Mudpies in a Slum

C. S. Lewis
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Debunkery II

You may remember a little addendum I made extending the list of debunkerisms found in Zen… And the Art of Debunkery. Well, a few more came to mind since then and I figured I post them.

Shooting the Son to Kill the Father
Confuse popular ideas and subsequent research regarding a paranormal claim with the original claim itself. If you debunk Marjorie Fish’s interpretation of the Betty Hill star map as representing Zeta I Reticuli, roundly claimed to have unmasked the Hill abduction as a hoax.

If the original and subsequent claims are intertwined closely enough in the public consciousness no one will notice the fallacy (or dishonesty) inherent in such a tactic.

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You Can’t See the Emperor’s Clothes… With Your Eyes Shut!
Ignore all arguments from an advocate of an anomalous phenomenon. After all, fortean, paranormal and religious phenomena are self-evidently false. Those woomongering pseudoscientists and superstitious fundies are prone to object to being summarily dismissed, though, so expect complaints!

When some kook protests that you’re being snobbish and anti-intellectual by completely sealing yourself off from the other side’s arguments, explain to him that a citizen doesn’t need to listen to the courtiers’ arguments about the finery of imperial silk – the emperor’s obviously naked! If you’re condescending enough people will be too intimidated to ask how you know the emperor is naked when you refused to open your eyes when he passed by.

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Don’t Trust Hypnosis… Unless It’s Convenient
Research has shown that hypnotically enhanced recall is likely to result in distorted or confabulated memories. Consequently, memories gained through hypnosis must be treated with great suspicion even if the event the recovered memories described was known to have actually occured.

This is especially true of people making “extraordinary claims,” like that they recovered memories of being forcibly taken and examined by aliens. However, if you can utilize these recovered memories for debunking the claim when taken as one hundred percent literally representing the alleged experience on face value you, as a skeptic, are obligated to do so.

Example: The star map hypnotically recalled by Betty Hill as being shown to her by an alien. It’s obvious that the map is bogus because of minor discrepancies between it and the actual configuration of stars around Zeta I Reticuli!

Hope that no-one asks you why memories from such an allegedly flawed method should be held to such a high standard if the memories are likely inaccurate or distorted even if the experience was genuine.

Forget About War

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.”

Sorry, Mr. President. We’re not going to forget about the mess you started.

Re: Back to Genesis #2 [Part II]

Note:
This is the second part of a response to Back to Genesis #2, an article by famed creationist, Ken Ham.

Claim #3
Ham spouts some non-sense about how some evil atheist conspiracy has redefined science in order to disprove God.

I’m not even gonna bother. <_<

Claim #4
WARNING: It is not just that these people want evolution accepted they want a total man-centered philosophy.

I must have missed the “Instituting a Man-Centered Philosophy” chapter when I read On The Origin of Species. <_< Or The Beak of the Finch, or The Panda’s Thumb, or any one of countless books on paleontology, fossils, evolutiona, and what-have-you. So where are you coming up with this crap?

Besides, I thought evolution was bad because it debased humanity to the status of meaningless soulless animal? Which is it? Is evolution bad because it debases us, or bad because it puts us on a pedestal?

And why is it even relevant? Humoring your conspiracy theory, just because the idea of evolution is being used to support a philosophy you dislike doesn’t mean the idea itself is wrong, or even that the philosophy you dislike logically follows from evolution!

Ham then goes on spouting random irrelevant Scriptural references in order to distract the reader from realizing how fallacious his reasoning is and just how little substance there is in this tirade. Yawn.

After that he argues against the carnivorous origins of the giant panda. He provides no scientific support against the accepted theory. Instead, his arguments consist of appeals to the bible (or false interpretations thereof) and “You haven’t proven it to me!” type garbage. The will to believe is strong in this one.

Nobody’s proven the virgin birth of Christ either yet Ham accepts that without question. Not that theres anything wrong with that belief, but it seems a tad hypocritical for a man whose worldview is so dependent on faith to criticize people who he claims to live by the same philosophy (just putting their faith in different things). Not that scientists actually do, but that’s beside the point.

Claim #5
Scientists were originally wrong about germs, so they’re probably wrong about evolution, too.

This claim is from one of those fun “Did You Know?” sections where Ham throws down a random historical anecdote to give an air of intelligence about himself in a desperate attempt salvage credibility and to keep reader’s distracted from his failure to give valid criticism of evolution.

He tells us the story of a doctor who used good hygiene and how this cut down on the spread of disease in his hospital. He was mocked by other medical professionals but the germ theory of disease proved him right.

Ham hopes you’ll make the non sequitur connection between the fact that the majority of scientists were wrong at one time and the possibility that they may be wrong now. Apparently if a majority of scientists were once wrong, this is always the case. Riiight. Suuurrre.

I will give him credit for one thing, though; it is possible for a majority of scientists to be wrong. After all, at one point most scientists were creationists.

Later.

What is Wrong with America

Bill Clinton:
“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

Abyssal’s Law of Faith

Abyssal’s Law of Faith:
“A person’s similarity to Jesus Christ is inversly proportional to the amount of time they spend in church worshipping Jesus Christ.”

Media Bias

Al Franken
“The biases the media has are much bigger than conservative or liberal. They’re about getting ratings, about making money, about doing stories that are easy to cover.”

