Realitology

“The Study of Reality”

Warning! This Blog Contains Social Commentary, Brilliant Observations, Dry Wit, and Rampant Sarcasm. Use At Your Own Risk.

 

The Mathematics of God – The Stupidity of “Intelligent Design”
* Comments(1)

One more installment in my recent anti-religion tirades…

I recently finished the book "Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up" by Jonh Allen Paulos.

It’s an interesting little book that, through mathematics, quite adeptly destroys all sorts of the supposed "logical" arguments for god. Regardless of the religious implications of the book, the author really lays out probability and mathematical principles in easy to understand ways. It was particularly fascinating to me how many things we see around us every day are hugely improbable statistically, yet they happen with great regularity.

Here’s a case in point…

I suppose everyone knows that creationism (the belief that a mystical sky fairy [god] created the universe) has been rebranded as "intelligent design" (ID). There’s been a new PR campaign in the world (mainly USA) to try to "prove" its validity and hold it up as an equal (or better) explanation than natural selection (evolution), and to have it taught in public schools.

Since there is of course no logical or scientific evidence of "intelligent design" [a 2000 year old story book which claims itself infallible is not evidence] , the best argument its supporters can come up with is that the probability that the world as we know it evolved from natural selection is highly unlikely.

Of course their whole "thought" process is severely flawed and show that its supporters have no knowledge of science and no concept of natural selection. They start out with the idea that the universe as it is now was the "goal" of evolution, rather than realizing that there was no end goal, only a starting place with an incomprehensible number of possible changes and outcomes which occurred over billions of years and ended up with what we have now. In other words it wasn’t planned to be this way it just ended up this way as a result of miniscule changes over billions of years.

But anyway, back the idea that the probability of the universe being this way is so unlikely as to be impossible. Paulos give a great illustration of things with an a seeming infinitesimal probability of occurring, occurring nonetheless.

Would you say that the odds of something having a 1 in 1068 probability of occurring would be small? Infinitesimal even? Would something with those sorts of odds ever occur? Just so we’re clear on the number; 1068 is 1 with 68 zeros after it. In other words something having a

1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

chance of occurring. It seems like something like that could never happen.

Well, if you shuffle a deck of 52 cards there is a 1 in 1068 chance of the cards ending up in any particular order. So every time you shuffle a deck of cards the order that the cards ended up in had a tiny 1 in 1068 chance of occurring, and yet it obviously did occur.

You would be justified in concluding that the probability that the cards ended up in that particular order was infinitesimal, but you would not be justified in concluding that since the odds were so small that it could not have possibly occurred. That my friends is what creationists try to do.

Simply because the a priori [rough translation: before the fact] chance of something happening is tiny, you can’t conclude that it could not have possibly occurred. When you shuffle cards they have to end up in some order. Regardless of the probability of any one particular order occurring, one particular order will occur. You cannot logically conclude that the possibility of moving from one order to another via shuffling is so improbable as to be impossible.

So how do we put this back into the real world of natural selection? Simply this: when an organism reproduces, the cards are reshuffled and any number of possible genetic changes will occur (as demonstrated by the fact that every offspring is not a perfect clone.) This particular genetic reshuffling that ends up was itself highly improbable to have occurred, but yet it did occur.

Genetics is of course much more complex than a deck of cards. When genes are shuffled there can be mutations which lead to more possibilities of changes in organisms. If you had a deck of cards that changed a tiny bit with every shuffle eventually it would not look like the deck you started out with. The possibilities of changes would increase the longer you shuffled the deck. If everyone of the 6 billion people on earth shuffled a similar deck then the number of change would grow exponentially. If they passed down their deck of cards to their offspring and the offspring continued to shuffle the deck over their lifetime then then the changes could grow even more exponentially. And if that continued for billions of years then the number of changes would continue to grow exponentially. 

Something simple can end up incredibly complex with tiny changes over long periods of time.

