Month: September 2010

The so-called “ground zero mosque”, and Rev. Terry Jones

Jason Thibeault, , 1 Comment

Working on a super-secret thing that will take place tomorrow, which I will totally pimp after it happens (or try to cover up, depending on whether or not it fails horribly). In the meantime, check this video out.

Rev. Terry Jones has claimed that his Burn-a-Koran day originally scheduled for today (9/11, in case you hadn’t realized), will be cancelled, in exchange for the Imam responsible for the Muslim community center Park51 moving his proposed construction project.

Turns out that Jones and Musri’s powwow may have resulted in something less than agreement, despite Jones’ claims. But regardless, the whole row is patently ridiculous to anyone with any interest in the actual facts of the situation.

The so-called “mosque” may include a prayer room, but it’s most certainly not intended to be a religious site. Also, it’s two blocks away from Ground Zero — not even visible from the WTC site. However, many small-minded, short-sighted people apparently find it offensive to host a site that caters to adherents of the same religion that the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre happened to follow. The differences here is, the people responsible for the 9/11 attacks were terrorists and radicals, not mainstream Muslims. By the same token, would the members of the Colonial Christian Republic weigh against the whole religion of Christianity, based merely on their professed religion?

The fact of this matter is, no matter what your personal views happen to be, you can find some passage in either the Bible or the Qu’ran to support them. Those texts do not adequately lay out any sort of moral groundwork, because they contradict themselves and argue every position imaginable. They are the religious equivalents of “cold-readings”, insofar as just about anyone could find a chunk of the foundational text to match their personal beliefs.

So, while my personal solution — eliminating all dogmatic religions altogether — might be seen as anti-pluralistic, the folks arguing against having a building devoted to Muslims near a site where some radical Muslims did some damage once upon a time are obviously far less pluralistic than even my beliefs. You know, granted that my belief is that ALL dogmas should be eliminated, but that the people that once adhered to them are perfectly acceptable. Not just perfectly acceptable, but should not be discriminated against. Any such limiting of who can buy what property is overt discrimination, and to make matters worse, it’s discrimination against a superset of a much smaller set of radicals. Discrimination against all Christians because of the acts of certain individual or small groups of Christians is unacceptable, so why should discrimination against any other religion or belief be acceptable?

The so-called “ground zero mosque”, and Rev. Terry Jones
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Suicide Prevention Day

Jason Thibeault, , ,

Folks, you might like to know that today is World Suicide Prevention Day. As part of the activity, you’re encouraged to light a candle at 8pm and put it in a window in memory of survivors and those we’ve lost. That kind of token awareness-raising is well and good, but I’d personally strongly encourage you to support your local suicide prevention hotlines, do whatever you can to limit access to the more common means of suicide, or even just pass the word along on your blogs.

Most suicides can be prevented. It’s not always a matter of needing to “see the signs”, as none of us are trained psychologists; however, knowing that the best mitigating practices involve public health measures and evidence-based prevention initiatives, we can make inroads. The ways to make such inroads, is through both science, and politics. If you can raise political awareness that this needs addressing, wonderful. And if you can produce studies and increase the body of human knowledge with regard to how and why suicides occur, and how to prevent them, so much the better. Knowledge is power; forewarned is forearmed.

As George Hrab says, “everything alive will die someday”. But why seek to hasten it? This life is the only one you get. Suck the marrow out of it.

Suicide Prevention Day

“…but he who destroys a good book, kills Reason itself, kills the Image of God.”

Jason Thibeault, , , 14 Comments

Regular reader and local heathen Clifton sent along a link describing the mounting pressure Rev. Terry Jones is facing over his ill-advised “Burn-a-Koran Day”, due to be staged on September 11, 2010.

Jones, who is known for posting signs proclaiming that Islam is the devil’s religion, says the Constitution gives him the right to publicly set fire to the book that Muslims consider the word of God.

Gen. David Petraeus warned Tuesday in an e-mail to The Associated Press that “images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence.” It was a rare example of a military commander taking a position on a domestic political matter.

Jones responded that he is also concerned but is “wondering, ‘When do we stop?'” He refused to cancel the protest set for Saturday at his Dove World Outreach Center, a church that espouses an anti-Islam philosophy.

“How much do we back down? How many times do we back down?” Jones told the AP. “Instead of us backing down, maybe it’s to time to stand up. Maybe it’s time to send a message to radical Islam that we will not tolerate their behavior.”

Still, Jones said he will pray about his decision.

What do you want to bet that after he prays about his decision, he will come to the conclusion that this is a really good idea? Given that for most people, praying to your deity is just a way of reinforcing your decisions by granting them extra weight (cross-reference self-projection as God), unless he suddenly has a pang of conscience for fanning the flames of this religious crusade, he’ll come to the conclusion that his god is just fine with his plans. It’s a function of the Ouroboros aspect of prayer, as outlined in my Why Prayer is Nonsense series.

