Go F*ck Yourselves Now

You've probably heard about Muhammad being represented in a South Park episode. You've probably heard about it being censored by Comedy Central because some assholes (ie. Revolution Islam) said that Matt Stone and Trey Parker would "probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show". You may have even heard that the website for Revolution Islam now bears several images "offensive" to Islam, including one of the famous Jyllands-Posten cartoons drawn by Kurt Westergaard. But now you've seen what must be considered the best response to the whole mess: Jon Stewart's Go F*ck Yourselves Choir.

In summary, I'll leave you with the immortal words of Camus:

"Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear."

Scientific Morality

Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, presented a TED talk called "Science can answer moral questions" earlier this month. While Harris' disdain for religion is evident and may consequently offend some people, I think his examination of the common themes in human values reaches an important conclusion:

"Values are a certain kind of fact. They are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures. Why is it that we don't have ethical obligations toward rocks? Why don't we feel compassion for rocks? It's because we don't think rocks can suffer. And if we're more concerned about our fellow primates than we are about insects, as indeed we are, it's because we think they're exposed to a greater range of potential happiness and suffering. Now, the crucial thing to notice here is that this is a factual claim. This is something we could be right or wrong about. If we've misconstrued the relationship between biological complexity and the possibilities of experience, well then we could be wrong about the inner lives of insects."

Secret Of The Easy Yoke

Some part of me likes to think that the greatest time in my life was when I was a Christian. Over the years, I've lamented losing the faith I'd previously built my life around. Recently, though, I realized that the solution is not simply to return to church. Church was never the highlight of my spiritual experience. Church was a lot of somebody else's interpretation of a popular book along with some songs I didn't really like. The highlights were sharing my search for meaning with other people and challenging myself to live by a higher standard of consideration for everyone.

Regardless of how I feel about religions and churches, I'm still not quite sure what to make of the whole god thing. But if there's a song that captures the transitional experience, it's most certainly this one. To paraphrase David, "Well, a lot's changed since I heard this song, but it's an interesting document."

Mixed Signals: Creation vs. Evolution

Opposite Day! Creation as technobabble and Evolution as melodramatic sermon... it's not just a brilliant switcharoo, it's also remarkably well done. You can watch them side by side on Vimeo.

Off-topic (but not if you're Pat Robertson):
So you've probably heard about Ida by now, but did you know it's also an impending hurricane? Do you think the World Meteological Organization and The Paleontological Society have a secret rivalry over names? You know, like the Anchorman news team street fight.

Mustaches bristling! Barometer slings launching projectiles into a crowd of prehistoric graverobbers! Picks and chisels bringing down the front lines of the weather soothsayers! Ida-the-hurricane-of-dead-lemurs!

Anyway, that's how I want to imagine it. We now return to your regularly scheduled program...

Muslim Demographics or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Laugh at Fearmongers

I love how the video stops just short of announcing a brand new crusade.

"As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents." George Orwell