Parents arrived in the US

Yesterday my parents came to the US for the first time since 1999. They're not used to the warm weather of Virginia, so they're trying to survive the heat.

UNintelligent Design

I came across this article in my daily surfing. Very interesting refute of the basic idea behind ID, that things about humans are too perfect to be random. I've never understood that argument at all and this article certainly destroys any illusion of the human design being perfect.

The author wrote a little song:

My bones proclaim a story of incompetent design.
My back still hurts, my sinus clogs, my teeth just won’t align.
If I had drawn the blueprint, I would cer-tain-ly resign.
Incompetent Design!
Evo-Evo-Evo-lution! Design is but a mere illusion.
Darwin sparked our revolution. Science SHALL prevail!

And even better - if you wanna have a laugh, people even sang this - totally out of tune.

Have fun ... just because we can't explain all things, doesn't mean we need to invent a supernatural being incharge of "the unexplained". As time has showed over and over again, we somehow always find out that behind everything is no magic being pulling a lot of threads, but basic law of natures which we can even reproduce ourselves.

Testing testing

Got my new systems up and running now. FINALLY got around to upgrading 8 year old equipment here at home. And wow - what SILENCE! Really enjoying my office now, that the good old Dilbert has retired with his 4 "huge" harddrives that kept the whole house entertained from time to time.

And it makes me wonder if computers have a soul. The last few days before the turn over, dilbert really started acting fun. Couldn't get to a terminal view, it wouldn't keep the cd drive open - and it decided to crash 4 times in 24 hours. After running 24x7 for 7+ years without any hickups except for power-outages. Don't tell me, dilbert didn't know what was coming!

The problem with religion

After a long "talk" with Scott about evolution I would like to summon up the discussion and draw a few conclussions here.

First of - this whole debackle started with the usual "it's just a theory" remark. Well, let's look at "just a theory" a bit. The Bible has a lot of them .....

1. Earth at the center of the universe
   
2. A flat earth
3. Not mentioning the billions of worlds in the universe; there's only earth

That's some of the "theories" brought up through man's touch with the christian Bible. This is the same source we now claim explains extreme areas of current science and that we claim has an answer? We don't even see atoms or DNA mentioned in the Bible - but still we have to find our scientific answers there?

Nahh, it's clear that can't be what's meant. Instead, we have a group of people who's already drawn the conclussion and they're trying to find the proof to back it up. Further more, you can't question their solution; it's a given; God is there and everywhere. We can't see him, he doesn't do anything and really there's no difference between pure chance and God - but he's there and of course he must be into every minute details of life.

WHY? Why are we so ARROGANT to think that any super entity like a God would even CARE about one measly earth? Should the first cell have been created by a creator and sent through the universe to hit random plannets; meaning life was "sorta" created; so what? It wouldn't prove any tales in the Bible about the actual happening; and it certainly wouldn't back up the idea that man and God are like "buddy buddy" and we're his favorites.
FAVORITES!! Out ouf a billions potential worlds in the universe WE are the only life that matters? Man - something is wrong with us; we're almost as good as the creator!

Bullucks - it falls appart long before we get there; but as seen even if we would assume there was a creator behind it it still wouldn't prove the Bible.

Another scary idea is, that why the Christian version? What about the Hindus, Islam or the Australian aboriganies? Maybe they had it right? Aren't the christian "scientists" risking to disprove their own religion?

And on a third level - treating religion as a fact is counter productive. Through history, everything unexplainable has been credited God. Fire was the work of God - not chemestry. Birds were meant to fly, not man. Cancer - caused by God. Ohhh - and AIDS; it's not a virus - it's GOD! Hasn't history by now shown that his way of explaining things may help quiting a little child's immediate curriousity; but in the long run it's always been disproved?

You don't need to know the scientific details of evolution, mathematics or astrology to realize that religion has nothing to do with observation or trying to explain how things work. As we learn more about ourselves and our surroundings, we've found explenations that had nothing to do with a God. Not that we find the meaning of life - but we're learning about the building blocks. Of life, the planets and our universe. Is the whole point, that whatever "explenation" the Bible and other religious texts - notable written thousands of years ago - has been showed to be wrong. It's remarkable what some of them could conclude with their primitive tools (compared to today) but by no means were they right. From that list of events, I would bet that the issues that science has not yet been able to describe is just a matter of time. So far nothing has had the Bible disprove a scientific theory.

The big question of why - that seems to bother so many people - will of course NEVER be answered by Science. If you need a reason for your existance to make use of it, religion certainly has your answer. Depending on your temper, you just need to pick the one that has the reason that fits your person the best. The church should stick what it's great at - the "soul" or our happyness, social networking and being the safty-net under people's emotional lives. This is where religion has really strong and powerful meaning in life for some people.

