The whole point about science is that it finds out the truth. If the truth is bleak TOUGH. If the truth is that there is no meaning to your life then that is what it is, the universe doesn't care whether or not you approve of the plan. So many people are scared of the truth. They think there might be a monster under the bed but they won't look. In my universe not looking for monsters or screwing up your eyes doesn't change reality. Those people who are finding out the truth are finding out that there is no place for God or fate or destiny or any of that stuff.

-- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/atheism/xtian2.htm

Not-so-good-ideas: Actheism

http://community.livejournal.com/atheism/1044576.html

I would like to coin a new (?) word: Actheism. Actheists are atheists who think that we are all atheists, and religious people are only acting that they are believers. Faith is just a mask. When a believer goes to sleep, he drops his mask and we can see his true atheist face. His dreams are not religious. When he wakes up, he puts his mask on again and becomes an actor. Maybe he uses his mask because he is afraid, maybe it gives him a sense of security, or maybe someone forced him to wear a mask. But deep down, we can see that he is just an ordinary atheist in a gorilla suit.

In the future we can prove this. We can record your atheist dreams. You are just acting and we actheists knew it all along. If you really believe that you really believe, drop your mask and show us your dreams.

"In our dreams, we are all atheists."
- Actheist proverb

"Vizikahn's Paradox"

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forum/index.php?topic=3199.0

For some christians, Hell means the absence of god. Or in other words, if you are not god's friend, you are in hell already. To make things complicated, god has given you free will, so that you can choose what you do. If you choose god, you are in heaven; if you don't choose god, you are in hell.

Here's the problem. I toss a coin and say: "If it's tails, I choose hell. If it's heads, I choose heaven. God, if you exist, use this coin to tell me what you want me to do."

I toss the coin and the coin tells me to choose hell. So, I will choose hell and I believe god told me to choose it. I believe that it is my fate to go to hell and I am happy. Am I in hell or not? Did I choose god or not?

To make things more complicated, let's assume I have a neurological condiction called aboulia, which means that I am unable to make decisions. In other words, god has given me a disease that means I can't choose god. Am I in hell now?

How christians answer to this?

The christian assumption is that god exists and there is no doubt about it. Therefore, the only choices I have are: be god's friend or not be his friend. The first assumption is not questioned at all from a christian perspective.

The first assumption is wrong, of course, but that is not the point here. It's all about if I choose to be his friend or not, when I say: "If you exist, make me your friend."

When I flip a coin, I don't choose what I do myself. Does that make me god's "real" friend?
When I flip a coin, I let fate decide if I am his friend or not. Is god the same as fate?
When I flip a coin, god has to make a decision. Is he fate or is he not?
When I flip a coin and it says "don't be gods friend", is it god who tells me not to be his friend?
If I MUST flip a coin because of aboulia, is it god who told me to test him?

It's all very confusing... if you are a christian, that is. :)

Quote from: kcrady on November 18, 2006, 11:05:14 PM
2. The ninth chapter of the Book of Romans clearly states that God creates some people specifically to hate (e.g. Esau) and to punish so he can show off his wrath and his power. In answer to the question of how this can be just, the Apostle Paul replies, "Who are you, a human, to argue with God?" Therefore, a negative answer could just prove you're one of God's punching bags. Thus, Vizikahn's Paradox only applies to Christians who think God loves everybody and wants to save them all.

Yeah, god creates his own enemies, so he has also created all the logical impossibilities that disprove him. This also means that it does not matter what we do, because god has created everything this way. "I'm an atheist? It's in god's plan! He wants me to be his enemy! He wants me to go to hell, blame him!"

Sense of purpose

http://community.livejournal.com/atheism/1074713.html

This is what I answer if someone asks about the purpose of my life without religion: if you must follow the purpose that Big Religion gives you, you are Defective By Design, because you can't make your own purpose anymore.

We Oppose GOD!

DefectiveByDesign.org is a broad-based anti-GOD campaign that is targeting Big Religion, unhelpful evangelists and GOD distributors. The campaign aims to make all evangelists wary about bringing their GOD-enabled purposes to market. GOD purposes have features built-in that restrict what jobs they can do. These purposes have been intentionally crippled from the users' perspective, and are therefore "defective by design". This campaign will identify these “defective” purposes, and target them for elimination. Our aim is the abolition of GOD as a social practice.

What is GOD?

Big Religion describe GOD as God's Original Design. However, since its purpose is to restrict you the user, it is more accurate to describe GOD as Government's Organized Deception. GOD religion can restricts users’ access to movies, music, literature and software, indeed all forms of digital data. Unfree philosophy implementing GOD religion is simply a prison in which users can be put to deprive them of the rights that the law would otherwise allow them.

