Remember Osama -I am a dead coward- Bin Laden?

 

 (Source)

So you remember that Osama guy? That idiot retard that organized all those terror plots against the USA specifically. The reason I bring this up is I wonder how many people have actually read the Fatwah he pronounced against the USA and its people.

Basically what I want to say is this, anyone that supports Osama in anyway is a terrorist. How can I say this with certainty, well if you support this dead piece of trash, this is what you support (excerpts from the Fatwah).

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it,

We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.  

The reason this retard felt this way was because he believed the West was infringing on the rights of the hell hole that is the Middle East. He was insisting that the US was taking over Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East. Granted there may have been oil interests, but this is not the total picture and certainly not the major factor for the presence of military. After all the military is not boring wells and exporting oil in nuclear submarines.

First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.

This is the problem with theists, they are delusional. The US was in the Middle East to adhere to the UN Security Council Resolution that was making sure Iraq was not invading people after the first gulf war. This is just another example of showing you what religion does to people, they discard logic to go after their own self interest missions. Preferably getting others to join them in their insanity.

If someone still supports Bin Ladens cause, they should seek counseling as they are a terrorist.

The ultimate cancer pseudo-cure

There is something that really irks me about pseudo scientists, but I have a really special hate saved up for people that promote miracle remedies and other medical tripe. These people are the dregs of society as they are making money by basically allowing people to die, when these people could be getting the correct treatment.

An example of pseudo science killing someone is the case of Steve Jobs, who believed in pseudo science and thereby avoided months of potential life saving treatment. Steve Jobs died due to ignorance or by been misled, either way its not good.

For this reason when I saw this link to a the ultimate cancer cure I was skeptical. The article relates the work on the dichloroacetate molecule by researchers at the University of Alberta’s faculty of medicine, which is very interesting and holds promise. However, it is not a miracle cancer cure as is claimed by the people at collective-evolution. It is a drug that may help against some types of cancers, however it is not a magic bullet. In fact the American Cancer Society says "dichloroacetate is known to cause nerve and liver damage, as well as some other side effects. It may also be able to cause cancer in humans, but that has not been proven. "

(Source)

Collective-evolution is a conspiracy website that believes big pharma is trying to destroy us as they cannot make money of a substance they cannot get a patent on. However, they refute themselves by showing that clinical trials are happening at present and the results will be available next year, so I am not sure what their issue is. Even if big pharma is not paying for this, it shows that it is getting done.

What I do know is  that websites like this are out there making money of off desperate people, as can be seen in all the links to other pseudo science pay websites they link too.

Oh yeah and of course the believe that cars can run on water.

Selling false hope

I am sick and tired of religious ass hats cashing in on peoples pain. I am sick and tired of religious idiots offering hope when what they should be doing is trying to help people during the grieving process. As some of my readers may know I live in Korea (South not North) and the religious nuts have been cashing on the recent Sewol Ferry tragedy. After all, is it not the best time to coerce someone to religion when they are beaten down and need support.

Today, while walking on campus I saw a promotion for praying for the Sewol victims for a miracle. In fact, its not difficult to go on-line and find sites where you can get an emblem for your Twitter or Facebook profile picture that says "I believe in miracles" or others. This really pisses me off, and its not because I am a cold heartless ass hat.

In fact, I wish dearly that they do find some people that are alive, however, I do not believe in miracles. I believe in the hard working men and women who are out at the wreck site working so hard to get answers. If you are going to pray, here is my advice for you. Don't, take that time and do something constructive like send a bank transfer to the victims families fund. Organize a petition to put more harsh penalties in place that will make tragedies like this not occur again. Do something real, not imaginary!

Do something! Don't blow smoke into the sky, its an insult to the dead.

Idiots of the week - Sri Lankan Buddhists

This week its not one idiot, but rather a very large group. Actually, this is usually the case as most idiots follow other idiots. In fact I may just have to start calling it idiots of the week all the time, as surely some fool will do whatever they get told by these weekly nominees.

