Read O Rama September 12, 2006
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Originally uploaded by AkumAPRIME.
I finished Wuthering Heights, score one more for the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I’ve started Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which is effectively an epic describing Greek mythology.
I can’t find my copy of Mere Christiainity, without which I can’t finish my previous post 
I’ll keep looking for a copy.
I “finished” chapter 2 of The Language of God. I put finished in quotes because at the beginning of the chapter is states explicitly that the chapter is deals purely with the philosophical aspects of religious illogic, and to skip it if you’ve no qualms about it. I am reading it, after all, for that scientific evidence he is going to slap me with at some point… I wish he would get To it. There wasn’t much of interest in chapter 2. As with the first, he refers ceaselessy to Lewis, by quote or paraphrase.
Aside from all this literature, I have plenty of GRE reading to keep me busy, in fact, I better return to that now.
But first!!! Reddit links:
Stop Bush!
Daily show is Funny! Bush’s stages of Grief
When to buy everything. Useful tips? You tell me
I Wish this was my drive home… and I had a car worthy of it…Â
God Speaks Pig Latin Upidstay NOTE I’m not done with this article just yet, so come back tomorrow for the final version. September 9, 2006
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Originally uploaded by AkumAPRIME.
Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Curtains, which kicked ass, but isn’t the focus of this article. Prior to the show, my Grandmother gave me a book, “The Language of God” by Francis S. Collins. Why she gave me this book, I can only guess (Read: conversion)
:::EDIT::: Apparently her purpose was to show me that religion and science could coexist, which I don’t disagree with at all. If every religious person accepted science before religion, and adapted their beliefs to reality (as some have done) I would have a Much smaller problem with religion.
but more importantly, She had Not read the book yet. This allowed me a small hope that the book would be an acceptably deistic portrayal of the universe.
I’m only a chapter in… I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen…
This book should have been titled, Mere Christianity 2.0th Century Edition.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Chapter 1: From Atheism to Belief or
Atheism through Idiocy: Extreme Logical Leaps
The first chapter contains a short biography of the author, disdainfully blaming a few strong willed agnostic/atheist college kids for his early adoption of agnosticism. It is while attending med school that the author is haunted by a dying woman’s question: What do you believe? Apparently he had never bothered to define his beliefs prior to this; he simply weakly accepted the beliefs of those impressed on him. Well now he’s torn asunder with questions.
The implication is that other agnostics/atheists are just “willfully blind” and use their beliefs as an excuse not to ask hard questions, as an excuse not to scrutinize our actions.
He quickly gets to C.S. Lewis, with whom I have a major problem philosophically. [NOTE::: Discuss Mere Christianity note, at end of chap 1. (not at home, don’t have access to some info I need.)]
Collins now makes some blatantly Untrue comments:
” The concept of right and wrong appears to be universal among all members of the buman species” He then adds a caveat, equivocating ” ( though its application may result in wildly different outcomes).”
The first part is just Not true. The next time your daughter does sth that dishonors the family, ask yourself if you should hang/stone/burn her, because in Iran, this happens quite often. Not only is the concept of right/wrong variable across peoples, it is variable across individuals. Ask yourself if your sense of morality has remained static since you were a child. Of course not, that’s not even a fair question. Here’s a better, fairer question. Since you’ve reached adulthood, has your sense of morality remained stable, or has it changed?
If we see morality shift across the individual level, family level, cultural level, how the HELL can that first sentence be justified? It can’t. Is it ok for a young boy to felate an elder to get his warrior spirit? Homophobic, overly macho christian morality would say no, but the African tribes that perform such acts see it as important and necessary.
Collins then goes on to ascribe the “moral law”, which I hope I now convinced you is an illusion, applies Solely to Humans. I find this arrogant and strange. What makes human behavior moral or immoral, but cat behavior neutral?
/me sighs… Our author than shoots himself in the face. After quoting C.S. Lewis, again, he makes tries to weasel his way out of the Glaring error in logic he’s made by making claims of a universal morality.
