Creationism is an Insult to God

If there is a god, this would-be-god would be probably pissed at Americans for pushing to start teaching Creationism again. I took an online Pew Quiz on Religion not too long ago (I scored 15 out of 15, though it was none too hard; I was also disappointed that there were no questions on Zoroastrianism or African Animism), and there was one question in particular that stood out to me.  Erroneously, 77% of the quiz-takers believed that public school teachers cannot read from the bible as an example of literature or as a historical document.

With that statistic in mind, when I was reading this Article from Pew, I had to laugh at all the drool spewing, anger-monkeys who do not know what they're talking about or voting for:

Despite that long series of court decisions, polls show that large numbers of Americans favor looser, not tighter, limits on religion in public schools. According to an August 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center, more than two-thirds of Americans (69%) agree with the notion that “liberals have gone too far in trying to keep religion out of the schools and the government.” And a clear majority (58%) favor teaching biblical creationism along with evolution in public schools. 

Do they not understand the whole First Amendment thing, or will shoe stores in the near future stock only Velcro shoes.  The legal history of the Establishment Clause is borne not from  the scourge of Atheism, but the long standing conflict between the Protestant Majority and the powerful Catholic Minority. In State ex rel Weiss v. District Board, 76 Wis. 177 (1890), Catholic parents objected to public schools reading from the King James Bible. They objected to having a different bible being along with the whole anti-Catholic sentiment thingy. The argument is as frequently "which god," as it is "is there a god." This Wisconsin Decision would latter be adopted (after years of Selective Inclusion) by the US Supreme Court. In Schempp and other similar decisions, the Court ruled in a manner that prohibits Compulsory and Established religious instruction.  Essentially, teachers can teach the bible, but they cannot preach the bible.

America is not a Christian Nation. America is a nation where the Majority chooses to be Christian. Our system is one million times greater than any theocracy or any possible right-wing  fantasy, simply because we are allowed a choice. True belief is never forced.

The second portion of the Pew article quote focuses on the teaching of Creationism in Biology classes. 58% of Americans are doing a disservice to their children by supporting Creationism. If there is a god, god created the Universe through the Big Bang, and life follows the principles of evolution.  We know this, we have seen life evolve in front of our eyes, and there is an indisputable fossil record. Saying god created the universe in a myth-like fashion, when we know better seems to me insulting.  The creation myth detracts from the beauty and wonderment of the true universe that god (possibly) created. 

The time between the Big-Bang and  the emergence of humans did not happen in 6 days. If it did, Adam would have been baked alive by the severity of the Cosmic Background Radiation.  And let's face it, every religion and every culture has it's own creation myth. Is the Biblical creation myth any easier to swallow than Heaven and Earth literally fucking us into existence, or a Crow stealing fire from the sun, or Atum masturbating the world into existence. With Cosmic Background Radiation Maps, charted Doppler Shifts in star systems and even galaxies, photos of deep space/ early universe from the Hubble Telescope, and basic understanding of atomic theory, scientists have put forward a more accurate model of the creation of the universe using math.Quel Horreur!

If there is a god, study science and give god proper praise for god's actual accomplishments, not the false nonsense in an ancient book.

Here's My version of the Great Sky Man that should offend:

Liam '12

Freedom Just For Me

Job Creators My Ass...

The Wealthy don't create jobs. Supply and Demand does.

Facts:

1. Wealthy people are not inherently wealthy; they do not create wealth.  Money is given to them in exchange for goods and services.

2. A business will not hire additional Labor, unless Demand expands and more Labor is required to match the output necessary to supply the increase in Demand.

3. Prior to approaching the scarcity of raw goods, Supply is able to rise quicker than Demand due to the Economy of Scale, thus minimizing the role of inflation.

4. Tax reduction does not raise simple Demand, since businesses will not hire additional Labor without an increase in Demand.

5. Shifting the tax burden downwards towards the lower classes lowers simple Demand.

6. Lowered Demand causes a relative over-production of Supply.

7. Over-production of Supply requires a correction in Supply, often requiring decrease in Labor.


Here's the world's sexiest tramp stamp:

Hot.


Liam '12

Freedom Just For Me

What about My Freedom of Religion

I grew up Methodist. I thought for a while that the Church would allow gay-marriages or blessed unions depending on the legality of the state. My parents' pastor is very into gay rights and even holds a support group in a small town in America (scary).  If there were a god I would hope it is his. He is a man of peace, concerned for the poor, and a supporter of a more loving world.