(Source)

Turn out that this week Sri Lankan Buddhists have gone and deported a British tourist for a vile crime against their local beliefs. So, for this week I give you a few choices to make you see how rational these people they are. So why did Buddhists export a British tourist?
a) for killing  Buddhist monk?
b) peeing on a Buddhist statue?
c) having a Buddha tattoo?
If you chose (c) you are right.

As you know they are highly logical people these Buddhists. Nope they are just as stupid as any other theists that take offense to the dumbest stuff. Muslims don't like pictures of Muhammad and these Buddhists don't like pictures of Buddha.

To put a little more perspective. This country is 112 richest country in the world according to the IMF, yet they deem it necessary to send tourists with money away as they feel a little hurt. This is a country with a nominal GDP per capita of 3,139 USD. But hey, lets get upset about a Buddha tattoo when we have no running water.

Logical right? No, Sri Lankan Buddhists you are idiots.

How to believe

We all encounter theists online and offline in our various atheistic endeavors. The one thing that holds for all of these theists is that they believe in something or someone. I am of the opinion that the only way to believe is to compartmentalise and not think in an over arching (rational) way.

(Source)

For example, if you consider the problem of evil. It follows rationally, that a god cannot be omnipotent if evil exists. This then leads to that either the theist will ignore the argument and pretend they never heard it. Or they will adapt the compartmentalisation in where they can only consider one aspect of the argument and ignore the other. Then when you bring up the other point they will completely forget everything you just said and start again.

In the same way, an omniscient god cannot be compatible with free will. It is illogical to believe that you have a choice when the decision is already known. So when I ask does free will exist, a theist will say yes. If I then ask how is this compatible with an omniscient god, they will reply but we are not talking about free will we are talking about omniscience.

Compartmentalisation is a great way to sort your ideas, post or music on your hard-drive. However compartmentalisation is not a good way to sort your mind if there is no flow of information between the different compartments. Or to use another computer analogy, would your media player be able to work if it could not share files in your music folder?

This compartmentalisation is what I believe is the only way a theist is able to  maintain their beliefs. After all its easy when you can plead ignorance on so many levels. Or to put it in another way, saying "I don't know" if someone is asking you questions on a subject which you are not able to logically process by sharing information between the different compartments.

God Made You Imperfect - Extiniction events

A recent publication titled "Methanogenic burst in the end-Permian carbon cycle" by Rotham et al. in PNAS got me reading and thinking about past mass extinction events on our planet. This is in fact very humbling as it brings home how fragile we as a species are. We are a mere cog in the ecosystem of our planet. That is we are not special, we are not Gods perfectly created images of his arrogant self.

(Source)

So what does major extinction mean exactly? Here is a list to help you understand a little better.
1) In the Permian–Triassic extinction event, which they deal with in the manuscript cited above, 90 to 96 % of all species died.
2) In the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 75 % of all species died.
3) In the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event 75 % of all species died.
4) In the Late Devonian extinction 70 % of all species died.
5) In the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event 60 to 70 % of all species died.


Does this mean that god made  5 major screw ups? I say 5 major screw ups, as their have also been minor extinction events (i.e. Aptian extinction) which surely mean god made more than these 5 screw ups. It surely then logically follows that either god is a colossal prick, or he screwed up which does not fit well with infallibility and omnipotence.

Luckily this line of reasoning only holds if you believe in the existence of a god, if not then you can live life rationally and just accept your fragile existence and appreciate it for what it is...........Amazing.

Freud on God

The father of psychology on belief and God.

Idiot of the week - John Hagee

This weeks idiot has being making Armageddon predictions with a bunch of other idiot pastors following in his footsteps, or is he following in theirs. Never mind thats not important, but it you believe an eclipse is going to bring the second coming of Jesus then you are an idiot.

The fish was this big, why would I lie. (Source)

The so called four blood moon eclipses that are going to be occurring in the next two years all happen to fall on some Jewish Religious holiday. This apparently means some bad shit is going to go down, and then Jesus will come and be all swag and strut his stuff like Michael Jackson.