Thinking About Changing my Blog’s Url

I was thinking about changing my blog’s url. My main reason is because, as many of you may have noticed, my username is not spelled correctly. Leviathin should be spelled Leviathan.

That didn’t seem like such a big deal back when I first started using it, but nowadays it’s a constant source of mild embarrasment. I’d like my blog to have an url that was actually spelled right. I’d also like it to be a bit shorter and more memorable.

So… I guess the first thing to ask is… is it worth it? I do intend on moving all my posts and comments, so I won’t be losing any content. But, with that said, would I lose any notable amount of traffic? Would search engines have a hard time keeping up? Are there any other problems that could pop up?

And if I do move, what should my new url be? I’ve brainstormed up a few, but new suggestions, or comments on ones I’ve already given would be really helpful.

abyssal.wordpress.com <– taken.
abyssalblog.wordpress.com
abyssalweb.wordpress.com
abyssalnet.wordpress.com
abyssalsite.wordpress.com
abyssalplace.wordpress.com

Hypocrisy

C. S. Lewis:
“This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.”

Condescending Obama Comments?

Barack Obama said:
You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical.

Those words were hardly harsh or condescending. Lots of people hoarde guns to “protect themselves against the government.” Obama was spot on there. Lots of people see an impending government-instituted “New World Order” due to apocalyptic religious beliefs.

People do use religion to explain government actions they dislike. Browse any Christian forum you can find and you’ll see that once more, Obama was right on the mark. If you aren’t aware of this apocalyptic anti-government sentiment among Christians in general and rural conservative Christians in particular, you must have had your eyes shut pretty damn tight.

Lots of people do do every damn thing he listed and the fact that this has become controversial in any way shape or form reflects badly on the character of our media and the intelligence of the American public. Way to manufacture controversy out of whole cloth, News Media! Hell, this may even decide the nominee for the Democratic candidate.

I’m far from an Obama supporter, but I’m finding this scary. Think about it, the media has the power to warp a candidate’s words to the point that they may have altered the nomination by fiat, which could very likely alter the results of the election in general. Isn’t it scary how influential that is? Just “hey it’s a slow news day, let’s manufacture a controversy!” And then… *poof* instantly altered election. Crazy shit.

Abyssal’s First Law of Rhetoric

Abyssal’s First Law of Rhetoric:
“The author of any passage of text containing more than three successive sentences terminating in exclamation marks is either desperate for attention or emotionally unstable.”

Intelligent School Shooting Plan?

That’s really freaky. Especially since this is April, and the Virginia Tech and Columbine anniverseries are coming up. Geez. I hope this guy gets some help with his problems. Hey man, if you’re out there, or if someone else is reading this that feels like this guy does, here are some resources for people dealing with anger and depression:

http://www.helpyourselftherapy.com/topics/angerp.html

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ahead4health/anger.htm

http://www.helpstartshere.org/Default.aspx?PageID=1010

http://www.have-a-heart.com/depression-help-1.html

http://www.helpstartshere.org/Default.aspx?PageID=473

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/center_index.php?id=5

http://www.psychologyinfo.com/depression/help.html

P.S. Anti-depressants can be really helpful, too! Don’t believe the bad press and conspiracy theories. Don’t expect a miracle, but I can say from experience that they’re helpful. Try Wellbutrin XL.

8th Grade Girl Strip Searched!

If you haven’t been paying attention to the news lately, a story I feel is of some significance has been aired. This will be especially interesting to you parents out there.

Here’s the deal: A 13 year old girl with an honor roll GPA and a completely clean disciplinary record was strip searched without her parents’ knowledge on the suspicion that she may be posessing… ibuprofen!

I don’t know what the fuck these idiots were thinking. I don’t know about you, but I’m completely pissed. I say this: whoever performed the strip search should be charged with child molestation, whoever ordered and/or supervised the search should be charged with aiding and abetting child molestation, and whatever administrative faculty knew and did not act against the search should be forced to resign.

All of the above should have their teaching licenses revoked, if they have them. They don’t deserve to set foot in another school. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more of an uproar over this. Absolutely outrageous!

Babies for Obama

Some people have made videos of their babies voicing support for Obama. CNN keeps playing this over and over even though nobody gives a crap.

Seriously. What waste of friggin’ air time. To all of you who approve of wasting time that could be spent discussing matters of life and death like the Iraq War, healthcare and national security on such useless tripe: Screw off!

Keep Fighting the Good Fight, Hillary!

To everyone trying to get Hillary to quit: Go to hell! Seriously, this is a democracy last time I checked. When did it become a sin for candidates to debate and compete for a nomination? Anyone care to explain this to me?

Is the Obama/Hillary spat ugly? Sure. Should Hillary quit? If she wants to. She’s not gonna win. We know this. She might as well quit. But so far she has decided, hope against hope, to stick with it. It’s her funeral.

Hillary has every right to fight for her candidacy right up until the party’s deadline and no one has any business bitching about her using that right. Jackasses. Do you really think a climate where candidates are afraid to even debate for extended periods will be good for America? Do you think it’ll help keep a diversity of choices available for us?

I can’t fucking believe that American politics has degenerated to the point that it’s no longer acceptable to fight for a candidacy. With our two-party dichotomy we already have too few choices as it is, don’t try to encourage those two parties to further limit our choices from within themselves. Don’t allow the political climate to pressure parties into making hasty choices.