The Fargo experience

I’m keeping busy here — we had a packed house at my talk (which was all wonky sciencey biology stuff) last night, I did a press conference this morning which might get a few soundbites floating around North Dakota, spent a little time on the Christopher Gabriel show on WDAY radio, and now get a brief break before I head over to NDSU for a 2:00 discussion session on atheist activism, which should be fun. I plan on briefly discussing the Creation Museum trip and desecrating communion wafers, and then let other people howl back and forth for a while.

At 6:00, it’s time for the Fargo Theatre and Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God, and I need to warn you: it’s a small theater. The audience I had last night would not fit in it. If you’re hoping to go, either go early to get in line, or just figure on going to the 9:30 showing instead and missing my post-movie talk. I’m not planning on posting the talk here, as I usually do, either — I’m writing a book, you know, and a polished and slightly expanded version of this talk will be going in there, so you’ll need to buy my book if you can’t get into the theater.

I am venal and cruel, I know.

Excess

There can be too much of a good thing. If you actually eat Turbaconucken, you’ve got a bacon addiction. Seek help.

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And if you ever drink Jones Dungeons & Dragons Spellcasting Soda during your weekly D&D game, you are suffering from hypernerdosis. In fact, you are probably even too nerdy for this blog.

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I don’t even want to imagine someone who serves turbaconucken and spellcasting soda as a snack during their regular FRP sessions.

And now for a little local net warfare…

I had no idea that our regular commenter SC had become a “d00d”, but there is a fury of discussion about it going on. I think it’s an unfortunate exercise in chromosomal elitism to be sneering at our transgendered brothers and sisters, or at people who we think are transgendered, or even at homogametic individuals who are peculiarly accused of male privilege.

OK, the last one is kind of funny.

(I know, this post is rather oblique…you’ll have to go digging to trace back the web drama. Or not, if that doesn’t interest you.)

A Brazilian poll

Yet another secular government wants to increase religious meddling in civic life — some Brazilians want to incorporate more religion into the public schools. I wonder if getting input from the rest of the world would be helpful?

Você é favorável ao ensino religioso facultativo nas escolas públicas? (Are you favorable to optional religious teachings in
public school?)

Sim (yes) – 73%
Não (no) – 27%

Now I want to get a speculum

This is a side of women I haven’t had a chance to see in such detail before — it’s a series of photos of the cervix, taken every day over the course of a month. It changes, unsurprisingly. It’s a little organ with a different personality every time you look at it.

There are also photos of the cervix before and after sex, which is a physiological phenomenon that also changes the configuration of that whole muscley flexible bit of the anatomy. However, she talks about the upsuck hypothesis — the idea that the activity of the cervix is adapted to physically draw semen into the opening — which is an interesting idea, but actually hasn’t been supported by experiment or observation.

It’s a very cool project!

Rapping about genes

I like it!

I know this will set off another round of culture sniping — get over it. You don’t personally have to like this genre, just as no one has to like every kind of music out there, and turning your nose up at one form doesn’t necessarily mean your taste is better than someone else’s. Just recognize that it’s different. It’s not Mozart or Manilow, it’s just its own sound. If it helps you get over the rejection of something that doesn’t sound like the music you are familiar with, think of it as a poetry performance instead.

As for myself, most rap and hip-hop leaves me cold, but every once in a while something in it connects with me, and I can’t predict what it will be. I’ve even got some Busta Rhymes on my iPod that I really, really like…and no, I don’t have to justify it to anyone!

I was wrong

Yesterday, I disagreed with Phil Plait — I didn’t think the suggestion by Texas educators to remove a requirement to mention Neil Armstrong was that bad. However, that was because I presumed that they were making a reasonable pedagogical argument, that the state board shouldn’t micromanage how the details of social studies were taught.

I was wrong. I was very wrong. They’re suggesting this change and others because they’re batshagging mad.

On day one of hearings in Austin, disagreements flare over the importance that should be given to civil rights leaders including Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall.

On the other side some members are looking at adding mentions of people like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh to the curriculum.

Neil Armstrong is being defenestrated, but they want to stuff in Rush Limbaugh? Never mind my unjustified assumption that the Texas BOE discussions were academic conversations about what was the best and most useful material for their children to learn — it’s insanity, instead.

No crazier than Genesis

An eccentric Norwegian musician named Varg Vikernes has been updating (a polite word for “making up”) a Norse origins story. It’s nuts, but no crazier than the stuff Ken Ham and Ray Comfort want you to believe (and they, too, have been “updating” a very short metaphor from the Bible to make for a very elaborate story). Here’s Vikernes’ version of the creation:

Our world was created in co-operation between these three proto-forces. Between Múspellheimr (the stars) and Niflheimr (the frozen matter in space) there was Gínungagap (the void). The universe was resting. It was inactive. It was in a state of complete balance.

The universe woke after this rest of Freyr. Óðinn’s force threw the mass out in all directions again. The stars began to melt the frozen matter in space when they met each other, out there in Gínungagap; in the void.

In Múspellheimr, there was the divine bosom, the explosion which gives new life to the universe. In Niflheimr, there was the resting divine thought, frozen. The ice melted and it became active again.

In Ragnarök, the opposite forces cancel each other out until only one force is left standing. Since the gravitational pull is constant, while the explosion only works over a limited time, gravity will always win. It will always, after a period of time, force the mass of universe together again.

The mark of this is the gods’ preparation for Ragnarök. Óðinn has endeavoured to win the battle, even though he knows he will always lose in the end. He will always die, no matter how much force he puts into his explosion – because gravity is constant, while his own power, after some time, will cease to function. That, which is then to come, is the Jotun’s destruction of our world. It is destroyed at that time when the planets and the stars are forced together into one point again. The sky falls down.

But the humans will return yet again. For Líf (the force of life) and Lífþrasi (the will of life) hides in Hoddmímis grove. There, they feed on the dew of the morning. When the universe again explodes, the ice will melt and the force of life will become active once again. No Ragnarök can destroy this treasure of the memory.

The universe is the lung of Tuisto, which rhythmically breathes, in and out. His brain is the thought that becomes frozen at the collapse of the universe. This thought becomes active again, when Tuisto breathes out, and lets Óðinn’s explosion heat it up. Tuisto’s thought then forms and creates a new and living universe.

Tuisto’s thought directs his two round palms. The force of the explosion is in one of them, gravity in the other. One of them is the white hole of the universe, the other the black hole of the universe. With these, Tuisto can move around the celestial bodies, irradiate and increase or decrease them.

At each black hole, there exist so-called naked singularities. Besides these, there exist invisible holes in the universe, which we call wormholes. Here, objects may enter in order to exit at a completely different place in the universe; independent of both time and space. The exits of these holes are what we call white holes. The mass that was dragged towards the black hole (by gravity) hit a wormhole instead; where it bursts out the egress of the white hole with an enormous force.

Black holes will only get more massive, and will only gravitate more and more matter in the universe, until a hole becomes so big that it is capable of absorbing all other mass in the universe. This is where Irminsûl’s role enters, because it is actually Tuisto, the god-pillar in the centre – the high-seat, that is supposed to balance the two other proto-forces. Tuisto’s brain, the thought, can place wormholes inside the black holes, so that they empty in mass faster than they are filled up. Thus the one hand negates the other hand’s actions, which results in balance.

That’s truly absurd and silly, but if ever the creationists get their wish and ‘teach the controversy’ gets enshrined in law somewhere, I think we need to have this story taught to all the children, on equal footing with the Christian myth.

And then I want to see a debate between Comfort and a lunatic in chainmail. Both can use axes, to make it fair.