late. Naturally, I posted this to social media and almost immediately got the following response: FUCK unions. It is the unions who protect people like the cops who shot Hans Arellano, James Boyd, Levar Jones, Brian Dennison, Timothy Mitchell, Oscar Grant... I could go on. In these situations not all of these guys are saints. But in all of these situations the officers life was not in danger and they killed them anyway. A single life lost unnecessary is too many. I have a problem with leveraging popular outrage against genuine civil rights violations to build a straw man argument against an unrelated issue. Police unions -- not even the unions that helped to protect the police officers guilty of crimes -- are representative of all unions. There's a much bigger picture to consider here. Unions are designed to protect their members and serve their interests. Now, not all of their members deserve p...

I'm always jealous when better people than I formulate a thought I'd been circling around for years. In this case it's Michael Sherlock's tweet sporting this image. I'm impressed by his succinct description of the consequences of non-skeptical thought. Critical thinking and scientific skepticism are the filters required for producing rational statements of probable truth. Without these filters our brains will inevitably follow the path of least resistance and succumb to credulity, supernaturalism and all manner of magical thinking. I'm unable to find a source for this on the web, leading me to believe that this is taken from Sherlock's new book. I don't yet have confirmation.

Sacrilicious: adjective : a description of something so sacrilegious that it's delicious to behold. Portmanteau of sacrilege and delicious. example: The Loophole by Garfunkel and Oates is positively sacrilicious! What I want to know is this: why is this not a thing? Come on, Oxford! It's time to step up!

As an American who has lived outside the US, I can fully appreciate how insane our nation looks. Unfortunately, the reason it looks that way is because our nation is undeniably insane. We were once on our way toward being a secular culture that didn't care too much to advertise our religious beliefs. Then the Cold War happened and suddenly we had to do everything in our power to differentiate ourselves from the godless Communists. We became a Christian nation, proclaiming it in our motto, on our money and through our political rhetoric. Then it started to calm down again for a while until the late 70s brought the rise of Jerry Falwell and his poorly named "Moral Majority." Falwell midwifed a new era of religious fanaticism in the US, and we're riding out its death throes now. We envy other Western nations so much, you have no idea. But our religious extremists are afraid of them and for good reason. They're irrelevant in those nations, and they're not go...