Keith Olbermann featured this little blast from the past to amuse us.

Einstein’s views on religion have been the subject of much debate, and several of his quotes have been used to back up arguments in favor of faith. However, in a letter to be sold in London this week clarifies (once again) the scientist’s views on god belief.

Belief in God ‘childish,’ Jews not chosen people: Einstein letter

LONDON (AFP) – Albert Einstein described belief in God as “childish superstition” and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week, an auctioneer said Tuesday.

The father of relativity, whose previously known views on religion have been more ambivalent and fueled much discussion, made the comments in response to a philosopher in 1954.

As a Jew himself, Einstein said he had a great affinity with Jewish people but said they “have no different quality for me than all other people”.

“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

“No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this,” he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper.

The German-language letter is being sold Thursday by Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, said the auction house’s managing director Rupert Powell.

In it, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel’s second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God’s chosen people.

“For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions,” he said.

“And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.”

And he added: “As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

Previously the great scientist’s comments on religion — such as “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” — have been the subject of much debate, used notably to back up arguments in favour of faith.

Powell said the letter being sold this week gave a clear reflection of Einstein’s real thoughts on the subject. “He’s fairly unequivocal as to what he’s saying. There’s no beating about the bush,” he told AFP.

I think it’s safe to say, as has been said here before…Einstein was an atheist.

This is pretty cool:
Albert Einstein
Adobe Photoshop time lapsed art speed painting Speedpainting
Martin Missfeldt

May 8 is celebrated as the Buddha’s birthday, and the smiling fat man sucker-punched China’s Sichuan province with an earthquake to highlight the occasion. In keeping with the Olympic Games, slated to begin in less than 100 days, one judge gave the quake a score of 7.5, while a second judge gave it a 7.8. It was felt as far away as Vietnam and Thailand. The death toll is near 9000, and climbing.

900 students were trapped under the rubble of one school, and at least five other schools were in ruin. A chemical plant in Shifang city had cratered, burying hundreds of people and spilling more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia from the site.

Two girls were quoted by Xinhua [News] as saying they escaped because they had “run faster than others.” (Now that’s refreshingly honest; God didn’t save them, they just boogied faster than the others.)

The quake hit about 60 miles northwest of Chengdu – a city of 3.75 million – in the middle of the afternoon when classrooms and office towers were full. There were several smaller aftershocks, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site.

While the Olympic venues weren’t affected, the quake struck at the heart of the Wolong Nature Reserve and panda breeding center, one of the last homes of the giant panda.

The good news is that the Chinese government has improved its response to disasters in the last few years, and the military’s rapid responders were quickly deployed. Also, with the new openness to foreigners and the press, word got out to the world very quickly, and wasn’t hidden or denied as in the case of the Tangshan earthquake, which the government at first denied even happened even though it has become known as the worst quake in history.

This is getting to be like Jesus Matrix! So many claiming to be Jesus, and so many sheeple who will believe them. And when you get rid of one, more just come out of the woodwork. Never ending supply of Jeebus nutjobs.

Wayne Bent of New Mexico is yet another one claiming to be Jesus. He is going through the whole martyr act, fasting and refusing to eat, and claiming total innocence. He is accused of laying naked with underage virgins. He has also admitted to having sex with a couple of married women and another woman who is “of-age” (which he claims was instructed by Gawd…yeah…ok).

One thing in this news video that got me is how the son of Mr. Bent says that the authorities have “stepped over the line, by forcing children to go into an environment they do not want to go into. Yet these children have been forced to remain isolated in a compound and brainwashed to believe this is where they should be and that there is nothing wrong with sleeping naked with a creepy old fuck.

What will happen to all of these kids when they finally grow up?

Church leader arrested on sex charges in northeast N.M.

A posting attributed to Bent on the church’s Web site Monday said:

“Jesus had not committed any crimes, so the authorities had to invent some crimes to crucify him over. It is the same for me also. I have committed no crimes, but many crimes are being imagined and concocted in the minds of men to try and kill me again.”

Latest news video link: Strong City Cult

I’d like to dedicate this post to my wife, and Stardust, and all of those atheist mommies everywhere…

YAY, UTERUS!…

“There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.”  – David Hume

Again, I approach the teleological argument, aka the fined-tuned universe (or what I amusingly term, the ‘argument from long odds’).

We’ve all no doubt heard the worn canard, “The odds of our universe being able to support life are 10 to the 86th power” or some such twaddle.

What intelligent creature (outside of the addicted gambler) actually stacks the odds against itself? Doesn’t this run contrary to anything vaguely resembling sense? (I’ll refrain from saying ‘common’, because as Voltaire noted so aptly, “I do not know why they call it common sense, as it is not so common”.) I maintain that in fact, you have to have some other criterion – all these formulations are from one side of a fence only. Where is the criterion, then? Do we have other universes to compare to? If we had actual access to another universe, completely devoid of life, then there’d be something to compare our own against. Until then, this is idle speculation. Billions of years multiplied by billions of planets would produce some kind of spark, I’d bet.