From Richard Stallman, President of the FSF:
”The motive for GOD schemes is to increase profits for those who impose them, but their profit is a side issue when millions of people’s freedom is at stake; desire for profit, though not wrong in itself, cannot justify denying the public control over its purpose. Defending freedom means thwarting GOD.”

We oppose Treacherous Commandments!

Who should your brains take its orders from? Most people think their brains should obey them. With a plan they call "Trusted Commandments", the Big Religion corporations, together with commandment companies such as Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, have decided that your brains should obey them instead of you. Treacherous Commandments is now inside most new brains and books, and is the bedrock upon which GOD is being built.


Original: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/en/about

To get answers turn the bible upside down.

I have previously told the story of a respected elder statesman of the Zoology Department at Oxford when I was an undergraduate. For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real: an artifact, an illusion. Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said--with passion--"My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years." We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that.
- Why I Am Hostile Toward Religion

Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.
- Ghost In The Shell

Shiduri said, "Gilgamesh, where are you roaming?
You will never find the eternal life
that you seek. When the gods created mankind,
they also created death, and they held back
eternal life for themselves alone.
Humans are born, they live, then they die,
this is the order that the gods have decreed.
But until the end comes, enjoy your life,
spend it in happiness, not despair.
Savor your food, make each of your days
a delight, bathe and annoint yourself,
wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean,
let music and dancing fill your house,
love the child who holds you by the hand,
and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.
That is the best way for a man to live."
- Epic of Gilgamesh, Book X, translated by Stephen Mitchell.

The Wisdom of Warren Buffett

Imagine that you were selected as the one person (out of 6 Billion) to create the systems of the world. This includes the type of government, social programs, tax systems, military systems, job markets, laws, regulations, etc.

The only catch was this: You had to come up with systems that you believed were fair and that you wanted to live with, before you were allowed to look at your ticket.
--
A friend of hers told Warren at one point that the way she evaluated people was simple: She simply asked herself, "Would they hide me?" What a great way to judge your instincts about whether to trust someone or not.

Were the colonists geniuses? No, the truth is that reading, writing, and arithmetic only take about one hundred hours to transmit as long as the audience is eager and willing to learn. The trick is to wait until someone asks and then move fast while the mood is on. Millions of people teach themselves these things, it really isn't very hard. Pick up a fifth-grade math or rhetoric textbook from 1850 and you'll see that the texts were pitched then on what would today be considered college level. The continuing cry for "basic skills" practice is a smoke screen behind which schools preempt the time of children for twelve years and teach them the seven lessons I've just described to you.
- The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher

Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.
- John Taylor Gatto, Against School

What’s life? Life’s easy. A quirk of matter. Nature’s way of keeping meat fresh.
- Doctor Who

Most people ask more questions when buying a used car than when deciding whether or not they should follow a religous belief.

The dissonance between this upbeat philosophy and the abysmal terror of his films is not lost on him. “You can understand depression much more when you’re not depressed,” he said.
- David Lynch Returns: Expect Moody Conditions, With Surreal Gusts

Teach In - The Robot

My friend of steel has has a heart of gold
more than that he will never grow old
atomic batteries will keep him fine
he is the best and he is mine.

God is dead

But remember - that dark world of fungoid gardens and windowless cities isn't really terrible. It is only to us that it would seem so.
- H. P. Lovecraft, Whisperer in Darkness

Every Review of a Richard Dawkins Book

Samurai Song

by Robert Pinsky

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

Vain kesyt linnut kaipaavat. Villit lentävät.
- Elmer Diktonius

The tactics...no, amateurs discuss tactics,.... Professional soldiers study logistics.
- Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising

The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without even having to fight them.
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Those who say death cannot be killed
Lack the proper defensive skill
Yell it out with an angry sound
Sayin' "Death, you're goin' down!"
- CoG, Death to the Angel of Death

A Theology Ph.D is like having a Doctorate of Teletubby Anatomy.

Top Ten Reasons Religion is Like Pornography

10. It has been practiced for all of human history, in all cultures
9. It exploits perfectly natural, even commendable, impulses
8. Its virtues are debatable, its proponents fanatical
7. People love it, but can't give a rational reason for it
6. Objectifies and degrades women even when it worships them
5. You want to wash up after shaking hands with any of its leaders
4. The costumes are outrageous, the performances silly, the plots unbelievable
3. There's nothing wrong with enjoying it, but it's nothing to be proud of, either
2. It is not a sound basis for public policy, government, or international relations
1. Its stars are totally fake

But it is hard for me to accept that we are in a worse state of morals than we were in the past when that word is used in a more meaningful and broader sense.

For example, it was only fifty years ago or less that civil rights legislation was enacted giving blacks the legal rights that white people had. Lynchings, beatings, fire hosing of peaceful marchers, Jim Crow laws, open discrimination in all areas of life, are all in the living memory of people. Was that a more moral time to live in?