” In some unusual cultures, the law takes on surprising trappings – consider witch burning… … when surveyed closely, these apparent aberrations can be seen to arise from a strongly held but MISGUIDED conclusions about who or what is good or evil.” If we have a universal morality imparted to us by an omnipotent being, then how can we be Misguided? Apparently our Guide is imperfect.
He then goes on to try and refute the true reasons that Humans have beliefs about right and wrong: Evolutionary forces. He talks about self-lessness and altruism, and how evolution simply can Not explain them, which is riDiculously untrue.
A) Self-lessness doesn’t exist. Not to bad mouth Mother Theresa, but the lady got off on helping people. That’s cool! That’s GREAT! She thought if she helped people the world would be a better place, and she’d go to heaven. It made her feel GOOD to help people. Wonderful. But she got sth out of it. He quotes a Sufi story where a woman tries to save a drowning scorpion. It keeps stinging her, and she keeps trying to save it. A man says, ” What, are you stupid? Stop that!” (not an exact quotation!) to which she replies, ” Because it is in the nature of the Scorpion to sting, why should I deny my own nature to save it?” [exact quote 
]
Now this story strikes a chord with me because I save bees that drown in my pool. Despite having been stung a couple times, I will continue to save them. However, while I save most insects drowning in my pooI, I Don’t save cockroaches. I like bees. I Don’t like cockroaches. Also, it is perhaps bad of me to save these drowning bees/insects. By saving those stupid enough to get so close to the water, am I hurting their gene pool? By killing the cockroaches, am I making them smarter?
Morality is so tortuous and convoluted and NON Existent that to claim there is a universal set to which we could all ascribe is foolishly minimalist and over simplified.
” … selfless altruism, presents a major challenge for the evolutionist.” No it doesn’t. Selflessness presents a major challenge for our author, because its existence is dubious. But, it’s His book, so let’s play along.
” ‘ if there was a controlling power outside the uinvese, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe… … The only way in which we could expect it to show itself woule be inside ourseves as an influence or command trying to get us to behave in a cetain way. ‘ “, Collins quotes Lewis.
Ok, does anyone else see what’s wrong with this? This controlling power could not show itself to us? Why not? I thought this God was all powerful.
Secondly, he says he can’t show itself to us… Then he says, the only way we could expect it to show itself… Which is it?
Nevermind that the strange logic above perfectly concludes with his exact point… that’s not weird or anything… 
But it’s his book, so let’s play ball.
So Collins is staring at god in the philosophical eye at this point. He wonders, ” Would this be a desit God…? No, this God must be a theist God, who desires some kind of relationship with … human beings…” He comes to this conclusion with NO explanation of how he got here. Couldn’t it be a deist god that left us with “universal morals” as part of his deist scheme? Way to spell everything out Collins.
Then, ” He [god] would have to be the embodiment of goodness.” Another unexplained conclusion. Couldn’t your god have given us morals to screw with us? What about these so called “misguided” morals you spoke of earlier?
“Agnosticism, which had seemed like a s safe second-place haven, now loomed like the great cop-out it often is.” Again he implies that agnostics/atheists are often simply taking an easy way out… Jerk.
“If God exists, then He must be outside the natural world, and therefore the tools of science are not the right ones to learn about Him.” This is the 2nd best statement he makes. Why? Because it points out that he is Not a scientist. Science defines reality as the observable, the quantifiable.
WHY would this guy think that God is outside the natural world? That is counterintuitive to every thought I’ve had on a god. It also directly contradicts the existing canon that god is everywhere. And btw, wtf IS the “natural world?” What does that mean? Does it mean he lives in the unnatural world? I would just like some of the operational definitions that I’ve become comfortable with in science.
Now, the conclusion of the chapter has the best statement, one that truly captures the major logical fallacy that Collins makes.
” For a long time I stood trembling on the edge of this yawning gap. Finally, seeing no escape, I leapt.” Scared, full of fear, he jumped. Just as his argumentation jumps at random and with no apparent logic, our “scientist” author flies off.
A real scientist would look at the gap, observe it rather than tremble in fear of it. A real scientist would climb down that damn gap and search, not leaping, but carefully, steadily, fearlessly and Yes, a bit arrogantly, walking forward.
Mmm… Scabs taste like Beef Jerky
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Healing
Originally uploaded by AkumAPRIME.
