subprocess

So we all know of the homeopathic remedies. It’s a very out of date theory about how to properly heal our bodies when we’re ill. And we all (should) know that it’s all pseudoscience and bunk. Unfortunately many don’t… hopefully because they just haven’t looked in to the “science” behind this.

So, a quick refresher for you: Like cures like. This is called the “The Law of Similars”. Yes, you may have laughed out loud at that part, and I don’t blame you. Much like we have the law of gravity, this too is a law. What does it mean? Well… say you have a massive headache. To cure said headache, according to this “law”, you need to take something that is natural and causes a massive headache.

I know, I know… that’s just stupid! If it causes a massive headache it will just make your headache worse!

And you’re right! If you don’t dilute it first!

“The Law of Similars” only works if you dilute the agent in water. And when I say dilute… holy crap… not just like the dilution you do to concentrated frozen orange juice. Imagine dropping that frozen orange juice in one of Michigan’s Great Lakes and then you’ll be closer to just HOW diluted homeopathy requires.

You see, once you dilute it to the point that not even 1 atom of the original agent is left in the water, then you get to the true power of the agent! Yes, once you remove all of it, you have it’s essence! And essence is what homeopathy is all about. Essence and like cures like.

But! This can’t only work in the one direction. If you take the essence of snake poison to cure a bite from a poisonous snake, then surely if you take the essence of something that is good for you, you can do great harm. GREAT harm.

And this is the dark side of Homeopathy! *dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuun*

These possibilities are so frightening. Since it’s diluted to the point that no science can detect that it’s anything more than water, it’s impossible to know exactly what is safe and what is not. And it’s impossible to use as evidence!

Date rape water

Warn your daughters: do not drink any untrusted water! The recipe for this drug is horribly easy: 1 small shaving of a caffeine pill to 10 gallons of water. The smaller the shaving the better! Make sure you dilute that shaving evenly amongst all 10 gallons of water.

Caffeine is known for causing alertness and for “waking” you up in the morning. So obviously the essence of caffeine will put you in to a deep deep sleep.

Feverish DEATH water

Again… the ingredients and steps used to mix up this horrific poison are far too easy to get a hold of. Ingredients: 1 small shaving of an asperin to 10 gallons of water. Again, the smaller the shaving the better.

This is a horrific way to go. Asperin is known to ease pain and reduce fevers. 1 full cup of this horrific poison and you will die a painful, feverish death.

Walk on Water water

Perhaps this is the way Jesus did it? Ingredients: 1 very small rock to 10 gallons of water.

You’re probably screaming: “very small rock!?” Well, hear me out on this. What floats on water? A Duck. Right. But what else did we learn from that brilliant medieval logic? VERY SMALL ROCKS were not the answer. Therefore the essence of very small rocks will bestow the power to float on water! Drink a cup, then amaze your friends.

FLYING potion

This one is a bit harder to make. You have to find a really heavy rock. One near your own weight. Then you’ll need to crunch this rock up (maybe with a sledge hammer? or a jackhammer?) in to a dust. Then dissolve this dust in enough water that not a single atom is actually present in the water any longer.

Since rocks fall the same way that you fall when you step off a cliff… Then taking the essence of these rocks should bestow upon you the power to fly!

Homeopathy: this is exciting and dangerous stuff!

July 18th, 2009 | Tags: humor, pseudoscience | Category: Science | Leave a comment

It seems to me that when people write critically of religion that people assume the author feels superior to theists.

I don’t think you’re stupid, if you believe in God. I don’t think I was stupid when I believed in God and prayed to him daily. In general, I don’t think that having faith is stupid. I think it’s important for some people to have faith and I think no less of them for having it.

Believing in God is all about faith. There is no evidence for a supernatural being. But at the same time, there’s no evidence against a supernatural being. Some people believe in God, some people believe in Fairies, some people believe in Santa Clause, and some people believe in multiple Gods. Since there is no evidence at all to support these beliefs, it takes faith. And I don’t think you’re stupid for having faith.

I liked the way Richard Dawkins explained what he means when he says he’s an atheist in his book “The God Delusion”: God is very improbable. He doesn’t believe 100% that a supernatural being does not exist. He just finds that God is very improbable. More improbable than an agnostic would admit.

So to him, an atheist is someone who finds God just as improbable as invisible pink unicorns. It’s not definite that neither exists, but it’s pretty safe to say they don’t. I agree with him much on this.

