Vodka

On a lighter side - Bakon Vodka...bacon flavored vodka??? who in the hell wouldn't want to try this? Bloody Mary? I can easily see pasta sauce with this in it... there has to be some more ideas out there.

Biblical Marriage

Since I blogged before on the "traditional" definition of marriage, I thought I would copy a good list of biblical marriages by vorjack over at Unreasonable Faith. The main point he makes, which is a good one, is that NONE of these are depicted as being better than any other anywhere in the bible - they are all valid and recommended by "10 out of 10" different versions of the bible.

"Here’s a summary:

1. Polygynous Marriage

Probably the most common form of marriage in the bible, it is where a man has more than one wife.

2. Levirate Marriage

When a woman was widowed without a son, it became the responsibility of the brother-in-law or a close male relative to take her in and impregnate her. If the resulting child was a son, he would be considered the heir of her late husband. See Ruth, and the story of Onan (Gen. 38:6-10).

3. A man, a woman and her property — a female slave

The famous “handmaiden” sketch, as preformed by Abraham (Gen. 16:1-6) and Jacob (Gen. 30:4-5).

4. A man, one or more wives, and some concubines

The definition of a concubine varies from culture to culture, but they tended to be live-in mistresses. Concubines were tied to their “husband,” but had a lower status than a wife. Their children were not usually heirs, so they were safe outlets for sex without risking the line of succession. To see how badly a concubine could be treated, see the famous story of the Levite and his concubine (Judges 19:1-30).

5. A male soldier and a female prisoner of war

Women could be taken as booty from a successful campaign and forced to become wives or concubines. Deuteronomy 21:11-14 describes the process.

6. A male rapist and his victim

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 describes how an unmarried woman who had been raped must marry her attacker.

7. A male and female slave

A female slave could be married to a male slave without consent, presumably to produce more slaves.

and of course …

8. Monogamous, heterosexual marriage

What you might think of as the standard form of marriage, provided you think of arranged marriages as the standard. Also remember that inter-faith or cross-ethnic marriage were forbidden for large chunks of biblical history."

Is you housemate an ATHEIST???

I saw this cartoon and had to share (you can click on the picture for a larger version) - the irony is completely lost on the original author/poster and that the original intent of making fun of atheists completely fails and this is actually a parody of anti-atheists. Read his blog here if you have doubts as to the original author's need from some psychiatric help. (Thanks to Greg for sharing this email that was sent to him by the comic author)

Atheist's Ten Commandments

I found these over at Greg Laden's Blog and thought I would share for those that don't know his blog. (thanks Greg!)

These really should really apply to everyone!

1. Thou SHALT NOT believe all thou art told.
2. Thou SHALT seek knowledge and truth constantly.
3. Thou SHALT educate thy fellow man in the Laws of Science.
4. Thou SHALT NOT forget the atrocities committed in the name of god.
5. Thou SHALT leave valuable contributions for future generations.
6. Thou SHALT live in peace with thy fellow man.
7. Thou SHALT live this one life thou hast to its fullest.
8. Thou SHALT follow a Personal Code of Ethics.
9. Thou SHALT maintain a strict separation between Church and State.
10. Thou SHALT support those who follow these commandments.

The thing that made the thing for which there is no known maker

"Brilliant"

This is stupid - Updated 3/13

For UPDATE see bottom of post:

Sorry but this is why the catholic church is wrong (and anyone else who says abortion is wrong for any and all cases):

Brazil girl, alleged rape victim, aborts twins:
The procedure on the 9-year-old girl draws complaints from Catholic church

The title says it all but the story says the girl is "alleged" to have been raped by her stepfather, she is 80 lbs and SHE IS 9 YEARS OLD!!!! and it isn't just one it's TWINS!!! In Brazil abortion is illegal except for specific circumstance (endanger the mother) and the the catholic church says she should carry it to term; it's the law of GOD - WTF???? They even tried to take legal action to stop it..."inconceivable" - it is the will of God for her to get pregnant and then if she dies carrying the babies to term...that's all on him too I guess and we should just let it go????? AND to top it off, get this, the Archbishop excommunicated the child's mother, doctors and others involved! I don't even know what to say to that.....

If you want a little more detail and a better discussion see Mike's blog at The Questionable Authority

UPDATE 3/13/09 - From PZ: "After all of this the president of Brazil took a public stand against the church's unjust decision. Now at last, we hear from the top of the Catholic hierarchy…and the Vatican sides with fetuses over children. No surprise there at all."

The stupid, it hurts. Sorry but I have absoutley zero tolerance for this! To say we should force a 9 year old rape victim to carry to term twins (that are her stepdad's....) NO WAY.

Oh the irony, it hurts

So I am sitting at the Nature Centre here in Lethbridge watching my birds and listening to podcasts on my Ipod. I was listening to one from NPR Science titled Eyes in the Skies and Drying up Rainforests

Most of the podcast is about rainforests, global warming and CO2 sources/sinks but a portion of it is on in vitro fertelization and pre-implantation genetic haplotyping. A couple who had a child that died at approximately 8 weeks I think from a neuromuscular genetic disorder had decided they wanted to have more children but did not want to have another one with the same genetic disorder. The woman took hormone therapy for in-vitro and after harvesting 17 embryos and fertilizing them, all of them had one cell removed (at the 8 cell stage this doesn't do anything to the embryo really) for testing to make sure which ones didn't have the gene for the disorder. After all that, and having a lab identify about 10+ embryos without the disorder (any not implanted in the first round are frozen for future attempts if desired) the journalists asked the couple how many children they wanted and she said "however many God wants us to have"! Apparently it is all up to God and the lab personnel, her own active hormone supplementation, freezing embryos and then all of the extra stuff you do for implantation of the fertilized embryo(s) is all up to God and just God's plan (which correct me if I am wrong was an infant with the disorder?). Now don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for anyone that has to deal with the loss of a child at any age but especially so young but the irony of their statement vs actions is lost on this woman/couple, going through all of this effort/actions and still claiming it is all up to God! That just drives me crazy and I couldn't believe it just came out so naturally and without even the briefest pause from these people who are actively playing "god" regarding their own reproductive efforts but still clinging to this predetermined plan from their deity.