It is a commonly held belief that gay-marriage is an infringement on religious liberty, which is a ridiculous statement that does not even hold up on first glance. Freedom of Association will allow individual churches the right to perform marriage and exclude gays if it is counter to their core beliefs. Many churches and religions outside of Christianity hold that having sex outside of marriage to be a sin while no longer holding homosexuality to be an inherent sin. By barring gay-marriage, Conservatives are pushing gays to choose either a life of abstinence or a life sin in the eye of their religion. The possibly for Christianity to accept homosexuality, and gay-marriage as a consequence, is quite likely.  While the Old Testament has a prohibition on homosexuality, the Gospel does not. In fact, the New Testament mentions the word 'Love' 179 times, while it mentions 'Hate' only 16 times, and 'Homosexuality' 0 times. In fact some Christian sects such the ELCA, individual UCC congregations, Anglican Church, not to mention the Reform Movement in Judaism, and various sects of Buddhism and Hinduism all accept Homosexuality. Many other Christian sects are divided on the issue.

If gay-marriage were actually accepted by the Methodist Church would it be an infringement of my religion to prohibit gay-marriage? Legally, based on past precedence as shown in  Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1878), gay-marriage wouldn't be protected on the grounds of freedom of religion; however, under the logic of Loving, gay-marriage should be protected under the Equal Protection Clause. As a logical argument, preventing gay-marriage would be an infringement of my religion as it prevents me from completing a religious sacrament. Furthermore allowing gay-marriage in no way interferes with anyone-else's rights.

The other common argument I hear against gay-marriage is that it will alter 3,000 years of marriage tradition. This is not a straw-man argument, Mitt Romney actually said that. What is traditional marriage?

According to this Princeton Article  and this Independent Article 1/6 of societies practice legal monogamy currently. Legal monogamy was a rarity during antiquity and even more so in prior eras. Most Christians should understand this, because Judaism of course was historically polygamous. And the Greco-Roman tradition of man on man rumpus wasn't lost to the ages. It wasn't until the merger of Christianity and the Roman Empire that lead to an ascetic marriage tradition. I do have to say though that I'm disappointing with history, and the fact that we didn't end up with a system of polygamous gay-marriage. I think we were kind of close to that possibility.

And once this system of marriage was created, it looked very different from the nuclear family of today.  Forced marriages were common place until the 19th Century. I really don't think anyone wants to go back to that tradition.

So if it isn't tradition or religious liberty, what else is there? Many people have a problem with the gay identity, and how the gayness is the only aspect of gay people's lives.  The way I see it, gay people do not want to be identified as being gay. They are simply people who happen to be attracted to men. Why is that evil? Where is the logic behind the morality?  With the boom in human population, mass starvation (yes people really are starving), and other population related issues, perhaps we should encourage gay people to live as gay (as opposed to living a miserable closeted life and having a family that will one day suffer the consequences.)

Believe it or not, logically gay people have more to gain than the heterosexual community has to lose by granting gay rights. In marriage, gays would gain a whole host of financial, mutual-property, and other legal rights that straight couples enjoy. More marriage is not about having children (which, unfortunately for a certain writer, many gay couples wish to have) but more is a contract for living together and preparing to be divorced. Seriously a lot of the marriage laws are about merger of property, division of property, inheritance, and other depressing aspects of life.

If it weren't for the history of bigotry and hatred there wouldn't really even be a gay culture. If it weren't for being forced into gay neighborhoods, if it weren't for lynchings and murders, if it weren't for the fear of losing one’s job due to outing, if it weren't for the bigotry, gay people wouldn't have formed a separate culture, and they would simply be people. 

Liam '12

Freedom Just For Me

Douchebag of the Day

This is why Texas can't have nice things. The New York Daily News reports:

Houston cops are hunting for a dapper art vandal who was caught on video spray-painting a priceless Pablo Picasso painting at a museum last week.

Cell phone video shot by a visitor at the Menil Collection Wednesday showed a suave hoodlum in a dark suit jacket and sunglasses spray-painting a stencil over the Spanish master's "Woman in a Red Armchair."

Someone actually videotaped him spray-painting a Picasso with their cellphone.  How, what... grrr. What's going through your head if you just stand back and videotape this douche instead of actually doing something to prevent this from happening, or identifying and apprehending him.  I am only mildly upset with the film-maker; my true ire is directed towards Fuck-Head.

