‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’ –Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll.

I may have mentioned this before, but I’ll bring it up again:

I am both pro-life and pro-choice. Not necessarily in that order.

I admit freely and without qualms, that I am a speciesist. In that vein alone, I am bigoted. I am a bigot towards my own species. It is not that I consider lesser species to be our slaves, toys, or any other ridiculous thing. I simply value human beings above other animals. As such, I do lend value to human embryos, zygotes, blastocysts, or other variations of how a child comes to be.

Hold it right there.

This isn’t meant to be an insinuation, an inference, an implication, that any of these stages have attained the value of personhood, especially contrasted with person of the mother. The woman gets a choice. Simple enough?

My point here, is that through all these years of blogging, I’ve seen numerous EPIC FAIL arguments because of the intense polarization of the dispute. And as polarizing arguments go, both sides go too far. Ours as well as theirs. I’ll cite a few:

A. The growing child in the womb is a parasite.
This fails spectacularly, because actually, parasites don’t detach from the host, grow up, and end up taking care of the host in the host’s golden years.
B. Anybody who is pro-life is a practitioner of ‘sperm magic’
Again, fails. Sperm is only one component, so this is the logical fallacy of composition, not to mention a strawman. I find this particularly obnoxious, so do avoid this stupidity.
C. Accusations of ‘ensoulment’. I don’t need supernatural tendencies to value a child, or the beginnings of a child.

I’m sure numerous others will be brought up, and I’ll deal with those on a case-by-case basis. Here’s the point that grinds my gears:

It’s not a ‘in for a penny in for a pound’ situation. To clarify, the two sides of the issue go to ridiculous extremes. The pro-lifers holler that an embryo has full personhood value, the pro-choicers holler that it has zero. (This is also the fallacy of the false dichotomy.) As it is in real life, the actual answer lies somewhere in-between. As does my point. It’s natural, a part of the human condition, that we go to extremes. You, me, everybody, in some order, in some way, we all go overboard. And on polarizing issues, well, the extreme is almost cliché.

I can pretty much get an all around agreement that the majority of readers here love children. Why do we? Because of all the near-magical possibilities, the potentialities that can reach into the future. Most cultures are based on potentialities anyways, that foresight, looking to the future. And there are fewer more powerful symbols of that than children.

And while being pro-choice as well, I can haul out an extreme (but extremely possible) example: if say a woman who was two days away from giving birth went nutso, and decided that she was carrying the Antichrist, and wanted it cut out of her, there’s no way I could stand by and mumble that I was ‘pro-choice’, because obviously this lady’s brain has landed somewhere south of Pluto and obviously she isn’t fit to make a decision of that import.

And let’s face it: abortion is a no-win situation. Nobody’s in favor of it ‘just because’ – there’s long-term ramifications that have to be examined on a case-to-case basis. Tubular pregnancies, incestual rape (or any rape for that matter), drug addiction – it’s a necessary evil. Not a cause for celebration for anyone. The biggest concern is poverty – because being poor means a lack of education, lack of security, lack of everything that would be optimal for a child’s upbringing. Concerns such as birth control, religious folderol, and varied other variables put forth by the far right in their efforts to control the common woman.

So a wee bit o’ advice: the next time you (figuratively) inhale to bellow at some nimbulb who’s blattering on about abortion, take a bit of a breath, and think first. It’s natural to take the other side of the argument and go to extremes (I’ve done it too, guilty!) – but we promote ourselves as the rational ones, and it behooves us to walk the talk as such.

And that, dear readers, is my nickel’s worth. Spend it freely, or sock it away for a rainy day.

Till the next post, then.

The Great Flood (Christian Flood Myth)
Thanks to The Atheist Jew for this one. OMG, too funny because it’s now in a place where all my Bible literalist friends and relatives can watch it, if their retinas aren’t burned out by the word “atheist” in the title first. Beaj came along and interjected this little gem below in a comment thread under a news article I posted about Hubble capturing the earliest image yet of the universe — just 600 million years after the Big Bang.

LOL! My bet is that they don’t get through five seconds of it before they turn it off and start praying for us. Too funny. But the sad part is that this little cartoon presentation brings up some very good questions to consider before taking the flood myth literally. But sadly, most fundies choose to remain willfully ignorant.

Humanity’s penchant for denial is no exaggeration, as  Stardust’s recent post illustrates. But, as the old X-Files TV show’s motto said, “The truth is out there”, and I’m not talking about left field either.

A ten-year-old study from Harvard illustrates speciation in the E. Coli bacteria, for one example. Ten years later, another study on E. Coli not only verifies this, it lists the mutations as…beneficial. (Collective gasps are heard in the revival tent.)

And along a similar vein, it turns out that bacteria can actually influence speciation in wasps, by repairing damaged sperm. (Shouts of “Blasphemy!” can be heard from the audience.)

And an old hoary chestnut has been roasted on the fire – yes Virginia, there are indeed pre-Cambrian fossils of microbes.

And of course, there are 29+ evidences for ‘macroevolution’ – ranging in scope from morphological intermediates to cetacean atavisms (and human babies with tails). This also extends to vestigial molecular structures. The typical creationist response is that many of these items are predicated on scale, and they scramble desperately to muddy the waters when the evidence is presented.

One of the more amusing stupidities cited by the creationist, is this quote from the Origin of the Species:

Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?
But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?
Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed.
Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.

Darwin was no geologist: relatively little was known about the formation of fossils, how difficult it was to become one, what with scavengers, tectonic plate shifts, highly alkaline soils, erosion, weather, all the variables that prevent ‘insensibly fine gradations’.