Similarly, the status of women just one hundred years ago was no picnic either. Women had no vote, few career choices, and little hope for advancement or being taken seriously in the scientific, business, and professional worlds. They were seen as primarily homemakers and mothers and little else. Was that a more moral time to live in?

And one has to only go back to about two hundred years to get to the era of slavery and genocide against Native Americans. Was that a more moral time to live in?

- Creationism and Moral Decay

Consider: As I understand it, the wiring in the Golden Gate Bridge, if layed end-to-end, would stretch around the globe three times over. Considering the circumfrence of the earth is something like 40,000km, that would mean that we've already built bridge structures that incorporate over 100,000km of cabling. Granted, the design of the space elevator is completely novel; but this stuff is based on modern engineering understanding.

"A circumnavigational flight sounds great, it just seems far-fetched. An 852 foot test. Only 131,472,000 more feet to go."
-- Overheard circa 1903

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/27/129238&from=rss

Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, hard cheese
- C. Montgomery Burns

Domestic technology kills religion.

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
- J. Krishnamurti

We’ve got nothing to do with right-wing, left-wing or any other half-assed political category. If you work within the system, you come to one of the either/or choices that were implicit in the system from the beginning. You’re talking like a medieval serf, asking the first agnostic whether he worships God or the Devil. We’re outside the system’s categories. You’ll never get the hang of our game if you keep thinking in flat-earth imagery of right and left, good and evil, up and down.
- Illuminatus!: The Eye in the Pyramid

In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up.
- Martin Niemller

In a commencement speech of last year, Lewis Lapham mentioned a "French noblewoman, a duchess in her 80s, who, on seeing the first ascent of Montgolfier's balloon from the palace of the Tuilleries in 1783, fell back upon the cushions of her carriage and wept. "Oh yes," she said, "Now it's certain. One day they'll learn how to keep people alive forever, but I shall already be dead."

Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.
- W.E.B. Du Bois

Dawkins is frequently dismissed as a bully, but he is only putting theological doctrines to the same kind of scrutiny that any scientific theory must withstand. No one who has witnessed the merciless dissection of a new paper in physics would describe the atmosphere as overly polite.
- SciAm: Scientists on Religion

I have the impression that clergymen are so used to treating the biblical stories as fables that they have forgotten the difference between fact and fiction. It's like the people who, when somebody dies on The Archers, write letters of condolence to the others.
- Richard Dawkins

A huge concern of New Yorkers in the late 1800's was how they were going to avoid drowning and suffocating from all the horse manure. Just then, the automobile hit the scene and was hailed as a Godsend because it used environmentally friendly oil...and thus the mass extinction of New York from manure strangulation was averted.

Via

7) Ethical judgments cannot be made; all is relative

This one is just stupid. It's ONLY when morality is relative that judgements can be made.

via

I've never met a Christian who was able to make up his mind about whether God IS good, or whether God DEFINES good. Can't have it both ways. If God defines good, then the whole concept of 'good' is meaningless - it's just mindless obedience. But if God IS good, it means that there's a higher standard of good and evil that God Himself can be held up against. Remember that: every time you say "God is good" you're judging Him. By your own standards of what good is.

Science uncovers questions that may never be answered. Religion is based on answers that may never be questioned.

- Ken Harding

Ei ole koskaan aikaa tehdä kunnolla.
Aina on aikaa tehdä uudelleen.

"Asevelvollisuus alistaa yksilöt militarismille. Se on orjuutta. Se, että kansakunnat sallivat sen, on todiste sen heikentävästä vaikutuksesta."
-- Asevelvollisuuden ja sotilaskoulutuksen vastainen julistus, 1930

Suddenly there was not only a source of knowledge to learn from, but a number of them. The citizens – who at this time had started to learn to read – could take their own part of the knowledge without being sanctioned. The Church went mad. The royal houses went mad. The British Royal Court went as far as to make a law that allowed the printing of books only to those print owners who had a special license from the Royal Court. Only they were allowed to multiply knowledge and culture to the citizens. This law was called "copyright".
- http://www.p2pconsortium.com/index.php?showtopic=9500

(Parkour)
''It is no wonder that myths about people running up and down the walls, flying, going through walls, and disappearing without a sound still persist. In a world where magic was commonly the explanation for anything that was out of the ordinary, a band of highly trained warriors would create more legends than your average fiction writer during his career.''

"Universal education in state schools helped uplift prior generations out of illiterate class systems -- we admit it!