Honestly, why do these idiots keep making these predictions, I mean they never ever come true. If they have not learned by now, they will never learn. I suppose this is to be expected when you put all your trust in a book written by a civilization that thought it was okay to keep slaves, hell even keeping a lady of a defeated enemy as a prize of war was okay.

John Hagee you are an idiot.

Society problems - Funny

This is not my work, I found it floating on a forum last week and decided to post it here. I think it sums up a lot of the problems in society today. That is, people are basically not rational.

Religion and mental health

Finally I have gotten around to reading the recent study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry titled "Religion, spirituality and mental health: results from a national study of English households". This paper is pretty old, but I only recently learned about it.

The big finding in this manuscript was that the so called "spiritual" respondents had a greater chance of suffering from mental illness than atheists (non spiritual and religious respondents) and theists (religious respondents). This is not surprising as religious people have some kind of life framework. In the same vein, atheists are generally more rational and as such would also have a life framework. In contrast spiritual people are more open to different concepts and this can, in my opinion, be related to a more susceptible mind as your lifes framework is more flexible.

What I also found interesting that atheists have more fun than religious believers, no surprise there I suppose. Granted, this was in alcohol use and recreational (marijuana) drug use. However, besides these traits theists and atheists have the same probability of developing a mental health issue. So there are two ways to interpret this, and either way does not bode well for theists and their rules.

Option a: Marijuana and alchol are not bad for your mental health, as people that take them (or not) are equally as likely to get mentally ill. This conclusion is unlikely, as  spiritual people who use drugs/alchol to the same level as atheists suffer a greater chance of mental health problems. For this reason I think it is safe to say that drugs can affect mental health.

This then leads us to option two and a very interesting conclusion.
Option b: Religion is as bad for you as recreational drugs and alcohol. After all, it has the same statistical effect on your mental health.

Just a thought. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Biblically literal or metaphorical?

Was the universe created in 6 days?
Was the Flood a real event?
Did Jesus rise from the Dead?
Did the Israelite's flee Egypt?
Was John high on LSD when he wrote Revelations?

John started the party early (Source)

These are all questions that have different answers depending on which theist you talk too, as demonstrated in the video below. Some theists will tell you that Young Earth Creationists are too literal and that a day as described in the Bible in fact is a metaphor. Some Christians will tell you that Jesus revoked the Old Testament laws, while some will tell you he revoked only some, and others will tell you he revoked none. In fact it would not be a far stretch to say that every Christian you speak too will decipher the Bible differently. Or to state it in a different way, every Christian will decide what is literal and what is metaphorical in the Bible.

My question is how do these Christians know? The only way they can know is by applying their own biases/moral which are not based in their religion. If they were in fact based in the religion then everyone would believe the same things about the Bible. However, even then a problem arises. If everyone believes the exact same thing, then how do they know what is literal and what is metaphorical? The only way to be accurate is to take everything literally and then you are in science denial (idiot) territory.

So which ever way you look at it, interpretations of the Bible fail. So much for an infallible book.

Religious do not lie for financial gain

Last year a study was published by Jason Childs titled "Personal characteristics and lying: An experimental investigation" in the journal Economic Letters (subscription required). This study was sensationalised in the press and on blogs by claiming that religious (those for whom religion was more important) people were more likely to lie for financial gain. Let me try set the record straight on this utter bollocks, after finding the time to actually read the paper.

Religious people had a very small tendency to lie for financial gain, but this very small tendency noted in the manuscript is not statistically significant (p-value 0.061). What is irritating about this is that in the conclusion the religious factor is given as much weight as the other factors which contribute to lying when the author says. (p-values in brackets added by me, lower value more significant)
"We also find that business majors (0.016), those to whom religion is more important (0.061), children of divorced parents (0.012), those who faced a low incentive (0.089), and those found the incentives salient (at all levels) (0.021) were more likely to send inaccurate messages."
I believe this above sentence is why some people automatically and erroneously jumped to the conclusion. Its not that the author is lying, its that the statistics are been misinterpreted.

