Genius Lothario: “I have, madam, about my person, a member of Brobdingnagian proportions. Its weight multiplied by its volume equates to a mass that could not be imagined. The numbers required are beyond a googolplex, beyond even Graham’s number. And madam, It behoves me to impart to you that this member is throbbing, throbbing with the frequency and power of a pulsar and indeed with an intergalactic lake of blood coursing through it’s mighty veins! Madam, what is more, if you will allow me to thrust this giant member into you repeatedly with huge force and great alacrity, you Madam will see how the universe can have been formed in what can only be described as THE Big Bang.”
Buxom Lady: “ooooh my, Mr Hawkings!”…. Swoon.
Wednesday 22 September 2010
Friday 17 September 2010
Is the Pope a Catholic? I am not convinced.
As my journey through life has taken me from a little Christian to medium size Agnostic and now to gargantuan Atheist, I look back on my days as a Christian and wonder: Did I ever really believe in God? I think what I believed in was the message of Jesus, and what I liked was the possibility of an afterlife. But if I am brutally honest, the idea of Jesus being the son of God was always a conceit, an idea to be struggled with rather than something that I could see as a tangible fact. Some people call this conceit "Faith". The openness of Christians and other believers about the need for faith does raise a rather awkward question: If Faith is a requirement; do any of you actually believe that God is real? Do any of these so called believers, really believe in God, or do they pretend to for the sake of their religions?
Evolution, for example, is backed by mountains of irrefutable evidence, from the fossil records (which alone are proof enough for most rational people) to experiments in which evolution by natural selection has been observed in a laboratory, to DNA records and dating methods. Any rational person, with an inclination to learn can satisfy oneself beyond any reasonable doubt that the theory of evolution is correct. The theory has now been proven. No faith is required. I do not "believe" in evolution, it is now simply a fact in my mind, I have seen so much evidence that I can't conceive of a single way in which to undermine the theory and therefore I don’t need any faith or belief structure to support it. I don’t go to meetings to have my “belief” in evolution re-affirmed and I don’t pray to an imaginary sky ghost when the parts of the theory we don’t yet fully understand cause me to think long and hard for possible solutions.
So what of God? Well, there is no equivalent evidence of God's existence. The only evidence anyone ever presents to me is either some unrelated and shocking misunderstanding of the nature of science or the anecdotes of various vested interests. God is, by the believers own admission, a matter of faith. So what of faith? We know about confirmation bias, we understand about memes and the god spot, all things that can explain how humans are prone to “religion”, but aren’t humans also pre-disposed to moments of rational clarity? Can it be that the arrogant delusion brought on by religion is insurmountable and these people never actually sit and think "hang on a minute, none of this stuff really adds up?"
I don't think that can be true. To become Pope for example, you must have some reasonable level of intelligence, to have succeeded in ones chosen career to that level, Darth Ratzinger™ must actually be credited with intelligence. And so he must recognise (at least form time to time) that his own faith is just that, faith. It has no firm ground on which to stand, it is in fact a conceit. The mother of all conceits and therefore not real in any sense beyond the edge of fantasy, so if we can reasonably deduce that the Pope knows his own belief is simply his choice, he chooses to believe something rather than being forced to by irrefutable evidence, then he knows (if only at some sub conscious level) that God only exists in his head.
So is the Pope a catholic? Well, from time to time is my best guess. I would bet you £ to a penny that even he has that sinking feeling as reality takes over from fantasy. He’s obviously very good at suppressing it (probably puts it down to the Devils work or some such) But, he knows. All intelligent people of faith know. It’s just too painful for most of them to admit.
So perhaps, in the end, at the bottom of the well of thought, we are all Atheists; some just suppress it better than others. Some are just so shocked by the pointlessness of it all, that they ignore the cold blade of truth and hide under the warm blanket of religion. What most people of faith do genuinely believe is that religion is the best method with which to deliver moral structure and a sense of community (I actually disagree with this, but that's for another blog) and so, who can blame them? Putting one’s doubts and rational thinking to one side makes sense in that slightly twisted context.
The Pope is still a vile dirty Paedophile apologising, African child murdering nasty little Nazi though. Just because I have gone easy on his "faith" doesn't change the facts about this vile man's actions. ;-)
Peace.
