18 May 2009: am.

Workout notes Nothing yet; probably a brief swim over lunch. I am a bit stiff and sore from yesterday’s marathon walk.

Topics of the day

Science Texas has a problem with fire ants. But there is a type of fly that actually uses fire ants as a incubating place for its larva. Check out the post for some interesting pictures.

Giraffes

Science Avenger pointed its readers to this video: note that giraffes fight each other and use their necks as weapons!

Humor

What if faith healers entered the plastic surgery area?

(hat tip: friendly atheist)

To each their own I came across a site that had a post about men in lycra (a gay men’s site?). They had a photo of a guy wearing those long swimming pants (like a wet suit bottom) and noticed that they entirely missed the much more attractive image in the photograph:

How could they have missed this?

This does lead to a “serious” point though: I am hardwired to find certain sights attractive (e. g., this) and other people (including most women) are not. My brain reminds me of this but the emotions are strong; I have a hard time, on an emotional level, understanding how someone is NOT attracted to such things.

This TED video discusses this very well:

Religion and Soceity
The Los Angeles Times carries an editorial about the “angry atheists”. Yes, some atheists got their feelings hurt; I am not one of them.

Sure, I agree with Sam Harris that

This is, without a doubt, one of the most embarrassingly stupid attacks on the “new atheists” to be published in a major newspaper.

So, I’ll give a response. Frankly, I don’t care to “engage a theologian” on the existence of deities, spirits, or whatever. I care about this issue for basically two reasons:

1. The idea that some deity will intervene supernaturally in the affairs of this world is a dangerous one. This is but one reason why. Another reason: consider the number of people who think that creationism has a place in the science classroom.

2. “Morals” obtained as the result of believing in some myth of superstition can lead to painful outcomes: some are cruel but non-fatal and others can be cruel and fatal (example one) (example two); see more here.

If one accepts naturalism (e. g., things in this universe happen for natural reasons) and that one accepts that the “morals” in the major holy books are seriously flawed (e. g., accept the thinking of the people who wrote them at that time) and really don’t apply now, I honestly don’t care what people believe.

Sure I find the Christian theology (e. g. that some deity sent part of itself to be sacrificed to forgive “sin”) to be patently absurd, but, in reality, who really cares. After all, I still take yoga classes thought yoga teachers often spout off complete nonsense.

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