That in a nutshell is natural selection.
1- organisms reproduce
2- the offspring is slightly different that its parents
3- that offspring reproduces
4- Its offspring are slightly different that it is
5- ad infinitum

The evidence is right in front of our faces, we witness it every time a child is born and yet some people still want to claim that it doesn’t happen. As I’ve said before, someone who consistently doesn’t believe what they see happening with their very eyes, and who denies reality, is detached (brainwashed by beliefs) from reality. It’s sad on a human level, but it’s incredibly dangerous on a societal level to have people making decisions based on superstition and non-reality.

This whole deck of cards/number analogy thing was based on about 2 pages of Paulos’ book. If you read the whole book you’ll find many more "arguments" for god debunked. It’s a pretty entertaining read. Don’t be put off by "mathematics" in the title.

 

 


God’s Pharmacy – A Lesson In Simple-Minded Bullshit Thinking
* Comments(1)

As if to punctuate yesterday’s post about no more religious nuts in politics, I received further proof that religious nuts are not connected to reality.

I got this chain email entitled "god’s pharmacy". It’s so laughably simple-minded and unintelligent that you’d almost think it was made to be funny, not to PROVE how smart god is.

Here it is in all its glory (no pun intended).
(My smart-ass comments in red)

A friend sent this to me. It’s been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and fish… all before making a human. He made and provided what we’d need before we were born. These are best & more powerful when eaten raw.  We’re such slow learners…

God left us a great clue as to what foods help what part of our body!
God’s Pharmacy! Amazing!

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye… and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

And an unsliced carrot it looks like a horse dick, so what?  Pretty much anything round "looks" like the human eye if you’re going to use that broad of a brush. No, "carrots" don’t enhance blood flow to the eyes; that would be vitamin A primarily to which you’re trying to refer. And as far as I know vitamin A’s benefits don’t come from enhanced blood flow.

And by the way…vitamin A is found in many other foods in greater concentrations than in carrots—the top one being cod liver oil. I don’t know…does a cod liver look like the human eye?

A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

OK first, it’s "lycopene" not "lycopine". And ummm, actually tomatoes contain between 2-20 chambers depending on the variety. They’re green when they’re first "born" by the way. Just like the human heart right? (Or maybe that was the Grinch?) They might also be yellow, orange, pink, and dark purple to black. [I’ll leave others to make the black hearted jokes.]

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

That’s the shape of heart? Uh, I guess so if you want to stretch your imagination…and selectively prune a bunch of grapes. Looks like a blood cell? Here we go again with that magical-god-proving-circular-shape? Good for your heart? Well Lordy-Be! Them there are anti-oxidants, which in addition to being found in other foods in much greater concentrations, are primarily found in grape SEEDS. And since that’s a picture of THOMPSON SEEDLESS GRAPES, they don’t have any freakin’ seeds anyway.
Here’s another bunch of grapes I found.  Who’s heart is that shaped like Farmer Brown?

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Actually I always thought a walnut kind of looks like the wrinkly skin on your testicles when it’s cold. Maybe that’s just me.

Looks like a little brain? Well a little anthropomorphic projection never hurt anyone.

And by the way Freud, they’re not "neuron-transmitters" they’re "neurotransmitters"…and it’s the omega 3 fatty acids found in walnuts that are good for the brain. In fact flax seeds have 3x the amount of omega 3s found in walnuts. I submit that the size and shape of a flax seed more closely resembles the brain of whoever wrote this idiotic email. –>

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

"…and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys. " — No Shit Sherlock! That’s because they were NAMED AFTER HUMAN KIDNEYs not the other way around.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

"Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones." — So does a fucking stick Hippocrates! Go eat one of those.

Avocados, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female – they look just like these organs. Today’s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this?  It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

"Avocados, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female – they look just like these organs." Hey if your pussy’s green like an avocado or purple like an eggplant you need to get that looked at.

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.

Wow they’re full of seeds. Simply amazing! They must be the only fruit in the world to be full of seeds. And they hang in twos? Damn, you got me there buckwheat! You know what’s really sperm-and-nut-like about figs…it’s that they’re full of fig wasp larva…yum…you’re eating wasp jizz. Gee thanks god.

