Truth and the Devil

There’s compensation, then there’s over-compensation:

Not content with merely banning holocaust denial, now they [Germany] are proposing an EU law that would prosecute anyone who denies any claimed genocide, war crime or crime against humanity.

Berlin’s draft EU directive extends the idea of Holocaust denial to the “gross minimisation of genocide out of racist and xenophobic motives”, to include crimes dealt with by the International Criminal Court…
The draft text states: “Each member state shall take the measures necessary to ensure that the following intentional conduct is punishable: ‘publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined in’… the Statute of the ICC.”

I would imagine that many people might expect some of a secular persuasion like myself might be inclined to jump all over new ‘evidence’ that the tomb of Jesus might have been found. I’m not so inclined. My interest in secular values as well as the study of religion has everything to do with evidence and a search for the truth, not trying to make religion look bad.

With that philosophy, I try to treat all fantastic claims with the same skepticism I would any other. Just as I find the claims of any conspiracy about UFOs or 9/11 or even The Da Vinici Code lacking in evidence, so do I James Cameron’s claim that he has found the tomb of Jesus Christ.

In Bakersfield, California, a pediatrician turned away a little girl because her mother had a tattoo. He said it was because of his ‘Christian’ beliefs. Personally, I don’t ever remember hearing a commandment of “thou shalt not help anyone who might be related to someone who has a tattoo.”

“I felt totally discriminated against, like I wasn’t good enough to talk to,” Tasha Childress said, “like he didn’t have to give me any reason for not wanting to see my daughter because I have tattoos and piercings.”

The little girl had to suffer through the night because her insurance policy referred her to this man.

Closely related to my recent post about the ethics of global warming, is a post at Real Climate using the analogy of the TV shows CSI and Cold Case to help explain how climate science is done. Recent studies (of the past 30 years or so) are like looking at a fresh crime scene with blood still on the walls. While older climate studies (thousands of years ago) involve looking at more circumstantial evidence such as ice cores, ocean sediments,etc. They also address some claims from climate change deniers:

When it comes to matters dealing with religion, overreaction seems the name of the game, doesn’t it?

Three CD players hidden under a cathedral’s pews blared sexually explicit language in the middle of an Ash Wednesday Mass, leading a bomb squad to detonate two of the devices.

Authorities determined the music players were not dangerous and kept the third one to check it for clues, said police Capt. Gary Johnson.

Oh really?! A CD player wasn’t dangerous?

The recordings, made on store-bought blank discs, featured people using foul language and “pornographic messages,” Johnson said. He would not elaborate because of the ongoing investigation.

I’m just constantly amazed at some of the talent portrayed on some of these file-sharing sites.
Here’s an awesome a capella/beatboxing video:

Reggie Watts: Out Of Control on Vimeo

And here we have a few videos of Greg Pattillo, a beatboxing flute player doing some classics. Must be seen to believed.

Inspector Gadget/Beverly Hills Cop

Sesame Street

And the always the favorite, the Super Mario Brothers theme

Every once in awhile I will post some articles that were lost when our old site, Structured Thought, was taken down. This is one posted back on July 16, 2006.

There seems to be another world outside of mine that I do not understand. I was raised in the belief that no matter what you look like, who you love, or what you believe, above all else, we are all human beings and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. However, there seems to exist a rather large portion of the population that discards your common humanity in favor of which superstitious belief system to which you subscribe. Where your value and dignity as a human being is based upon your opinion of thousand-year-old books.

Global Warming denial among some conservatives has developed into a conversation with some of the most perverted ethics I can imagine. In an attempt to get out of taking any sort of responsibility for the health of the Earth as a whole, these conservatives have first denied that global warming exists, then denied that it was man-made (i.e. part of a natural cycle), and now are simply denying that we need to actually do anything about it.

For those of you who haven’t found this already, I thought I’d link to the Mr. Deity videos. They’re short (3–5 minutes), hilarious videos parodying god and creation. I’ll include the first 6 here, but they’re already up to episode 7. You can subscribe to the video podcast on iTunes.

I’m aware there’s a problem with the comments on the site. Despite the ‘Internal Server Error’ message, the comments do get through.