Forget the fact that burning books is an execrable practice carried out by cowards who feel threatened by ideas that contradict their own. Let’s say that it’s his constitutional right to burn books. There’s nothing, technically, wrong with burning a book, right? So why not get the bonfire REALLY going? I say, for every single Qu’ran that’s thrown in the pyre, a copy of the Bible (any translation will do, but especially the one Jones believes in!), the Torah, the Upanishad, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, and a VHS cassette of Jerry Maguire must needs be thrown in as well. Sound fair?

If Jones says “no way”, you know why. It’s not about getting back at Muslims that he feels hurt his country. It’s, instead, entirely about trying to do violence to one religion in furtherance of another, deepening the chasm between human beings that believe in Christ and human beings that believe in Muhammad. That chasm may have existed for a very long time, practically since Christianity and Islam split, but this entire escapade is about firing another salvo. It’s about subjugating one set of delusions in preference for another. It’s about fanning the flames of an existing physical conflict in which real human beings are dying over whose fan-fiction about Yahweh is better.

And that’s just ass-backward. Live and let live, and let whatever deity might actually exist prove it him/herself.

(Title quote by Winston Churchill.)

“…but he who destroys a good book, kills Reason itself, kills the Image of God.”

What would happen if astrology were suddenly proven true?

Jason Thibeault,

Yakaru of Spirituality Is No Excuse wrote up an interesting thought-experiment — what might happen if astrology started to produce scientifically verified, empirically validated results? His answer: not what the astrologers might hope.

The first repercussions

* Newspaper astrologers would find the rug being pulled out from under them. Mainstream astrologers would gloatingly remind them that they’ve been saying all along that it isn’t proper astrology, rather it just provides skeptics with an “easy target”.

* People would realise that the daily astrology column is completely pointless, and newspapers would apologetically let their highly paid astrologers go back to the dole office. Planetary positions would be incorporated in the weather forecast.

* Chinese, Mayan, Tibetan, Arab and Vedic astrologers would all be devastated by the news that their astrology has now been definitively shown to be wrong and would be out of a job. Or they would be desperately trying to square their system with the triumphant one.

Some might try to ascertain that they are all “right in their own way”, but this won’t work. If that were the case, we would quickly have landed back at the current situation, where a random system is as good as classical astronomy.

Standards for evidence would now be let loose in the previously harmonious profession. And that would cause further problems.

I mentioned such a possibility in one of my comments on the gigantic astrology debunking thread, regarding what a boon to humanity the empirical verification, testing and winnowing-out of the correct interpretation of the heavens might be. I was hoping Robert Currey or some other astrologer might take the bait and agree, as frankly, this would mean well over 90% of the astrologers out there would be, ultimately, wrong. Most of their interpretations would be bunk, the vast majority of the astrologers would be cast to the wayside, and only one true set of effects could be scientifically verified and validated. That knowledge would become part of the body of human knowledge; software would be written to provide correct interpretations without the need for a “trained astrologer” to interpret the results. It would change the world of astrology from a priest-class set of authority figures, to a scientific, precise, measurable one that can be correctly interpreted.

The only assumption you need to make, to understand that the world of astrology would not survive such empirical validation, is the assumption that this universe has a specific set of principles under which it operates; that it “works one way”, and that only one interpretation of the facts is correct. Then their whole house of cards falls apart.

What would happen if astrology were suddenly proven true?

Hanny and the Mystery of the Voorwerp

Jason Thibeault4 Comments

Jodi and I aren’t at Dragon*Con geeking it up with all our intertube bretheren, but apparently our names are. At CONvergence, we took part in several panels (there’s even photographic proof of the back of my and Kelly’s heads!) with Kelly McCullough, author of the WebMage series and all-around stand-up guy, the enthusiastic and incredibly sweet Dr. Pamela L. Gay, and the immensely knowledgeable Bill Keel, discussing how to go about turning the discovery and investigation of Hanny’s Voorwerp into a web comic in order to provide a manner of outreach, bringing the obvious human interest aspects of the story to the public. As it turns out, by doing so, we volunteered to help co-author the web comic. Not that I wasn’t absolutely honoured by the fact!

So we wrote several of the pages’ dialogue to help shoulder some of the burden, then Kelly gave them all a going-over to ensure we were all “on the same page”, so to speak. And for what minimal amount of effort we put in, we got a co-writing credit on the front page of the comic. This of course means that, because it was just unveiled at Dragon*Con, we’re there in spirit.

The comic is free to download right here, though you should really consider purchasing a real copy for a mere $5 US + tax and shipping to help defray their costs for publication and commissioning the artwork. Which, by the way, is absolutely beautiful.

For the minimal amount of effort we feel like we’ve actually contributed to this process, I’m proud to have been included. I truly feel that every little contribution to the cause of scientific outreach is worthwhile, no matter how my humility keeps me from taking any sort of credit.