I really don't understand what religion wants on the science side. 500 years ago it may have been natural to assume that the Church had all answers. Today that's just ridiculous. And the fun part is, that should religion managed to be treated as a science; they're running the risk of disproving their God or show that God is faulable. Now - THAT would be some discovery worth noting!

Christianity's misgivings

I saw a movie "Time Traveler". While labeled as a SCI-FI movie, this is pure christian fiction. Nothing science in there ("if science is not in the bible it's not true"). In some sense, it's a pretty senseless movie about a professor at a bible school who travels forward in time, and thinks he's seeing the end of the world. When he returns he changes his way to "avoid this catastrophy". It's 90 minutes of inept preaching how we are defying God by being promiscous and "evil".

What really stroke me was this quote "We all know, that even the unbliever who does nothing but good in his life will not go to heaven". That's pretty scary stuff! Does christians really believe it has nothing to do with being good and sensible towards your fellow man? Is all that counts to them whether they can stay put in time, not change, not think, not act, and just wait to die and go to heaven? Is that the kind of people any God would have? Little slaves?

I doubt it very much - and it surely showed me how wrong christianity and religions in general are. When it comes down to it, they would kill, rape and torture if they could interpret their bible to say that it was permitted.

If it's all about ass kissing a so-called all-powerful God - well strike me down then; cause we threw out the monopoly and king in 1776 and I don't want another self-centered idiot back in his place. Rather sad, that these people can't see it for what it really is ... there's nothing there! Everything fits much better with that assumption - instead of trying to make up something that is "good" but never does anything to prove it. Yeah - makes sense (not!).

Not sleepy
How can you be tired but not be able to sleep? You yawn, close your eyes but sleep comes not? It's irritating because you know you have a big day ahead of you the next day, and you know that it's going to be tough getting through with little or no sleep at all.

"Our Tsunami" is a good summary of this weeks headlines. The disaster in Louisiana and the neighboring states is on everybody's mind. And it's heart breaking to watch the news. You can only take but so much misery at one time.

The blame game started early. New Orleans is a city of a large poor population; and the majority of the population is black. Color really doesn't matter - human misery is the same regardless of skin-color. But the way it's portrayed you would think that white-people had this planned just to spice the black!! Man, I didn't know Caucasians were that powerful!

It's like with conspiracy theories .. They're so intricate that I find them laughable because of their extremes. Why is it so more difficult to believe in people's incompetence instead of having them execute these extremely complicated plans requiring thought, intelligence and purpose?

First - this has nothing to do with racism. Maybe "poorism". You get the officials you elect in this country and if you don't participate, which most poor do not, you get what other people want. So who are the electorate accountable for - they will not get re-elected if they spend all the resources on the people who didn't elect them?

I don't think that excuses ignoring a problem that's been identified for at least 5 years (like this) - and given the history of the area, this is no news, no surprise. Very sad indeed. The levees have been negleted as much as putting in a simple plan to bus out the areas of the city who could not provide transportation for themselves.

But with our system of government where only the ones that yell the loudest or participates in the process in some way are heard, it's no wonder poor people are being sent to the back of the bus when it comes to resource allocation. How a mandatory evacuation can be called WITHOUT providing for transportation seems to be a real screw-up. Using the dome for evacuees in a city that's predicted to get 10-15 feet underwater is pure craziness too.

Let's hope that people wake up from this; realize that setting the X once every other year actually makes a difference. Calling your congress man and keeping informed is a civil duty, not a privilege. And government must be made responsible for their actions. Since the current administration has gotten rid of the "The buck stops here" sign on the presidents desk, it's up to the public to make them responsible. When you vote, look at the actions - not the words. Actually, words these days are empty phrases so that's not too hard. Don't look at the party affiliations but what they actually do. Who do they serve - you or the special interests with the deep pockets?

We start by keeping up to date and keep who-ever got elected into power, accountable. Don't let them eat you off with "too little too late" issues. When scientists point out, that the levees will breach and the storms are getting bigger, WE should demand action and not accept cuts in the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers who's responsible for maintaining the levees. Where were all the attention and complains when the services were cut back - or when there was no plans to show (except of course the usual talk "we have a plan"). SHOW ME THE MONEY as they say; why is it enough to just claim you have a plan?

Now we're faced with years of cleanup - and the big question of should there actually be a town submerged 8-10 feet below sealevel in the hurricane alley? The fact that warnings were overheard must be addressed - but don't blame the politicians alone. The population of the area carries part of the blame. Plenty of warning before the storm. It took more than one person's incompetence to make this amount of mess. And it will take a lot more than one person to clean things up.