I greatly enjoyed those parts of “The God Delusion”. As he talked about the beauty and awesome power of non-random natural selection. He gets a bit radical towards the end when he declares that raising kids as a “Christian” or “Catholic” or “Jew” is child abuse…

So to claim that you are an atheist is to claim that God is improbable. No faith required. To claim that you are religious is to claim that God definitely exists. Much faith required.

Given all that… I do get passionate about a few things. But that passion has nothing to do with thinking less of religions.

I get passionate about defending atheist’s morals. I have encountered people who think that to be an atheist means you no longer have a reason to be a nice, moral, positive addition to society. If anything, I have become nicer and a more positive addition to society than when I was Christian.

I get passionate about equal rights. Yes, I do think it’s horribly mean and unjust of religion to try and socially hurt homosexuals as much as they can. Go ahead and declare that homosexuality isn’t for you because you disagree with it… but don’t hold that against the GLBT community and don’t fight against movements to grant them the rights they deserve.

I get passionate about education. My kids are entering the public school system and I want them to have a modern education in the science classroom. So I get passionate about a few things…

The Earth/Universe is old and should be taught that way. This isn’t simply a “guesstimate”, multiple areas of science have independently came to the same conclusion. To disagree with the Earth and Universe being billions of years old is to ignore a freaking ton of evidence. Again, this is where faith is required. If you believe the Earth/Universe is young, you believe that on FAITH. And that’s fine, go ahead. Just admit that it’s faith and keep it out of the science classrooms.

Evolution is true. It has been said “nothing makes sense in modern biology without evolution”. It is both a fact and a scientific theory. It needs to be taught in science classes. The fact is that humans have slowly evolved in to what we are now. The scientific theory is the best explanation (”natural selection” – that is testable and has been tested) for how humans have evolved in to what we are now.

If there were valid evidence against an old earth/universe or evolution… Scientists would gladly change their thoughts. Such evidence would be accepted with open arms and praised by scientists worldwide for proving them wrong. Scientists like it when they’re proven wrong.

So to believe that evolution is false takes faith. And I’m OK with that, go ahead and believe (with faith) that evolution is wrong. Just admit that it’s faith and stop trying to get the public schools to agree with your faith.

So I hope that clears any misconceptions up. I respect your faith and do not think less of you for having it. Just don’t attack atheists for having no morals, and keep your faith to yourselves. Just as someone with Christian faith wouldn’t want someone with Muslim faith forcing their faith on them, they should not force their faith on others.

I do not think having faith is stupid. It’s just not for me anymore and I have strong beliefs that your own personal faith should be just that… yours and personal.

It is true that I also think that the world just might be better off without religion. I highly doubt it’d be any worse. But I recognize that a world with no religion is a long long long… LONG way off. And I don’t think the typical religious person (I’m thinking of just about all the Christians/Catholics/Jews I have known and I am still good friends with) are holding the world back. I’m thinking of the extremes, the militant. Faith inspires some to do crazy things like suicide mass murder missions, or to carry out “justice” with their own two hands and murder an individual. Would 9/11 had happened if there was no religion? With no promise of eternal bliss to the terrorists for striking down sinful America? I personally don’t think so.

July 9th, 2009 | Tags: atheism | Category: atheism | Comments (5)

I present to you for your own reference, the top 10 most frequently asked questions to me. Please consult this list before asking me a question from now on, it will speed things up:

Q1. Would like to help save the environment?
A1. Nope.

Q2. Denver Voice, help the homeless?
A2. No.

Q3. Room for cream?
A3. Yes, please.

Q4. Would you like cream and sugar with that?
A4. No thanks. But leave some room at the top.

Q5. Steak with green?
A5. Please!

Q6. Spare some change?
A6. Change comes from within.

Q7. What’s for dinner?
A7. Tonight it’s broiled cajuny tilapia with buttered noodles and buttered steamed broccoli.

Q8. Did you submit your timecard?
A8. CRAP! No, I didn’t.

Q9. What’s the weather?
A9. It will be hot today, so you can wear short sleeves and shorts if you want.

Q10. How are you?
A10. Doing well. Except for some reason I keep losing hearing in my right ear, then it aches for a few days, and then it’s back to normal. I should probably see a doctor about that.

Also, a freebie: Typing a blog post on a blackberry pearl can be very annoying.

July 2nd, 2009 | Tags: humor | Category: humor | Leave a comment

So, the interview with the colleague of Tiller made it sound to me like they only accepted patients for late term abortion if the baby was not going to live or if giving birth would kill or cripple the mother.