Evolution, for example, is backed by mountains of irrefutable evidence, from the fossil records (which alone are proof enough for most rational people) to experiments in which evolution by natural selection has been observed in a laboratory, to DNA records and dating methods. Any rational person, with an inclination to learn can satisfy oneself beyond any reasonable doubt that the theory of evolution is correct. The theory has now been proven. No faith is required. I do not "believe" in evolution, it is now simply a fact in my mind, I have seen so much evidence that I can't conceive of a single way in which to undermine the theory and therefore I don’t need any faith or belief structure to support it. I don’t go to meetings to have my “belief” in evolution re-affirmed and I don’t pray to an imaginary sky ghost when the parts of the theory we don’t yet fully understand cause me to think long and hard for possible solutions.
So what of God? Well, there is no equivalent evidence of God's existence. The only evidence anyone ever presents to me is either some unrelated and shocking misunderstanding of the nature of science or the anecdotes of various vested interests. God is, by the believers own admission, a matter of faith. So what of faith? We know about confirmation bias, we understand about memes and the god spot, all things that can explain how humans are prone to “religion”, but aren’t humans also pre-disposed to moments of rational clarity? Can it be that the arrogant delusion brought on by religion is insurmountable and these people never actually sit and think "hang on a minute, none of this stuff really adds up?"
I don't think that can be true. To become Pope for example, you must have some reasonable level of intelligence, to have succeeded in ones chosen career to that level, Darth Ratzinger™ must actually be credited with intelligence. And so he must recognise (at least form time to time) that his own faith is just that, faith. It has no firm ground on which to stand, it is in fact a conceit. The mother of all conceits and therefore not real in any sense beyond the edge of fantasy, so if we can reasonably deduce that the Pope knows his own belief is simply his choice, he chooses to believe something rather than being forced to by irrefutable evidence, then he knows (if only at some sub conscious level) that God only exists in his head.
So is the Pope a catholic? Well, from time to time is my best guess. I would bet you £ to a penny that even he has that sinking feeling as reality takes over from fantasy. He’s obviously very good at suppressing it (probably puts it down to the Devils work or some such) But, he knows. All intelligent people of faith know. It’s just too painful for most of them to admit.
So perhaps, in the end, at the bottom of the well of thought, we are all Atheists; some just suppress it better than others. Some are just so shocked by the pointlessness of it all, that they ignore the cold blade of truth and hide under the warm blanket of religion. What most people of faith do genuinely believe is that religion is the best method with which to deliver moral structure and a sense of community (I actually disagree with this, but that's for another blog) and so, who can blame them? Putting one’s doubts and rational thinking to one side makes sense in that slightly twisted context.
The Pope is still a vile dirty Paedophile apologising, African child murdering nasty little Nazi though. Just because I have gone easy on his "faith" doesn't change the facts about this vile man's actions. ;-)
Peace.
Tuesday 14 September 2010
Spewing forth on the environment
After the recent volcano chaos some hard-core environmentalists were wallowing in a lake of schadenfreude about our empty skies; they said that the world is a better place without all the noise and green house pollution caused by the wretched air planes. While they do have a point from an ecological perspective the fact remains that for the majority of us the whole thing was a huge inconvenience, not to mention extremely expensive.
What Swampy and his mates fail to see is that people still have to travel. That is simply the nature of the global economy we have created, this situation is unlikely to change quickly,in fact changing the way the world works isn’t going to happen over-night and people will not be persuaded out of their comfortable life-styles and into a Gee Whizz and caravan without a fight.
Some recent studies are tending to show that travelling over-land requires just as much energy as travelling above it. The idea that getting a train and a ferry is greener than flying may well be a fallacy. This was borne out only a few weeks ago by the BBC’s Tim Harford (AKA, The undercover Economist). Harford was stranded (by the ash cloud) in Stockholm, so he travelled back to the UK overland - predominantly by train. Harford calculated that the carbon footprint of his ferry/train/ taxi journey back to Calais was no less than it would have been had he flown direct into Heathrow.
Whichever way you skin it, and however badly spun the maths may have been, travelling long distances requires a lot of energy. If travelling over land is not always greener and is rarely more convenient than flying we have a real problem. The convenience of flying is a problem in itself as any attack on such hard won convenience always feels like an affront to personal freedom and a retrograde step. No one wants to give up flying, and there is some evidence that there may be little point; If you have to travel far you might as well fly.
But we still have a problem. The evidence for man-made climate change is incredibly strong. Too strong to be ignored. Doing nothing is simply not an option. There are many that argue the science is weak and too new to be conclusive. They may well be right. It is at least possible the climate change is not being caused by man, however it doesn't matter. What matters is that it might be us and it looks as though it probably is us. That is good news, seriously, it is good news that we are probably the cause of climate change. If we are causing it then we have a chance to reverse it, stop it, slow it or control it in some way. If we aren't causing it then we really are in trouble, lowlanders like me will have to grow webbed feet and start eating more fish, highlanders will need to stockpile the factor 50 and get used to living on a much smaller island.