Hanny and the Mystery of the Voorwerp

Mario gamers are now obsolete

Jason Thibeault

Some Japanese ROM hackers — probably the same insane folks that brought you those Impossible Mario games — have figured out a way to make a level play itself so long as you don’t touch the controller. I have to say, this is some twisted kind of epic. It must have taken months to put this together, such that the sound effects sync perfectly with the custom music inserted into the ROM image.

Did you catch the Megaman tribute in the song? Yes, that made me insanely happy.

Mario gamers are now obsolete

Hawking closes a gap

Jason Thibeault, 42 Comments

Stephen Hawking, arguably the greatest physicist the planet has yet known, has published a new book, The Grand Design. In it Hawking has made his strongest-ever assertion against the theistic worldview, by describing the universe as, by definition, not requiring a deity to create it. This closes another gap within which God could hide.

It was the discovery of other solar systems outside our own, in 1992, that undercut a key idea of Newton’s — that our world was so uniquely designed to be comfortable for human life that some divine creator must have been responsible.

But, Hawking argues, if there are untold numbers of planets in the galaxy, it’s less remarkable that there’s one with conditions for human life.

And, indeed, he argues, any form of intelligent life that evolves anywhere will automatically find that it lives somewhere suitable for it.

From there he introduces the idea of multiple universes, saying that if there are many universes, one will have laws of physics like ours — and in such a universe, something not only can, but must, arise from nothing.

Therefore, he concludes, there’s no need for God to explain it.

This is the anthropic principle — the only reason we recognize this universe as existing, is because it exists in such a way that intelligent life can form. The “god hypothesis” is unnecessary to explain why we’re here, given the possibility of multiple such universes in multiple dimensions.

Naturally, people are aghast, pulling out all the old fallacies to fight back against this assertion. A quick glance at the comments field on ABC’s coverage and you will notice an argumentum ad populum, references to more popular celebrities than Hawking that believe in Christianity, inversion of the burden of proof, and all sorts of special pleading.

As always, in the CNN article, the faithful get a shout-out and the last word is by an Anglican preacher who claims Hawking is not arguing against the Abrahamic God; never mentioned is the fact that he’s arguing against all gods. It’s funny how the evidence points in one direction, and the faithful get the last word despite having nothing but faith in their particular stories to point in the other.

Reminds me of that one time I argued against the concept of astrology, and astrologers complained that I didn’t argue about their specific methods. Good times, good times.

Hawking closes a gap

Harper wants Canada to have its own Fox News

Jason Thibeault, , 21 Comments

Evidently Stephen Harper is not satisfied with running a minority government like one long game of chicken, or having the truth inconveniently turn up every time they try to pull the wool over Canadian citizens’ eyes (remember “unreported crimes are skyrocketing” as an excuse for pouring billions into unnecessary new jails? You should — it wasn’t THAT long ago!). Now our favorite local tin pot dictator has gotten envious of the propaganda machine available to the right-wingers in the States and wants to make a Schedule-1 cable channel (on every TV watcher’s dime!) for Fox News.

But wait, you say! Fox News is already on most Canadian cable packages! Oh, but therein lies the rub — that particular channel is quite hostile to Canada, and wouldn’t toe the Canadian Conservatives’ line. That’s why Harper, Murdoch and Ailes all met to discuss creating Fox News North, a move that would be entirely funded by every cable-subscribing goon in the country, most of whom would have no idea they were doing so (and probably wouldn’t care). George W explains.

Mr. Harper not only plans to create a right-wing Conservative-talking-points style network here in Canada, but he would like it to be a Category 1 digital station, meaning it will be a mandatory part of one of the digital cable packages and funded partly by every viewers cable television fees. There is currently a petition being prepared by Avaaz.org that will run in major Canadian Newspapers once 100,000 signatures are collected.
[…]
The bigger issue here is not whether Canadians want or need a right wing news agency. The issue is why a sitting Prime Minister is actively working to get a license for any network. Another good question is why a former spokesman for our Prime Minister should be in charge of the political coverage of Sun Media group, one of the largest media consortiums in our country.

Stephen Harper needs to focus on the task of running a country, not on building a conservative propaganda feedback loop. The network itself would also require a systematic dismantling of CRTC regulations regarding balanced coverage during our election cycle, something I can only imagine would make Little Stevie beam with joy.

Go sign the petition. The last thing we need is a far-right propaganda machine of Fox News’ ilk, further coarsening our political dialog and driving the polarization that’s happening all around us — a polarization that smacks uncannily of having been engineered to ruin the good thing we have. Or, rather, had. At this rate, if we ever shake Harper free from his position of power, rebuilding the democratic processes that have already been shat upon is going to take far longer than a term or two. Much of the damage of polarization and of coarsening the political discourse is already done. We’re no longer, as it were, “above” that kind of nonsense.

Harper wants Canada to have its own Fox News