This has been a strange week with good and bad parts. It started with a nice musical performance in Malibu with some of the continents best musicians.
Then I went shopping and perfunctorily left my wallet and phone on a belt rack. 20 minutes later, realizing my loss, I was lucky enough to find my phone returned; my wallet wasn’t Stupidly I had 300$ in my wallet; cash left over from traveling. Oh well…
Happy Birthday Adam, the big Three OH!
Steve Irwin Interview (croc hunter!) September 6, 2006
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THIS is an interview with Steve Irwin. Just thought I’d post it. His death was a really great tragedy and I shed tears when I heard about it.
What you must believe to be Republican (not to be taken literally).
Getting Kicked in the Head September 2, 2006
Posted by AkumAPRIME in : Life , 2 comments
Originally uploaded by AkumAPRIME.
This picture was taken shortly after getting kicked in the head. After getting kicked in the head, Dylan felt like crap. But he Knew why he felt like crap. He knew that while wrestling with Adam, Adam tried to arm bar him and a misplaced foot ended up in the back of D’s head.
The point to this story is that even if you have a headache, knowing where that headache came from is important. It provides you with a means of fixing the headache, or even preventing the headace from recurring. Not knowing where a headache comes from is frustrating because you are powerless against it.
This is the case of my headache: Religious fundamentalism. I don’t know where it comes from, or how to stop it. All I know is it makes me feel like I got kicked in the back of my head.
My family tries to tell me that religious moderation is the norm, that religious fundamentalism is not a controlling force in this nation. I don’t believe that to be true. Our “President” is a fundamentalist; the large majority of christians I’ve met believe in the Bible is the literal word of a real God; most of them don’t believe in (Read: don’t understand) evolution. Now if you live in LA, you are most likely not going to experience the Fundy mentality. To see the things that I think of when I picture the christian average, you have to go to the south and the midwest. It’s there that you will see things like THIS… which are increasing. Fundamentalism as a whole is increasing in the world.
But even in LA you’ll see that the Fundy BS reach exists. The rural areas of Ca harbor many fundies. I was sent a letter by my Uncle about the ACLU war on Xmas. Someone Please send me some evidence of the ACLU war on Xmas. What I see is a religious attack on secular thought via a made up war on Xmas blamed on the secular. So someone please, show me the light.
Despite what many would say are Puritanical roots, the truth is our forefathers were Deists. That is to say, Christian in many senses of the word, but far more secular, and by No means fundamentalist. In the mid-1950s, a fundamentalist mindset can be evidenced by the “In God We Trust” emblazoning our currency. Since then the problem has increased. In 1964 they even had a cartoon about it. See any similarities?
OMG, it’s September… what am I going to do? September 1, 2006
Posted by AkumAPRIME in : Life , 1 comment so far
Originally uploaded by AkumAPRIME.
Well, it’s officially September 2006; my Birth month. As I approach a quarter of a century, I start to wonder… What the Hell am I DOING?
Then I freak out for a bit… in fact, one second, I need to freak out…
Pushups always help alleviate freakouts, anyway… Birthdays and milestones, such as New Years, tend to be times of personal reflection for us. This happens to be a time of Great personal reflection for myself, and despite the introspection and things I glean from it, I am filled with feelings of fear, frustration and failure. I won’t go into details on that. Once I get Past those, I am left with questions.
What do I want? How do I get it? Am I making the right choices? How would I know?
I want to go back to school, and I want to travel. I feel like I’ve found a nice synthesis of the two in applying for graduate studies internationally, thus satisfying both my cravings.
What happens if I don’t get accepted? Then I will continue to travel and fund my way by teaching in the various countries I’m visiting… and taking that time to figure out what to do next.
What about now? I read a lot, I’m on the computer a lot, I exercise a lot… I’m bored.. A LOT! It’s not that these things are boring. It’s just that I feel static, like I’m gaining no experience and thus no levels. The other day, my parents needed help at the office with some computer stuff they couldn’t deal with. I was able to go in, get the job done, and save them maybe $200 or so bucks. I felt useful. I also learned some things during the work.