You're the type of douchebag that talks all through out a movie, because you are so much more brilliant than the auteur.  And I'm guessing you sing along at choir performances, because you easily could be first chair. Nope. You're not first chair, because you suck. You're not a director, because you are not good enough. People came to see Picasso not you. Get over yourself. If Marcel Duchamp had the common decency  to not actually vandalize the real Mona Lisa with a mustache, then I think you should follow suit. By vandalizing artwork, you are silencing an artist. Without art what joy is there in life?

And secondly that is such a lame tag.  Ooh Spanish writing on a Picasso. How daring.Way to teach that dead Spanish guy how to speak Spanish. Here is my suggestion on how to make a tag nobody would want to remove:

Classy, elegant, and it would now be worth much more money. Because let's face it, isn't the money what it's all about.

Do you know what, I'm just going to say it: Fuck Texas. I know this crap happens everywhere, but still let's all start mess'n wid texus.


Liam '12

Freedom Just For Me

Nature is not so Natural

UPDATE: I found the full video, and to be fair the section of youtube was taken out of context. I'm not going to take down this post because I have heard many of the same arguments made by other people.   So I guess just pretend that Mr. Barber didn't say these things.
 
I stumbled upon this video, and it quickly became apparent that I need to comment on this idiocy. The video was uploaded to Youtube via Right Wing Watch. I found the transcript on Right Wing Watch's site.Not like this isn't a daily occurrence, we get to see Matt Barber make an ass of himself, Liberty Counsel, and thus ""Liberty" "University""(oh wait it actually is ABA accredited).

 

This tyranny of rights, this tyranny of the minority, and we’re not talking about racial minorities, neutral minorities, we’re talking about people who define their identity based upon sexually deviant behaviors and proclivities.This is a tyranny of sexually deviant rights and it’s by design to replace the enumerated Constitutional rights given by our Creator based upon the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, these so-called rights violate the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God, and yes violate the expressed guarantees that we have to religious liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of association granted to us by the United States Constitution. The LGBT agenda and Constitutional rights cannot exist in harmony. At Liberty Counsel, we defend the Constitution.

Let's deconstruct his argument chunk by chunk.

This tyranny of rights, this tyranny of the minority, and we’re not talking about racial minorities, neutral minorities, we’re talking about people who define their identity based upon sexually deviant behaviors and proclivities.

A tyranny of right, that sounds like a tyranny of freedom, which makes perfect sense. I have to give him credit, if you say something that is dumb enough it's like brain Novocaine, that way you won't notice the hate so much.Then he moves to how the act of gay sex is the only thing that identifies us.  It's never the love two people share, the emotional connections, the friendship, the stories, or the day-in-day-out same as strait people lives, it is always about the sloppy butt sex.  Yep for me it is.  I couldn't go to work because I was getting ass-fucked.  I couldn't get the mail because I was getting ass-fucked. Guess why I couldn't walk the dog. I digress.

This is a tyranny of sexually deviant rights and it’s by design to replace the enumerated Constitutional rights given by our Creator based upon the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, these so-called rights violate the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God, and yes violate the expressed guarantees that we have to religious liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of association granted to us by the United States Constitution. 

Once again a tyranny of rights.. Is this fucker trying to piss me off, or is does he seriously confuse liberty and oppression. I could live with one of those. Then he says it will replace the enumerated rights, what enumerated right will disappear? Well, tell me jackass. Which one goes bye-bye? That's what I thought.Next he says god wrote our original constitution. Great job on that slavery things asshole. And if you're omnipotent and omniscient why did you allow for amendments..

Ooh here he say's the constitution is predicated upon Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.  Yes because there are no such things a gay animals. Nope no such things as gay penguins.  I means seriously has he never been to the monkey section of the zoo. Chimpanzees are always "playing" with each other. Bonobo constantly giving out gay hand-jobs (well technically they are bi hand-jobs.) And just a side note when I end up in hell, I hope it's penguin hell.  He then says being gay violates these Law's of nature and thus the constitution res ipsa loquitur.

Let's look at the constitutional rights he list again:

Religious Liberty: Yes and which God hates the gays. If my God happens to think we all should be gay. Or more likely what if I am Buddhist, Hindu, Reform Jewish, or a Congregationalist.