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Ohh this stuff is starting to make my head hurt…

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries

Who has that many ovaries? With leaves too?

Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

 They look "just like" the mammary glands? What? Orange, yellow, and bumpy on the outside? Not like any mammary glands I’ve ever seen.

No, actually the mammary glands don’t look anything like that. The BREASTS might look a little like them though. Actually, I always preferred "mammary glands" that were cantaloupe and watermelon sized. Plus when those lemon titties squirt in your eye it burns like the dickens.

Onions look like the body’s cells. Today’s research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

Hey wait a minute…I thought you said grapes looked like a blood cell? What’s going on here god?

" They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes." So does a kick in the nuts, and since onions look like nuts, ipso facto  god planned it that way.

You know what else washes the epithelial layers of the eyes? Mustard gas! That is until you puke blood and cough up your lungs. I’d say you got a little carried away with the symbolism there god!

 

SUBJECT: Psalm 46:10
‘Be Still and Know that I AM GOD’
Please don’t break this even if you only send it to one person. Look at the date when this was started. Thanks.

So there you go you doubting Thomas…proof of god’s divine plan right there in the Safeway produce aisle. But I’m sure Sarah Palin already knew that.

 


No More Religious People In Government – No More Delusional Leaders
* Comments(2)

The Religious Should Not And Cannot Be Trusted In Positions of Power.

Religion is a mass delusion that has been perpetrated far too long out of fear, ignorance, and power. I understand that people have been raised (brainwashed) that way (me included), but what continues to shock me is that in this day and age, with all we know about how the universe works, people continue to choose to live outside of reality.

Not only is that sad, it’s scary and downright dangerous. Witness the havoc these delusions cause…All the way from the 2,000 years of christian, jewish, muslim, hindu hatred and wars with each other to the parents who withhold medical treatment from their children because they believe that praying to god will cure all. I don’t want to belabor the point—I could give examples of this for another 10 pages.

The ignorance of humans never ceases to amaze me, but I’m especially shocked that this right-wing-religious-nut-Sarah-Palin seems to be so well received. I won’t even go into the effects of cult of personality, or the cult of a semi-not-ugly-face have on people. That’s scary in itself.

Look, normally anyone who says they hear voices is rushed off to psychiatric care and rightfully so. They’d certainly not be trusted to hold public office. BUT if they say the voices are from "god" then it’s like "Oh OK that’s cool…you’re not insane." These people should be getting the psychiatric help they need, not encouraged and allowed to continue in their delusions.

I guarantee a person who admitted being bi-polar or schizophrenic would not even be considered for public office; but here we go again with Sara Palin since people obviously didn’t learn their lesson from 8 years of a president with definite mental issues. I’m not just talking about him being unintelligent, I’m talking about issues resembling paranoid delusions, megalomania, schizophrenia, or personality disorders.

He definitely doesn’t shy away from talking about the voices in his head; but here once again another person needing psychiatric care is given a free pass because the voices are from "god". Freaking scary and directly parallel to such wackos as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the Ayatollah Khomeini, et al.

[ I don’t mean to imply that everyone who professes to "hear god’s voice" is psychotic. Most are just deluding themselves because they "want to believe" and this is a way for them to "prove" that god exists and is looking out for them. It’s really just the inner voice and self-talk that all humans possess and is part of a human brain’s normal activity.]

I don’t want to go off on Bush’s mental problems too much, but this is an excellent article on them.

http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.shtml

A couple of quotes from the article….

The author quotes Jung in analyzing George Bush’s mental disorders:

"Hysterical self-deceivers, and ordinary ones too, have at all times understood the art of misusing everything so as to avoid the demands and duties of life, and above all to shirk the duty of confronting themselves. They pretend to be seekers after God in order not to have to face the truth that they are ordinary egoists."