The Darwin Song

This is great! These kids already know more about Darwin than many adults I know.



hat tip to Greg Laden where I found it, and Evolving Complexity

Faith: can justify anything as from God

It amazes me how the "faithful" can attribute ANYTHING to God. If a plane crashes and everyone dies it was God's will, if a plane has a problem and lands on the Hudson safely it was God's hand, if a Hurricane or Tsunami hits it was God's will, if a new job comes along, a long lost relative calls when you think of them, you turn left instead of right and it was a good thing ..... etc. A believer can justify why either God or prayer works, fails to work, or explain a positive random event as the will of God or an answer to prayer. I wont get into the psychological aspect of the difficulties the human mind has with correlations or the natural tendency and evolutionary reason that the human mind looks for patterns which I will save for a future blog, but I will recommend reading this blog by Harry McCall on How the Human Mind Reasons which I think is really good. I am actually working on a similar blog regarding God's love and another on the effect of giving up the idea that you can control all of your life which when you fully accept that you can't, you need to accept life as it comes and enjoy it for what it, Which when do this removes a huge burden/weight and is a relief; it's just that believers attribute this to God (God's will or path they are willing to follow) and atheists attribute it to learning to accept life (such is life), but the end result is still the same! Sorry for rambling but I got work to do and just wanted to post real quick AND recommend the above blog posting: McCall's blog is interesting, especially the personal organ transplant story about his daughter!

Rivals of Jesus

For those of you interested in this stuff here is a good little video on the rivals of Jesus before, during and just after his time. Jesus wasn’t the only messianic prophet in the ancient world — but he’s the only one most people remember. This National Geographic documentary presents some of the rivals of Jesus and Judaism like Mithras, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Simon Bar Kochba, and Isis (Tip to Daniel for the post I noticed)

Losing my Religion - the book

A new atheism book hit the stores today called Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America — and Found Unexpected Peace, which is about the author's journey out from under the spell of religion. He is a former religious writer for the LA Times who wrote a lot about the recent sex scandal of the Catholic church, a former evangelical and a former catholic.

He is not out to (de)convert religious people or to convince you he is correct but rather explains why and how he became an atheist himself. So for religious people this makes it a book that they can read without burning it or run screaming (and may provide some information that can strengthen their belief), and provide them with an understanding of why atheists don't believe. As I have said in a previous posts , I agree with a lot of what he says and plan on picking up a copy soon. He also has a blog worth checking out here

Excerpt from a reviewer (Malena Lot at Bookgasm):
"Another “revelation” for me in the book was the research and simple question we can ask ourselves about believers: Are Christians more moral than non-Christians? Do they divorce at a lower rate? Do they have fewer abortions? You may be surprised — but not shocked — to learn that no, Christians are not less likely to sin.

While reading the book, you will likely explore your own faith journey, no matter your age. I have often been amused that the people who claim to be the most religious are also the most close-minded and — at least from their actions — spiritual in word, but not deed. Why bother to ask “What would Jesus do?,” but then do whatever the hell you want anyway? You can argue all you want that it should be about God and not people, but who is the church filled with? Lobdell’s book focuses more on the people than the ideology, but there’s some of both in his true story."

Immnuizations

Sme people have been on an anti-vaccination kick and may not have heard that the main proponent of anti-vaccination (and the link with causing autism) Dr. Wakefield has been shown to be a incompetent, a fraud and a liar who was paid by lawyers to find aveidence against vaccinations and he made up the data and flat out lied. Many people have cited his work as the main support for antivaccine and ironically are still supporting him even after he has been shown a fraud (for those interested there is a good summary of the most recent anti-vaccine "evidence" and the real scientific evidence located here ). People that don't vaccinate are basically a parasite on the other responsible people who are smart enought to vaccinate their children. Incredibly bad diseases such as pertusus, diptheria, measles, and even polio just to name a few are fast on the rise in both the US and Great Britain (as well as others) because so many people have bought into crackpot science and famous celebrity claims (Jenny McCarthy is an idiot - no-one wold ask her what the best treatment for acute pelvic inflammation or early parkinsons but we let her, hell even invite her on major news/talkshows to spew massive amunts of rhetoric about a major "scientific" issue that she has no expertise in except for having child, which many people have listened to and we as a society will have to suffer the consequences - the re-education of adults who have bought her crap is just one small part compared to the potential lives that may be lost from having not recieved vaccinations).

A really good summary of "Why we immunize" can be found here and I thought I would direct people who may not know this information. This is a good summary of whatthese deseases do/did to people and why we should vaccinate (there is definitely some flexibility in when vaccines should be administered based on age and immune system development but overall when you look at what these deseases do most vaccinations should be a no-brainer).