Freedom of speech: Meh off the top of my head I have nothing clever for this one.

Freedom of association: Dear lord he's an idiot. First off, freedom of association is not a word for word constitutional right.  It is known as a penumbra. A good definition of penumbra come from Lawyers.com, "a body of rights held to be guaranteed by implication from other rights explicitly enumerated in the U.S. Constitution."  Similar to privacy which was granted Griswold v. Connecticut. if the courts start eating away at the penumbras so goes free association.

Second what can be more of a freedom of association issue than choosing who you want to hang out with, date, love, have sex with,  live with, and eventually marry. Those are what the Gay Rights are all about.

The LGBT agenda and Constitutional rights cannot exist in harmony. At Liberty Counsel, we defend the Constitution.

Yes of course rights of the people cannot exist with the Constitution. And didn't Jesus say to be a Fish of Men.

Liam '12

Freedom Just For Me

Behind the Name

This is a bit of the reason why I titled this blog "Freedom Just For Me."

In 2010 a group of ultra rabid, foaming at the mouth, freedom hating, meh I could go on forever with insults Republicans had their collective Hate-Meters ramped up all the way to Def-Con 6.  The issue at hand was Park51, which they labeled as the Ground-Zero-Victory-Mosque.

Here is the mission statement provided by Park51:

Park51 will be a vibrant and inclusive community center, reflecting the diverse spectrum of cultures and traditions, and serving New York City with programs in education, arts, culture and recreation.

Inspired by Islamic values and Muslim heritage, Park51 will weave the Muslim-American identity into the multicultural fabric of the United States. Park51 aims to foster cooperation and understanding between people of all faiths and backgrounds through relevant programs and initiatives.

Wow that's gutsy as hell of them to quote Osama Bin Laden's First Video. The conservatives, who months prior dressed up in tricorne hats screaming that the government is takin' way all 'em freedumz, were petitioning New York City to make the Burlington Coat Factory a historical cite, thus preventing the construction of the Center. If you want to protest or boycott that is your right as a free citizen, but to take legal action through the Government to prevent people from practicing their religion, and it is especially terrible if you literally are waving a banner that reads "Liberty." I cannot imagine these people taking legal action to prevent a church from being built, or enjoying being on the receiving end of a government order.  They want freedom and the liberty to deny others the freedoms they enjoy.

Glaring hypocrisy aside, the problem with whole Ground Zero Mosque thing is that

A: Park51 is not on Ground Zero. It was previously a Burlington Coat Factory store;

B: Park51 is an inter-religious cultural center not a Mosque. Apparently they have had a workshop teaching children how to make bread. Quel Malheur;

C: By labeling Park51 as a  "Victory Mosque" they are implying Muslim-Americans are somehow in cahoots with Bin Laden.  It's saying that Muslim Americans are taking victory, even though Muslim-Americans were in that area prior to 9/11.

Equating all Muslims with the Al-Qaeda is like say all Americans are just like Fred Phelps. Speaking of the idiot, maybe this should be his next sign.

Liam '12

Freedom Just For Me

Happy Father's Day

This year I am going to celebrate Father's Day with Charles Darwin and with some hypothetical  Biology/Mathematics. I guess I should do a little bit of explaining.  What better way to celebrate humanity and origins than to trace it all the way back to the separation of proto-human and proto-bonobos.  I watched a Nova Video not too long ago, and it hasn't been too long since my anthropology classes, and I think these numbers are mostly B.S. but at the same time not too far off.

The Numbers:

Most Recent Common Ancestor of Humans and Bonobos: approximately 7 million years ago

Most of that time our forefathers were more like Bonobos than Humans. Bonobos typical start having children at age of 13.

Let's say average generation, just for shits and giggles, was 16 years long. That doesn't mean life expectancy was 16, just mean breading age.

That means 7 million divided by 16 produces 4.4 x 10^5 great grandparents. Or to put it another way, imagine the city of Sacramento is nothing but your ancestors. Now imagine a great line of 440,000 people long, imagine all the ways you look different from your father and all the differences your father has from your grandfather; now imagine the differences that must have been between your grandfather and his father. All the way back until the separation.

At the moment Wikipedia says:

2.5 x 10^5 -greats-grandparents or a generation every 20 years.  My calculation had over twice as many predicted ancestors. O well. 

Liam '12

Freedom Just For Me