The Author:

"At the root of Bush’s process is an unwillingness and seeming inability to experience his own sense of sin, guilt and shame, as if he is afraid of being exposed, of being found out. He’s clearly unable to feel any remorse and experience his own weakness and vulnerability, his own sense of failure. This threatens his narcissism too much. One aspect of Bush’s pathology is ‘malignant narcissism,’ as he reacts sadistically to others who mirror back his guilt and don’t support and enable his narcissism."

AND

"Whereas Hitler’s evil was more overt in its cruelty and sadism, Bush’s dark side is much more hidden and disguised, which makes it particularly dangerous. People who voted for Bush are somehow blind to what is very obvious to others. It’s as if they’ve become hypnotized and fallen under the spell that Bush is casting. Why would people vote for someone stricken with malignant egophrenia? People who support Bush are suggestible and susceptible to the same malady that Bush is embodying, as if they have a predisposition for it (based on their own trauma, dissociated psyche and tendency to project the shadow). Supporting Bush is a sign that a person not only doesn’t see the deadly illness that is incarnating itself through Bush, but is an expression that this disease has taken up residence in their being and is using them to do its bidding."

That’s about as perfectly as it can be said.

I personally can no longer in good conscious just let these religious delusions continue unchallenged; especially when we’re faced with another [vice] presidential term of people who admittedly hear voices in their head and make decisions based on a 2,000 year old book written by bronze-age storytellers.

Most Americans can plainly see the evil that comes from the muslim world trying to enforce their barbaric, 8th century mythology on the rest of the world. Yet sadly [religious] Americans seem blind to the fact that THEIR stated ultimate goal and worldview is the exact same thing. But I suppose that’s inherent in the religious person’s psyche…to kill or convert the infidels. Again another false and needless problem caused by people making life-threatening decisions based on 2,000 year old mythology.

We as a country and as a world cannot continue to let people who hear voices in their head and who are so disconnected from reality that they believe magic sky-faeries rule the universe…we should not and we can not any longer let these obviously unfit people rule the United States and the world.

We need to call a spade a spade and not give people who are obviously disconnected from the real world a pass just because they pull the "religious card". Let us at least call it what it truly is…a delusion. And delusional people have no business making decisions for society.


God Dammit, What Did I Just Say About Leaving The Animals Alone!
* Comments(4)

As if hunting and eating them was not enough, those wacky Japanese have decided to also humiliate whales by making them wear Santa Hats. Now this definitely IS anthrophomorphism.


"While the white belugas are entertaining the crowds, their humpback cousins are facing a brutal end in cold storage at the hands of Japanese whalers in Antarctica"

Hunting ships are already on their way to the icy reaches of the Southern Ocean, where this year’s catch of 1,000 will include humpbacks for the first time in 40 years.

The hunting expedition also plans to kill 50 fin whales, the world’s second largest animal after blue whales, as 850 smaller minke whales.

Wildlife officials say the display of the white belugas wearing Santa hats is both sad and ironic against the background of the Antarctic hunts, due to start in the region after Christmas.

"While whales are being used for entertainment in Japan, the Japanese fleet is subjecting whales to a cruel death in the Southern Ocean," said Mr Darren Kindleysides, a Sydney-based campaigner for the International Fund for Wildlife.

"Sadly, the aquarium owners seem to be showing as little respect for whales as their Government."

An Australian whale-watching official, Mr Peter Lynch, said the aquarium display was disrespectful to the whales, adding: "The real irony lies in the fact that the general population in Japan have no idea what’s going on in Antarctica."

However, the Australian government will be casting a different eye over the activities of the Japanese whalers in Antarctica – it plans to send a former P&O cruise ship, now converted into an armed vessel, to the region to monitor the hunting.

Following high-level talks, the vessel, Oceanic Viking, which has a reinforced hull to cut through ice, will be leased to the government to track the Japanese whaling ships and keep a check on their activities.

The crew is trained for polar conditions and they will use ‘super-telephoto’ lenses to record the whale slaughter.