And evidence abounds. From genetics to paleontology, from anatomy to geographical distribution, it seems incredible that anyone would raise a fuss about something so fundamentally obvious.

What do you call someone who rejects evidence in favor of warm fuzzy feelings and mythology? Supply a punchline, and discuss amongst yourselves.

Till the next post, then.

The following video was posted by the son of a friend who belongs to a Xian cult down in Arizona. This IDiot spewing out his nonsense in the video isn’t even listening to the words coming out of his mouth. He provides no real argument, no counter evidence, and only mocks science and has no understanding of evolution and science and takes this and that out of context just like they do their Bible. His argument? Goddidit, godmadeit, time is short, Big Bang still hasn’t happened yet…this guy is a total moron and so many people sit in their churches week after week and nod their heads and shout “Amen!” without doing any investigation what-so-ever on their own….and teach their children that their undereducated (or uneducated), superstitious and misinformed pastors know more than teachers and scientists do.

The Age of The Earth Seminar Trailer

Here’s the trailer: [LINK]

CNN’s Connecter of the Day: Richard Dawkins (11-24-09)

“Speaking to CNN on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s seminal work “On the Origin of Species,” Dawkins said the evidence to support the theory that life on earth came about through natural selection, and not design by God, was “now massively buttressed by molecular evidence.”

And referring to U.S.-based evangelist Ray Comfort, who argues that the universe and life is the result of an intelligent creator, Dawkins said: “There is no refutation of Darwinian evolution in existence. If a refutation ever were to come about, it would come from a scientist, and not an idiot.”

Hi everyone! I’m back from vacation and though it was good to see relatives again, the magical incantations before mealtime, especially public displays start getting to me after awhile. After visiting our daughter for a few days, we drove south to visit with my aunt and uncle in N.C. and then over to Louisville to visit with my husband’s brother and family.

My aunt and uncle are of the Baptist variety of Christianity. The ones who feel they must exhibit their beliefs blatantly and aggressively out in the open. They thank their imaginary sky boss for every morsel they put into their mouths — out loud, even at restaurants. These prayers are more for indirect witnessing purposes to the “unsaved” at the dining table, as well as others within hearing distance. They bow their heads and close their eyes and thank their imaginary friend for our visiting them, that we made it safely, for the food “to the nourishment of our bodies” yadda, yadda, yadda. We sat there very politely and didn’t say a word though it was getting pretty old after the first couple of meals. It wasn’t just the mealtime prayers that were so ridiculous and redundant, but the ignorant statements made about science, the age of the Earth, evolution and other little comments that were made while we were there. If we had started discussing it, we would have been leaving much sooner than we did. So we were “tolerant” and put up with the ignorance and superstition all for the sake of peace, because they are family and despite what they think and believe, we do love them.

Our Louisville relatives are of the Anglican faith. However, the magical oogie boogie blessing time is similar. Only they like to be more touchy-feely, making everyone at the table hold hands as they say the blessing. My husband didn’t want to hold hands with his brother and joked around about it as he so often does. We sat there holding hands while the mumbo-jumbo prayer was said and we all dug in as soon as it was over and the imaginary sky being was forgotten about. At least my husband’s brother and his wife value education. He has a PhD and was an English professor at a big state university, and his wife has a Masters in Library Science and Education and they are the kind of god believers who have managed to reconcile religion and science.

I keep saying that I am not going to get sucked into these things prayer rituals anymore, but I do. Because the relatives are very kind to have us for guests. They offer us their hospitality, sharing their food and are very nice to us while we are there. So I tell myself that sitting through some hocus pocus mealtime ritual isn’t that big of a deal. However, we will find out next time they all visit us just how big of a deal it is when we refuse to acknowledge prayer in our own home. They are welcome to say their prayers to themselves, but we aren’t going to make a group thing of it.

Ok, now that I have vented about that, let’s move on to some idiotic thing that the pastor at my aunt’s church is telling their congregation. She repeated an example their pastor gave one Sunday about the Big Bang theory that left us at a loss for words because it was too stupid to even respond to. He told the congregation that the Big Bang was like having a junk yard with stuff everywhere and then blowing it all up and when all the pieces came down they all formed a nice, shiny, new 747 jet plane. We didn’t even have the desire to even attempt to explain the Big Bang theory to my aunt and uncle because we knew they were too sucked into this creationism baloney to even try to understand anything we would say. (The billboard in the photo above is real. They are scattered here and there in the southern U.S. It says “Big Bang Theory: You’ve Got to be Kidding.”) I would dare say that all the people making this kind of statement don’t even know what a scientific theory is and have no idea what the Big Bang theory actually is, either. And they don’t want to know. That’s the really sad part.

Then I see a couple of my fundie cousins on Facebook making fun of the Big Bang theory. Saying it was hilarious. One cousin posted a serious video about the Big Bang and said it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. This woman has three children in public school. I feel sorry for their science teachers. There is no wonder in my mind why kids here in the U.S. A. score so low in the math and sciences. Superstition is placed above reality, religion and faith above science and reason. And if this ignorance keeps on growing, what will become of the U.S. of A? Oh yeah…it’s because of us evil atheists. It’s all our fault that the education system sucks and the country is going to hell.

Damn, Hitchens is really dead-on is this clip (his part ends at around 5:10). Good form, Hitch.

(Granted, I’m not exactly a fan of the times when he’s drunk off his ass — but, to be fair, I’m guessing that daily death threats to one and one’s family might cause one to be slightly anxious.)

[LINK]