IDoNotGetIt

Foxnews headline…

Girl in Fatal Wreck Sent Text Message Moments Before Crash

So this 16 year old girl crashed her car and died of head injuries.  Her mother “hopes the accident will make other people think before texting and driving”.  That’s good advice, not paying attention to what you’re doing while driving is dangerous and texting requires a significant amount of attention so you shouldn’t do it while driving right?  Right.

Oh WAIT a minute, how bout this little insignificant detail…

Authorities say Preuss had been driving drunk and was speeding.

Well, what do you think had more of an important role in this crash, the texting or the inebriated, speeding teenager?  The police say that the texting “may have contributed to the crash” but when you are drunk and speeding, having to pee real bad could contribute to a crash.  It doesn’t matter what else she was doing, the drunk speeding is, most likely, the reason she is dead, not the texting!

I hate the news media.

Lately, it seems like there has been a lot of free expression issues in the news.  We’ve had the controversy over PZ’s “cracker”, we’ve had the “Jesus Sucks” banner and we’ve had the atheist sticker issue, among others.

This has really got me thinking about how lucky we are, as some of these have occurred in other countries that don’t have the same freedom of expression guaranteed by their constitution that we do.  It is scary if you do a little research to see how often people go to jail in other countries just for saying something that people find offensive.  Holocaust denial will get you thrown in jail in many European countries.  In my book this falls into the category of evil.  It is wrong, in my opinion, to disallow people to say things just because they are stupid.  But it is unconscionable to throw them in jail because they say something stupid.  Idiots that spew their hatred and ignorance should be marginalized by the rest of us but they should not be thrown in jail.

In the United States, we don’t have to worry about going to jail for saying something that someone else doesn’t like but we might have to suffer through a lawsuit.  Fellow atheist, Patrick, was offended by a sticker that called him a “fool”, so he decided to sue, then in a similarly offensive jab at the other side, the “Jesus Sucks” banner offended the Christians.  They also had at least one nut who decided that something must be done.  Since the “Jesus Sucks” offense happened in Canada, they may actually have a case, I’m not sure.

My point is that we should be able to get over being offended.  We shouldn’t have the right to stop people from speaking their minds just because we don’t like what they are saying.  Personally, I think restricting people’s freedom of expression is equivalent to restricting their freedom of movement.  Whether you are tying their legs or tying their tongue, you are still causing an undue restriction to their freedom.

The laws in Canada and European countries that make certain offensive speech illegal, and punishable by jail time, are wrong in-so-far as they are unnecessary to protect the general population and are anti-freedom.  I believe that laws that restrict or basic freedoms should only be levied when they are absolutely necessary to protect the public.  Speech that is hateful, irrational, unpopular, etc. but does not specifically incite other illegal activity should be allowed.

I am so grateful for the brilliant foresight of the men who penned the Constitution of the United States, guaranteeing Americans this basic freedom.

Religious people love to pretend that religion and science are compatible world views that should be given equal time.  In theory this might be true.  It isn’t necessary that religions conflict with science.  But the plain and simple fact is that they do.  And when they do, science should, and does win.  And it wins every time for one simple reason.  Science is the study of reality.

Reality is the constant that we all have with one another.  We might all have different interpretations of some event but science can show us the true nature of that event.  The observations that science reveals are objective and true for everyone, not any particular subset of people.

I’ve said many times before that science can’t be used to validate or invalidate religion but I realize now that that isn’t exactly true.  And many of the ridiculous “proofs” that I’ve responded to over the past 50 days have reinforced that to me spectacularly.  Science can, in fact, disprove or at the very least, cast serious doubt on certain claims that many religions make.  These claims being the ones that step into the realm of reality and out of the realm of philosophy.

Christians, for instance, think they are untouchable because their views are religious in nature.  But they aren’t.  Some of their beliefs are wrong.  Religious claims that step out of the philosophical realm should be able to stand up to scientific scrutiny.  So there is no conflict between religion and science as long as they are kept separate but as soon as you try to combine them, you are going to run in to problems.

In #45 (Day 42), a quote by Stephen Hawkins is used.

Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?”

This is a good example of science and philosophy being separate.  Science can’t answer the question: “why does the universe bother to exist?” because it isn’t a scientific question.  It is a philosophical one.  If religion stuck to these kinds of things, there would be nothing to fight about with science.  No one would ever step on the others toes.

But they don’t.  Instead, you get religions like Christianity trying to step into the realm of science.  And coming out looking spectacularly stupid in the process.  Evolution denial must be the most ignorant, brainless, vacuous… really, there aren’t words strong enough to express how foolish evolution denial is.  Yet they deny it.  They have let their dogma push them into an area that religion is not qualified.  And they constantly make themselves look like fools to everyone who knows better.

This is a fight that ought not exist.  Evolution is true and that truth does not eliminate all theistic beliefs.  Christians, a long time ago, made a mistake.  They thought they were doing the right thing by telling this silly story about how everything was created and how life came about but they didn’t realize that they were stepping out of their area of expertise.  And, maybe it wasn’t even their fault, after all, science wasn’t exactly a well developed field of study at that time.  They were doing the best they could with the knowledge they had available to them.  But now we know better.  It’s time to get over it.  The book is wrong.  It is obviously wrong to anyone with half a brain who looks at it with an open mind.

Evolution denial makes you look like a fool.  And worst of all, it makes your religion look foolish.  Stick to the philosophy.  Come up with answers to the questions like “why does the universe bother to exist?”  There is still a market for that sort of thing and there probably always will be.

I’m out of “proofs” or “reasons”, what ever you want to call them, early because a few of them just couldn’t be answered separately in good conscience.  However, that doesn’t mean I’m out of stupidity.

These “proofs” are all, each and every one, based on common, well documented, misunderstandings and lies.  Some are wrong on many levels.  For instance, number 39 (Day 36) is wrong because it is a fallacy but on top of that, it isn’t even based on facts.  Even if it were proven that women discovered the empty tomb of Jesus, this still wouldn’t make this a good argument for the existence of god.  But the fact that it isn’t based on real facts makes it wrong on top of wrong.

This isn’t unusual for these kinds of arguments.  Believers have already “fooled” themselves.  They already believe so they can’t see the illogical reasoning they put into these “proofs”.  They don’t understand that this is the kind of crap you get when you try to prove something you already believe rather than believe something you have proven.  That is an extremely important distinction.

I am frequently asked, “do you believe anything?” or “what DO you believe?”  My answer is: “I do believe.  My beliefs are based on facts and the logical conclusions you can draw from those facts.  You give me the facts, if they check out, I’m a believer.”

50. Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.

Really?  Those are the only two options you can think of?  This is another false dichotomy argument.  There are an infinite number of other possibilities.  I tend to believe that he was probably just a mentally ill person who got followers and then after he was executed, his nutty followers started making up wild stories that evolved over the millennia.  That’s just my opinion but it is much more believable than “he was god”.

What the hell is up with that crap anyway?  What was his big sacrifice?  He already knew that he was some kind of deity.  He knew that he couldn’t die (for real).  Hell, what decent human being wouldn’t sacrifice themselves to save everyone who ever lived if the reward was being a god?  That’s not a sacrifice.  A sacrifice is when you do it and don’t get any reward, you just die.

Here is a very good list of some of the vile content in the bible.  So much for “Christian values.”

The Character of God in the Bible

49. God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?

More preaching.  I don’t wear glasses and I thought your god was infinitely powerful.  What the hell do you mean “what more can God do?”  He can create the universe but he can’t provide me with convincing evidence of his existence?  What kind of impotent god do you believe in?