If we want to continue taking the religious lying as fact, then there are other parts of the research that we should also consider fact as they are more statistically significant. Here is a list of these more important factors.
1) Women are more likely to lie for greater financial gain then men.
2) Children with divorced parents are more likely to be dishonest.
3) People who have studied a business major (i.e. economics) are more likely to be liars.

These are the finding from the study. The religious finding is a non-finding and is just overblown hype to sell. Apply the scepticism hat.

Idiot of the week - King Abdullah of Sauid Arabia

This story is from last week, but I refuse to let it go into the sunset without first saying what a colossal idiot King Abdullah is.

(Source) Waving and breathing at the same time? Tough task.

This idiot and his retarded government has gone and labeled disbelief in god (a.k.a atheism) in Saudi Arabia as terrorism. No, this is not an Aprils fool joke, this is actual real life stupidity at a level that only theism can be proud of. Just so you remember this is the same country where you can get deported for being beautiful, where if you are a women you cant drive, where you can't drink alcohol, where you can witness public execution etc.

So yes this is a backwards country that has an official religion. That official religion that is based on stories told by an angel that came and visited a pedophile goat herder in a cave. Surely, they have to be correct?

You Adullah are a Royal Idiot, thats the only royalty you are.

Miss L talks to God - True story

 (Source)

Reading the Horror Show Sunday the other day I got to thinking about people that claim that they speak to or hear a god. In the comments I mentioned that I knew a girl that spoke to god, as such I thought I would share the story.

This young lady lets call her L, was a wonderful person, kind and extremely friendly. I had met her through other friends and never understood why they all called her crazy L. Or should I say I never understood until I had a first hand experience with the crazy. Leaving the apartment one day, I encountered L going home (we lived in the same apartment building) and I asked her how she was. She responded that she was doing well, and as I had not seen here in a while I struck up a conversation.

It was during this conversation when it went all strange, I asked her a question and she then responded in a way that was non contextual.
As I thought she misinterpreted my question I did the normal, "Oh, I meant .....".
To which she responded "Oh, sorry I was just speaking to my Father" so I didn't hear properly.
My response was "Your Father?"
She replied "Yes, you know God"
I hurriedly made my exit after that, as I needed time to process what had just happened.

Turned out from speaking to my friends later, that what happened was a regular occurrence and people had been trying to get her help. The problem was her Father (not the god one) and Mother, who  were radical Christians. They believed she had a gift and God was speaking through her. The sad part is that she was clearly delusional and needed serious help. But how do you help someone in a society where everyone (or most) people believe talking (praying) to God is normal.

I have a lot of sympathy for this lady, as she is stuck in a situation which is very cult like. She will never experience a normal life until she is able to break away from the bonds of her parent, never mind the psychological damage the church has done. She is a victim of religion, and there is no excuse that can be levied by others that this church is an outlier of the Christian faith. The the only difference between Miss L and other Christians is that she speaks aloud to God while most do it quietly at home.

Ron Wyatt the Biblical archeologist

In some previous posts I have referred to Christians that say there is historical and archaeological evidence for biblical miracles. This is really irritating as there is none, even though these Christians still assert this evidence as fact. So I thought I would delve a little bit into these facts and show you that most of it is based on research from one person who went by the name of Ron Wyatt.

The one thing that you foremost need to know about Ron Wyatt is that he is accredited as a pseudo-archeologist. In other words a pseudo scientist, a snake oil seller, a fraud etc etc.

The Ark is somewhere here, apparently? (Source)

This is the guy that claimed to find Noah's ark, obviously the real one and not the other fake ones that keep popping up every few years. This is also the guy that brought up one of the chariot wheels from Pharaohs destroyed army at the bottom of the Red Sea. This is the same army that was chasing the Jews that were leaving Egypt, when they never were there in the first place. The fact that the wheel has been lost (never seen?) does not seem to bother anyone. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and you can see the rest of the "evidence" at the Wyatt Archaeological Research website.