Turns out they also did late term abortions because of “mental anguish”? If that is so, then no, I do not support that. There is no circumstance imaginable where mental anguish from giving birth to a baby would be crippling to the mother.

Jillian also brought up a point. It is pretty darn near impossible to get to the late term with a pregnancy that could seriously hurt the mother. With even basic prenatal care, the assumption is that any complications that would risk the mothers life would be found much much much earlier than “late term”.

In that case… the question becomes: if the mother neglected to get proper care early in the pregnancy, should she be allowed to terminate the pregnancy in the late term in order to spare her self a crippling/fatal injury.

My gut tells me no, it’s her fault for choosing not to get prenatal care. But I’m sure there’s probably some hypothetical situation where it was not the mother’s fault. It doesn’t seem to me that there could be a straight answer to this. It’s never going to be 100% OK in all cases or 100% not OK in all cases. Almost feels like it should be a case by case decision.

So, I have no answer. But if people are getting proper prenatal care, it shouldn’t be a big issue.

June 6th, 2009 | Tags: Politics | Category: Politics | Comments (2)

With the cold blooded murder of Tiller being in the news recently, I’ve thought a bit further on my own views of abortion. I usually just say that I’m pro-life. But I think… maybe I’m not?

I hate that everyone tries to categorize people in to two groups. It feels like a “with us or against us” mentality in all that we do. Either you’re a republican or you’re a democrat. Either you’re liberal or you’re conservative. Either you’re pro-life or you’re pro-choice. Everyone wants everything to be black and white. But they forget about the grays.

Just as political opinion has a bit of a sliding scale, I think abortion rights views should too. And so I decided to try and determine where I sit between pro-life and pro-choice. Near the middle? Mostly pro-life? Mostly pro-choice? A little of one or the other?

And I failed. I’m really not sure.

I support what Tiller stood for. I know that he was going to trial over allegations that he did things beyond what he said he stood for. But, innocent until proven guilty. So I can say that I support what Tiller did at his clinic. Not what he allegedly did. I support what he and the various other doctors supporting him claim he did.

I saw an interview with his colleague who will most likely be taking over the practice. His colleague stressed that they perform late term abortions for only a handful of reasons. Things like: the baby is already dead, the baby has a condition that is not compatible with life, the pregnancy has a complication that threatens the mother’s life or a major function of her body. Not only do they have strict requirements for even beginning to talk about a late term abortion, they regularly and often turned mothers away. They determined that abortion was not medically needed and told mothers outright “no”.

Sure, there were some people who argued against him. They said things like, “I had a baby with a condition that was not compatible with life. I chose to give birth and the hours I had with my baby were wonderful and I’d do it again if I was in the same situation.” And good for her! But that doesn’t mean everyone is capable of dealing with the situation in that way. Everyone is different. The key words there are that she chose to give birth to a baby who would only live for a couple of hours.

So, I am for late term abortions, if there are medical reasons for it. Does that make me pro-choice? Some people would think so.

Also, I am for emergency contraception. People do stupid things in the heat of the moment. Especially when alcohol is involved. Or, there are cases of sexual assault. These moments are perfect for emergency contraception.

So there you go. I’m pro-life, except when you should be able to choose.

June 6th, 2009 | Tags: Politics | Category: Politics | Leave a comment

Normally comment spam amuses me. I’m shocked at the stupidity of some of them… and can’t believe that people would fall for their ruse and approve of them. Sure, I am a brilliant blogger (ha) and all… but if you praise me for no reason with a name like “Toilet Fixtures”… well, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t authentic praise. As my last post was about.

But this company… Softwise Online… went too far. About a year ago, my Grandma passed away. I shared my thoughts and feelings of it in a blog post. So, this asshole found my post and tried to get a comment approved to the post about my Grandma’s death.

They used the name “payday advance online”, provided a link to their scummy site, and posted this comment: “This is such sad news. I am so sorry for your loss. I hope you know it hurts now, and it will get better. I am sorry, it is hard and sad.”

I doubt a spam bot is sophisticated enough to form such a relevant comment. And the IP it came from was not from some SEO consultant or a botnet… it came from Softwise Online’s pool of IP’s.

So there you go Softwise Online, you wanted exposure on my blog, you now have exposure on my blog.

May 31st, 2009 | Tags: Rant | Category: Rant | Leave a comment

I’d just like to point out that posting comments either by hand, or with a bot, with a name like “Shower Stools” or “Toilet Fixtures”, qualifies you as stupid.

Even though you rightly praise me for how brilliant I am and how elegant my writing is, I will not approve your comment.