So what can we do? Should we all change the world completely and all give up our freedom to travel? I think if the media and government continue to point the finger only at air travel and cars they are missing the elephant in the room. The fact remains that the very large majority of carbon emission caused in this country comes from our domestic dwellings and commercial buildings.
I think most of us would agree that we need to tackle domestic properties as a priority and look to greener power generation, Building Services engineers need to be making more of a song and dance about intelligent controls in buildings and people need to "get real" at home. The government seems to think that the market will drive this, but so far it hasn't, at least if it has the effect is small and slow.
There needs to be legislation forcing people to reduce their carbon footprint at home! The idea that we can have our cake and eat it is a delusion beyond any form of reason. Either that or we all need to see sense soon!
If you want to be able to fly to Corfu in the summer and you want to keep your car and the freedom it affords put a bloody jumper on when it’s a bit chilly and turn the fucking lights off in empty rooms! And here’s the thing; we will be forced to do this before long anyway. By getting in first we can lessen the argument for less air travel and perhaps hold off the need to all drive round like pricks in a Toyota Pious for a bit longer. Of course security of supply is the biggest issue where oil is concerned, but for the time being, let’s at least tackle the real cause of climate change and give us all a break from this anti travel bull shit. Just for now, please. A Jumper and some warm slippers. That’s all you need!
What Swampy and his mates fail to see is that people still have to travel. That is simply the nature of the global economy we have created, this situation is unlikely to change quickly,in fact changing the way the world works isn’t going to happen over-night and people will not be persuaded out of their comfortable life-styles and into a Gee Whizz and caravan without a fight.
Some recent studies are tending to show that travelling over-land requires just as much energy as travelling above it. The idea that getting a train and a ferry is greener than flying may well be a fallacy. This was borne out only a few weeks ago by the BBC’s Tim Harford (AKA, The undercover Economist). Harford was stranded (by the ash cloud) in Stockholm, so he travelled back to the UK overland - predominantly by train. Harford calculated that the carbon footprint of his ferry/train/ taxi journey back to Calais was no less than it would have been had he flown direct into Heathrow.
Whichever way you skin it, and however badly spun the maths may have been, travelling long distances requires a lot of energy. If travelling over land is not always greener and is rarely more convenient than flying we have a real problem. The convenience of flying is a problem in itself as any attack on such hard won convenience always feels like an affront to personal freedom and a retrograde step. No one wants to give up flying, and there is some evidence that there may be little point; If you have to travel far you might as well fly.
But we still have a problem. The evidence for man-made climate change is incredibly strong. Too strong to be ignored. Doing nothing is simply not an option. There are many that argue the science is weak and too new to be conclusive. They may well be right. It is at least possible the climate change is not being caused by man, however it doesn't matter. What matters is that it might be us and it looks as though it probably is us. That is good news, seriously, it is good news that we are probably the cause of climate change. If we are causing it then we have a chance to reverse it, stop it, slow it or control it in some way. If we aren't causing it then we really are in trouble, lowlanders like me will have to grow webbed feet and start eating more fish, highlanders will need to stockpile the factor 50 and get used to living on a much smaller island.
So what can we do? Should we all change the world completely and all give up our freedom to travel? I think if the media and government continue to point the finger only at air travel and cars they are missing the elephant in the room. The fact remains that the very large majority of carbon emission caused in this country comes from our domestic dwellings and commercial buildings.
I think most of us would agree that we need to tackle domestic properties as a priority and look to greener power generation, Building Services engineers need to be making more of a song and dance about intelligent controls in buildings and people need to "get real" at home. The government seems to think that the market will drive this, but so far it hasn't, at least if it has the effect is small and slow.
There needs to be legislation forcing people to reduce their carbon footprint at home! The idea that we can have our cake and eat it is a delusion beyond any form of reason. Either that or we all need to see sense soon!
If you want to be able to fly to Corfu in the summer and you want to keep your car and the freedom it affords put a bloody jumper on when it’s a bit chilly and turn the fucking lights off in empty rooms! And here’s the thing; we will be forced to do this before long anyway. By getting in first we can lessen the argument for less air travel and perhaps hold off the need to all drive round like pricks in a Toyota Pious for a bit longer. Of course security of supply is the biggest issue where oil is concerned, but for the time being, let’s at least tackle the real cause of climate change and give us all a break from this anti travel bull shit. Just for now, please. A Jumper and some warm slippers. That’s all you need!
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