I’m on Maslow’s 4th step and I need to figure out how to get to the doorway… Well, the way up is to study for this GRE and get some research hours in. These two things together will help lock me for the Universities I choose.
So that’s up to me. How well I focus past the computer, 1001 books, exercise, friends, women, dogs, family, food, movie, tv, comics, games and million other obstacles in my path… Well I guess we’ll know in 2 months…
SITE NOTE::: Due to the fact that I’ve been getting Massive amounts of blogspam, if you want to leave a comment, you have to register first. This is a pretty quick and painless process. The Register and login link is on the left sidebar… Ctrl + F, find Register, if you’re blind.
Biking and Photography work Well together August 30, 2006
Posted by AkumAPRIME in : Life , add a commentBiking and photography, my two most recent hobbies, have Great synthesis. I can do both together which makes them even more fun and powerful. Things could have been bad if I’d taken up, say, Snake training and Child rearing, or swimming and electrical engineering. Now I can travel around and if I see a nice shot, stop and capture it. In my car that’s Much harder.
I joined a cool site I found that hosts photography challenges. One of the challenges is called Simple Pleasures. The goal is to capture an image that makes a viewer think, “Yeah, I’d like That.” My idea for this image involves a kid and ice cream, so I hopped on my bike down to Baskin Robbins to find a kid to use as a subject. I asked three parents.
The first was ok, but the kid was too shy, so no go. The 2nd no nonononnoon no.. she said as soon as I looked at her. The 3rd guy said, ” No offence, but some strange guy wants to take pictures of my kid… not gonna happen.” Being treated like a child molester isn’t fun, so I left. The problem is, I still want the image…
I guess I need to borrow a kid I know and take them to get some ice cream. Maybe I should have my own kid, then I can force him/her to take pictures at will… hmm…
Reddit links:
Freedom of speech is a problem when Everyone around you is paranoid
Some of you might notice I changed my theme. After trying to tweak my previous theme to work for you IE users… I gave up. This theme looks better and I can use MaX’s logo ( I need to fix it though MaX). It works in IE, FF and Opera. Let me know if you use some other browser and it’s broken.
I’ve Become a Hermit August 27, 2006
Posted by AkumAPRIME in : Life , 3 comments
Originally uploaded by AkumAPRIME.
I’ve spent all day, every day for the past week in my room. I’ve become albino, hyper sensitive to light and nocturnal. In order to change this, I am going outside… NOW.
I’m going to take my bike, book and camera somewhere and read and take pictures outside, with people. REAL people.
Tomorrow is monday and my goal is to wake up at 8am and get several long overdue and unpleasant tasks done that I’ve been procrastinating on.
GL 2 ME
Monkey Surprise August 25, 2006
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Originally uploaded by AkumAPRIME.
HAHA!!! Monkey made it to Interestingness on Flickr. This is very exciting for me, as this is the first time it’s happened as far as I know. While some maintain that interestingness is random and shouldn’t be paid attention to or fretted over, many of us at Flickr obsess over such things.
For example, my Flickr score:
AkumAPRIME’s flickr score: 2593
My life depends on raising that number.
Anyway, this is exciting and I’m happy about it, though it in no way pays me cash money, so feel free to donate due to the Eyegasm you just had from looking at my picture. The donate button is to the upper left. You know what else is to the left? well, and down a bit… my China, Thailand, Malaysia Journal.
Please read it and let me know how you like it. For some reason it randomly italicizes some parts, so the formatting is imperfect… I’ll work on that.
Nerd Porn August 24, 2006
Posted by AkumAPRIME in : Life , 1 comment so farIf you haven’t had an orgasm today, watch THIS video. Hot Damn the future looks bright.
I am in the middle of getting the Last of my pics up. Stitching, HDRing, etc… My goal is to be done toNight! Then write tomorrow and start GRE studying. I’m also looking at internships. If you know of one, psychology based, let me know.
Oh oh.. Wuthering Heights is good!
I almost forgot THIS link. This is important. A computer programmer testifying about his role in fixing electronic voting machines for the Republicans. We all got disenfranchised, and here’s more evidence for you non-believers.
digg this
Furl this