So please, stop with the being stupid… although, I guess that’s not really something you can control.

May 24th, 2009 | Tags: Rant | Category: Rant | Comments (1)

Taking a break from my “turning old” series to think out loud again. Err… If you’d call this out loud. Anyway…

Just about everyone thinks of Christianity when the subject of morality comes up. You get looked down upon for doing immoral things and praised for avoiding immoral things. But… I’ve been thinking lately how messed up Christian morals really are. They change with society… with what is accepted by the masses. It’s almost like the Church gives in to peer pressure.

• It used to be immoral to eat pig. Now you can eat all the bacon you want.
• It used to be immoral to work on a Sunday. That’s OK now, work away 7 days a week.
• It used to be immoral for a woman to have a position of authority over a man. Now it’s immoral to consider that immoral.
• It used to be moral to own a slave. Now it is extremely immoral to own a slave.
• It used to be immoral to use birth control. Now it’s debatable, but more often than not it’s accepted as moral now.
• It used to be immoral to believe the Earth to be round.
• It used to be immoral to believe that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

There are probably more examples of morals drastically changing, but that’s a good enough list for now.

So here’s a new one for you:

• It used to be immoral to be a homosexual.

It’s the next step in the evolution of Christian morals. Several states have taken the lead in making gay marriage legal. Soon all the rest will follow. Soon the masses will all agree that homosexuality is not immoral.

Hard to nail down soon to a more specific time frame though. I bet you though, some day in the future someone is going to be told “You know, the Christian church used to be anti homosexuality.” And they’re going to be all “What, really!? You have to be joking…”

May 3rd, 2009 | Tags: evolution, Religion | Category: Religion | Leave a comment

A bit of a disclaimer on this one. There are things that happened in this year, 1998-1999, that some who know me may be shocked to learn. I call it my party year. So feel free to skip this one if you don’t want to know the details.

Also… I am for the legalization of drugs. Not because I am a druggie of some sort, as I said, this was my party YEAR. No more than a year, and this year was 10 years ago. I believe that drugs cause more harm being illegal than they would if they were legalized. As a 20-something who should have known better, I did things without regard to ALL the consequences. Particularly, consequences to a question that was hardly regarded was “just how much trust should I have in chemicals bought off a black market?” And then there are legal consequences to breaking serious laws.

So, even though I am for the legalization of drugs, I in no way endorse using illegal drugs. Even though some may be “more safe” than currently legalized drugs, that doesn’t mean illegally gained said drugs are safer than legally obtained drugs.

Summer of 1998-1999

I went back to work for Oakland Schools every summer that I came back. They’d always find a spot for me, but always insisted that I move on to better things after college. Anyway, some of my new co-workers were really in to throwing small LAN parties. Where you all haul your computers to one guys house, hook them up on the local network, and then kill each other in various video games until the sun comes up.

These were great fun for a geek like me… Then one of them brought booze to a party. My first time drinking, and boy did we drink. Screwdrivers were my booze of choice. We also listened to lots of techno music. One night, instead of a LAN party, we all just hung out at someone’s girlfriend’s house. And out came the marijuana.

Yeah, I was curious as to what all the fuss was over pot. I knew it was safe, physically that is. I don’t think I gave the legal ramifications much thought. So I tried it and, holy shit, it was one of the worst nights of my life. I don’t believe my experience was what most people feel on pot. I don’t see how it could be and be as popular of a recreational drug as it is. I remember the feeling so well… even now, 11 years later. Everything I tried to do took an extra 10 seconds or so before I could do it. Everything I heard had to have been delayed the same long 10 seconds before it got to me. I was incapable of doing anything but stare straight ahead with my mouth hung open. Just wishing it would all end soon. I felt detached from my body, like I was floating above it, held to it by a thin piece of thread that could snap at any moment. I retreated in to a dark bedroom and closed my eyes. I concentrated on staying IN me and waited for it all to end.

That experience really disturbed me. I wasn’t quite the same after it… I had never felt so disconnected from myself. I had a strong desire to leave everything. I wanted out of Waterford, I wanted out of Great Lakes Christian College and out of Lansing. I wanted something new, an adventure. About a month before I was to head back to college my work friends invited me to my first rave. At that rave I took ecstasy.

It was the complete opposite of the night I smoked pot. In every way. I felt more connected to myself than I ever had before. I was able to see myself more clearer than I had ever done. My thoughts were quicker, not slower. I wanted to socialize, not hide. And it was a lot of fun.