This evidence is nothing of the sort, it is what we call blind faith. Just like belief in God is faith. I suppose we could say Ron Wyatt is god due to the amount of faith some Christians have in his "expertise". So next time someone says I have evidence ask them if the evidence comes from Ron Wyatt and colleagues. If yes, enjoy easily destroying the evidence.

Putting on the sceptic cap

This year on Aprils Fool I got an interesting e-mail about the Escherian Stairwell at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Remarkably, this email was not sent as an Aprils fool joke, but it got me to thinking a lot about scepticism and its application in everyday situations.

My first and  correct reaction to this video was along the lines of "what rubbish, obviously this is not true." Even though its a real cool trick, anyone that has studied a little physics will know that it defies the laws of gravity. However, what I got to thinking about was, why do I have to stop there in my scepticism? I think this is a valid place to stop but the question is always more interesting when you know the full answer.

So my next question was one I think more people should ask. Its the question that helps you defeat ridiculous arguments in future when you encounter rubbish as it gives you possible reasons behind something that may seem remarkable. The question is simply, how did they do it? Mirrors, video editing, etc? On the web its pretty easy to find the answer and see its some crafty editing and filming.

I like to think that scepticism does not only mean dismissing rubbish, but also been able to at least have some rational reason as to why you are dismissing a certain claim.

Idiots of the week - Frozen Agenda Believers

This weeks idiots go to anyone who thinks Disney's Frozen movie has a hidden agenda.

(Source)
According to Kevin Swanson it promotes bestiality and homosexuality. Not sure why the bestiality, but hey whatever he is wrong. Additionally, some LGBT groups say Elsa's life is a symbol of homosexuality with respect to isolation and coming out. You are all idiots.

The movie is a Disney movie for kids with a pretty amusing story and some great music. All other links you make are wrong, unless the writer specifically comes out and says this was what I was trying to portray in the movie you are wrong. That is all there is to say about this. IDIOTS!

Now sit back and enjoy this song as its wonderful.

Oh and this I also love.

So I watched Noah - A review

This last weekend I got to watch Noah on the big screen, and as I have mentioned it so many times I thought I would give a review of the movie. I will try not give any spoilers, but then again the Noah story is so well known its pretty difficult not to know the story before you enter the cinema anyway.

There are three distinct aspects to this review, so let me start with cinematography. Generally I thought the CG in the feature was pretty great, so I am not sure how and why they made a colossal screw up on the one green screen section. It looks like the actors are not even in the scene, they are sort of levitating above ground. Its bizarre as it seems to me one of the easier CG sections to film. So beside that horrible CG blunder I was pretty impressed with the cinematography. Acting wise, I cant say it was the best acting I have ever witnessed. However, the cast is strong and so the acting is good enough to not destroy the movie. Regarding the story, major liberties have been taken as would be expected when taking a 5 chapter story and creating a 2 hour feature.

Which brings me to the story line. There are two ways the story goes and its a bit sad really, as the religious will get the feel good factor and the atheist will get their "I told you god is an asshole" factor. I think the religious get spared the reality of the idea of the flood in a way as its blame can be shifted as is done in the Bible. As such, if you want to it is possible to warrant the mass genocide by shifting the blame. You still have to go pretty far with twisting your ideals, but then again most theists do that anyway. On the other hand their are some realities that Christians will have to deal with, like all those animals could not fit inside that boat. Additionally, there was an evolution sequence that most Young Earth and Evolution denying Christians will freak out about, but it in my opinion it did not go far enough.

So here are the two story lines in general.
The God story line is something like this.
God is an asshole. Noah builds an ark. Asshole, asshole, asshole. Flood. Asshole. The end.

The humanistic story line in general is.
Humans are assholes. Noah is an asshole. Ultimately, humans are shown to have better morals than God.

So would I say watch Noah. Yes, as I can see in a few years how the new creation story will be expanded upon with by the extra storyline. In fact I look forward to the day that someone starts mentioning some stupid Noah argument that is based on the movie and not the Bible.

It wont win any Oscars, but it was fun.

Spoiler below
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
EVERYONE DIES ;)