In addition, the ship will have two .50-calibre machine guns manned by a customs boarding party should a clash of any kind with the Japanese vessels occur.

Australia’s new Labour Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has accused the former John Howard government of doing nothing to save the endangered whales, adding that nobody took seriously Japan’s claim that it was conducting scientific research. full story…

 

"Scientific Research" my blowhole!

 OK really I can’t say making the whales wear santa hats is particularly cruel (certainly not worse than wrenching them from their home and forcing them to live in a tiny cage and stop communicating with each other because they’ll go deaf from the sounds bouncing around the container) . In fact I’m sure the whales are having a good laugh at the dork standing next to them.

But really, this is just another stupid example of how people use and abuse other animals for their amusement. It’s just a "thing", not a living being with feelings and sensitivity or anything. It’s just a little play thing. AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

And the Japanese have got to be the worst at it with all that cutsey hello kitty, pokemon, raping little girls manga crap. Their culture is just fucking weird in that way. (And yes I know plenty of Japanese. I’m married to one in fact.) They live in a fucking dream world in certain ways. They’re still taught that America was the aggressor in world war 2, they know nothing about the rape of Nan King (but that’s a different post.)

On the positive side, you can buy beer and porno magazines in vending machines in Japan. And they have the best and most high-tech toilets in the world. You’ve not taken a proper shit until you’ve shit on a Japanese toilet and had it clean your asshole with water and then blow dry it.  No wiping! No Muss! No Fuss! But honestly I don’t have the patience to wait for the air dryer. It takes too long, just like a hand dryer. Plus I don’t want to get a chapped anus! Do they make ass-chap-stick?

(FREE TIP: Make sure you don’t press the "ladies wash" button by mistake or you’ll get your nuts and/or vagina showered instead of your bunghole. That is of course unless your nuts and/or vagina need cleansing then by all means press that button.)

Where the hell was I? Oh yeah cruelty to animals…My wife said they used to eat whale meat at school lunch. Isn’t that nifty. Really we westerners can’t bitch too much about whale killing. I mean, how many billions of chickens, cows, and pigs do we kill and eat? (By "we" I mean you carnivores out there.)

Man I really don’t even know what to say. The absurdity boggles the mind. OK, how about some more humiliating photos then?


"Hey Arty. I feel like a dipshit with this hat on."
"Me too, Ted."


"Is that a santa hat on your blowhole, or are you just happy to see me?"

 

 

 


Woman Raped Before “Honor Killing”
* Comments(3)

LONDON (Reuters) – A Kurdish woman was brutally raped, stamped on and strangled by members of her family and their friends in an "honor killing" carried out at her London home because she had fallen in love with the wrong man. Banaz Mahmod, 20, was subjected to the 2-1/2 hour ordeal before she was garroted with a bootlace. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase and taken about 100 miles to Birmingham where it was buried in the back garden of a house. Full story

With Family Like This Who Needs Enemies?

Those wacky foreigners and their fun-loving culture…

Click to read more …


A Government Based on Facts Not Delusions
* Comments(11)

A Government Based on Facts and Logic, Not Delusions, Superstitions and Fables.

In a perfect world, all decisions would be made based on logic and facts. To a large extent, government is the writing down and enforcement of a group of decisions that some humans have made. The ideal would be that all of the laws, decisions, and judgments made would be based on facts and reality, and that all decisions made would provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

However, I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I realize we humans are much more complicated and fallible than that. We know that’s not the way the world really works. Decisions are made based on selfishness, greed, bias, money, fear, anger, sex, jealousy, etc. with the occasional bit of logic thrown in if it’s not too inconvenient. By extension, politicians, kings, diplomats, dictators, and presidents all make decisions, policies, and laws with these same human flaws and weaknesses. It’s all too obvious that much of the things that government does is based on personal wants, cash payments, promises of jobs, kickbacks, family relationships, sexual favors, etc.

Click to read more …


Stay afraid. It's for your own good.
Signed,
Your Government





No, not that kind of out!
Go ahead. Click it. You know you want to!