So off to college I went, having the most messed up summer of my life. I remembered that Jason really liked techno music, and had talked about raves before. And I could tell Jason anything. So I emailed him and told him everything. From the drinking, to the pot, the rave and the ecstasy. I swear, in about 30 minutes I got a response back from him… I wish I still had it, but hotmail deleted my account data a long time ago. It was something along the lines of “I’m coming to get you, we’ll be there to pick you up in about 2 hours.”

He wasn’t joking. He got a ride from Grand Rapids to Lansing at the last moment, found a “house party” (kind of like a mini-rave in someone’s house) and picked me up. I had entered a somewhat hidden part of Jason’s life. So there we were, at a random house in downtown Lansing, music thumping, lights flashing… He was introducing me to many new people, showing me a lot of the rave culture. It was great fun.

At that house party Jason took me outside, away from most people. We were sitting on the lawn on a beautiful night. It had to have been 3 am at least. We joked and laughed for a bit and then he got serious. He looked directly in to my eyes and said “there’s something you want ask me.” He was right too… And I felt stupid. Here he was being so amazingly courageous and brave… but I couldn’t do it. He must’ve been waiting all night for me to bring it up. Finally he gave up and started the conversation. And yet I still stumbled on it! I eventually got it out and did ask him. And it was an amazing feeling. I was wrong a bit and he cleared up a lot. But, I knew then that an already great friend had just become unimaginably greater. We no longer had any giant secrets that we had to always hide.

I did a lot more partying after that. There were some weekend when we’d start partying on Thursday in Lansing, party all the way to Chicago, and then party back to Grand Rapids. And I’d get back to Lansing just in time for Monday morning classes. We ended up with quite a fun group… And it’s how I met Jillian. I needed a ride one night to a gay bar downtown. The gay bar threw a really fun “rave night” on Thursdays and Jason would always drive to Lansing for it. Jillian stuck around and kept coming with us to different parties… and well, we became close friends.

I could go on and on with the partying stories. I will admit this, I mostly never, knowingly, did anything besides pot, ecstasy, acid and shrooms. And the only two I enjoyed were ecstasy and acid. I have stories involving these things… Getting split up in Lansing and having to go back to campus while tripping balls. Getting my parent’s car towed in downtown Chicago. Getting lost in Grand Rapids because they closed the party down before anyone had stopped tripping. Or taking one pill and not feeling it’s effects, so of course you should find another dealer and take a 2nd pill, right? I think the first was mescaline… we’re still not sure, but it definitely had some effects! Anyway, don’t do drugs. They’re illegal and that is enough reason to consider them unsafe! The black market is not trustworthy and no matter how much you “trust” the dealer, it’s still not guaranteed to be what you’re expecting. Which means it’s never safe and the legal consequences are high.

Spiritually I was drifting further and further from Christianity. The people at these parties, the ravers, they showed me what it meant to be like Christ more than a Christian ever had. They were seriously the most loving, most accepting and most caring strangers I had ever met. And you can’t say it was the drugs… I spent a lot of time with sober ravers too. So here were all these wonderful and kind people from all sorts of religions. Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, etc etc etc. All of them were genuine. All of them were moral.

I ended up realizing that I didn’t like God.

So there I was… a Christian, at a Bible college, who didn’t like God. The Christian God of the Bible, that is. No, it was more than dislike. I hated God. I completely disagreed with many of the things he did in the Bible and I did not think of him as worthy of my praise.

Towards the end of my 3rd year at GLCC my friend Patrick (read about him in parts 1-3) asked me to move in with him in Ann Arbor. He was in need of a new roommate and he said he “could find me a job.” Since I was definitely not going to continue in my Christian education, I agreed. I left mid semester.

Well, not completely, Jillian would drive to pick me up and take me to some George Brown classes. Christian or not, his classes were great. And… it wasn’t a short drive. We spent more and more time together in Ann Arbor. And one day we kissed. It was a shock to both of us.

So Ann Arbor was pretty much the end of the party days. It dwindled out… Jason and I both realized that we had more fun sober. Sitting around and chatting about things all night long. He was always a strong Christian and would often want to discuss theological things. A favorite of his was “if God knows everything then why would he have created humans knowing what we’d do? Knowing what would come of it all?” His answer to that one was always that God had the ability to know everything, but didn’t let himself. You can’t have a true and loving relationship without free will. And if you know the entire outcome of the creation, is it really free will? I miss those conversations… But I went from a Christian who hates God to an agnostic that year.

So I said goodbye to Jesus and never looked back.

April 21st, 2009 | Tags: Journal | Category: Journal | Leave a comment