(NOTE: am borrowing this from Hume, in my own clumsy way.)

Another hoary old chestnut is the “look at how complex life is! How could it be so, without someone designing it?” Then ensues the battle – the theist will round up some irrelevant figure, about how the human cell contains more info than the Encyclopedia Britannica or somesuch. Billions of years, compounded simplicity, anyone?

I say this: the diversity of life, the complexity of the cell, is a severe argument against intelligent design.

Occam’s own razor prevents it.

Cogitate on this: if an ‘intelligent designer’ who is all-knowing, omnipotent, all-powerful, designed the world as we know it, why are there so many errors and misses? Why were the dinosaurs even brought about? There were even human species that died off. It’s as if some blind mad scientist was using this world as a petrie dish, for some vague purpose beyond our comprehension.

(Oh, wait: I imagine I hear the burbling bullshit of apologists in the peanut gallery, preparing their cant, spouting their presuppositional silliness with such platitudes as “the ways of gawd are mysterious” or some other non-answer.) Do we have a concrete number as to how many misses there were, prior to hitting the bull’s eye with our existence? A million? A billion?

“So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe.” – Asimov, Nightfall.

Till the next post then.

“Pangea Day is a global event bringing the world together through film.

Why? In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that – to help people see themselves in others – through the power of film.”

Will this effort make a difference?

History
In 2006, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim won the TED Prize, an annual award granted at the TED Conference. She was granted $100,000, and more important, a wish to change the world. Her wish was to create a day in which the world came together through film. Pangea Day grew out of that wish. Watch Jehane Noujaim’s 2006 acceptance speech now.

What is hoped will happen after Pangea Day

People inspired by Pangea Day will have the opportunity to participate in community-building activities around the world. Through the live program, the Pangea Day web site, and self-organized local events, everyday people will be connected with extraordinary activists and organizations.

Many of the films and performances seen on Pangea Day will be made available on the Web and via mobile phone, alongside open forums for discussion and ideas for how to take social action.

A Pangea Day documentary will be created to catalyze future activities, and dozens of talented filmmakers will make strides in their careers.

Details on the Pangea Day films can be viewed here.

I heard Medea Benjamin from CODEPINK on the radio on my way in to work today, and I liked what she had to say.

Not only does her organization raise awareness on a myriad of gender problems (mostly but not exclusively in regards to the Iraq War), but it offers many ways for us to help. I often feel powerless in the face of what’s happening in Iraq among other issues, and clear directives and actions go a long way toward giving me something to do on, if you’ll permit my co-opting of an originally theistic phrase, the side of the angels.

One of the most wrenching subjects Benjamin brought up in her interview (on the Phil Hartman show that I was listening to) is the plight of poverty-stricken female Iraqi refugees. Unable to afford an escape to a more enlightened haven, they run anywhere that’s away from their violence-ridden homeland, ending up in Syria, Jordan, and other nearby countries. With no resources to rebuild their lives, they take what employment they can get, and most of it is in brothels. Benjamin reports observing girls as young as 10 years old dancing on “stages” before being selected for the night by clients.

Much of the problem is that these refugees are technically illegal aliens, and thus not allowed to work in these nations, so they gravitate to or in the case of the children and many adult women, are forced into illegal activities like prostitution. Europe and Scandinavia have been taking in refugees, but according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), have begun to limit their generosity. “Most European countries feel the U.S. is responsible and should take the lead, but the U.S. has a goal this year of only 12,000—a drop in the bucket—and I doubt they’ll even take that many [my emphasis],” Anna-Maria Deutschlander, a “Senior Protection Officer” said to Benjamin.

Refugees International reports that Syria ended its open-door policy and now imposes visa requirements on the refugees, whereas Egypt has closed its borders to them. Many of the refugees don’t want to remain in the Middle East at all (no, really?) and aim to immigrate to Europe and the US – but even though the US promised to take in 7,000 (what a joke; compare this to the 130,000 Egypt took in before refusing to accept any more!) in 2007, we only let in a total of 1,608. That’s less than a quarter of what we gave our word for.

And the US’s pledge for 2008 isn’t looking any better; the total promised is 12,000, and as of March, only 2,527 have been allowed in. So not only is this nation responsible for destabilizing Iraq to the point of chaos and displacement of its population, but is refusing to take care of the people it has victimized and what little care it’s giving, it’s giving reluctantly. I daresay this doesn’t surprise you all; if this administration doesn’t bother to look after its own military and veterans, why should it give a fuck about foreign civilians?

Nevertheless, there are groups out there saying what needs to be said and doing what needs to be done. Pessimists will say they’re doomed to failure, but I say we can make a difference. I know many of us are already involved in various types of activism, but there’s no rule saying separate efforts can’t overlap! Heck, just sending letters to government officials is a big help.

Again, CODEPINK…

UNHCR…

Refugees International…

And there are a lot of veterans’ groups out there, both government-sponsored and private; Google (TM) “veterans” just for starters.

Happy Mothers’ Day, GifS moms!