"Only now our higher standards and needs and wants have far outstripped the ability of those old-fashioned public schools to deliver. Yes, we have these higher standards because public education helped get us this high. We admit the irony! Nevertheless, it's obvious that the old model of public education is now dragging at the ankles of our rising ambitions. It won't get us any higher! Lack of choice is preventing further progress by stifling educational innovations that might arise out of competition.

"As a general principle, we argue that -- with rising sophistication -- people can move on to simpler and more mature synergies that make progressively less use of coercive state power, leveraging against individual effort more and more as time goes on.

"And yes, this will benefit the poor as well. We are absolutely counting on that.

"Give us a chance to try some experiments and prove it!"

David Brin

'What is a human being, then?'
'A seed.'
'A... seed?'
'An acorn that is unafraid to destroy itself in growing into a tree'
- David Zindell, The Broken God

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

Since nothing matters, everything matters.
Since everything matters, nothing matters.

Ei kukaan sinua huomaa
ellet itse mene mukaan.
- Tove Jansson

"Metsässä olisi hyvin hiljaista, jos vain ne linnut laulaisivat, jotka laulavat parhaiten."

''Voimakas taikauskoisuus on yhteydessä neuroottiseen persoonallisuuteen. Kun ihminen ei ole tasapainossa, hän tarvitsee jotain, josta saa varmuutta ja lohtua.''
http://www.apu.fi/hyva_olo/article132182-1.html

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true."
- Nietzsche

a religious person steals something? "the devil made me do it."
a religious person rescues a drowning child? "god worked through me."
a religious cancer patient is cured? "it was a miracle!" (forget about the dedicated doctors, nurses, surgeons, scientists, researchers, etc)
a religious person pollutes the planet? "earthly things don't matter, I'm going to a better place."
a religious person tortures animals? "god gave us dominion over them!"
and even if they do bad things, they will always be forgiven and washed of all their sins.
they are never in any position where they have to look another human being in the eye and acknowledge their own humanity in the face of another.
what they do, good or bad, is not about reality, it is about imaginary forces at play, about some grand drama being staged.

'I’ll also say that I write the following with some reluctance. It’s a wearying business, arguing with Creationists. Basically, it is a game of Whack-a-Mole. They make an argument, you whack it down. They make a second, you whack it down. They make a third, you whack it down. So they make the first argument again. This is why most biologists just can’t be bothered with Creationism at all, even for the fun of it. It isn’t actually any fun. Creationists just chase you round in circles. It’s boring.''
- http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzUwMDliZTQxYTJlNjUzZTQ5YTRhNGJhOTQ0NmMxMzk

''The Catholic Church is wealthier than the top five Fortune 500 companies combined. Scientology is not alone.''
- http://www.bookslut.com/features/2006_07_009358.php

''Science has learned recently that contempt and indignation are addictive mental states. I mean physically and chemically addictive. Literally! People who are self-righteous a lot are apparently doping themselves rhythmically with auto-secreted surges of dopamine, endorphins and enkephalins. Didn't you ever ask yourself why indignation feels so good?''

"If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about"

"If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu

"If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me."

"Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition."

"Because you might do something wrong with my information."

"So it doesn't bother you that within the last few years the US has held a few hundred people without charge or access to the courts, and then released them when it decided they'd done nothing wrong?"

"So it doesn't cause you concern that people are released from death row all the time after it's found they've done nothing wrong?"

"Other people who have done nothing wrong have spent years in maximum security prisons. Perhaps *more* oversight is need, rather than less?"

In the Maltese Falcon the district attorney tells Sam Spade, "If you have nothing to hide, why are you concerned?", and Sam answers back, "Everyone has something to hide."

I like to drop my pants and shout, "You're absolutely right! I have NOTHING to hide!
How about YOU?!"

Hoover had Martin Luther King placed under extensive surveillance. The FBI sent recordings revealing King's extramarital affairs to King and his wife, along with a letter suggesting that King commit suicide or else his "filthy, abnormal fraudlent self [would be] bared to the nation."

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin

Mefi

Banana cultivar

Banana video.

Right, so the lesson we learn here is to DO YOUR RESEARCH.

That breed of banana, Cavendish Cultivar, has been CULTIVATED. By HUMANS. They are all clones of each other and cannot reproduce. Natural bannanas are alot smaller, have harder peels, and are not curved to fit perfectly in the hand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_banana
Pwnt.

Necessary nonexistence

1. The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable.
2. The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3. The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4. The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
5. Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being — namely, one who created everything while not existing.
6. Therefore God does not exist.

Douglas Gasking

Q: So, what if the greatest god exists and non-exists at the same time?
A: Just plain non-existence is still greater handicap. Every bit of existence makes god smaller.

Why did God sacrifice Himself to Himself in order to correct a situation he started Himself?

To use such rhetoric -- the rhetoric of transcending the genre -- about the SF novelist is just a way of announcing you don't think most SF is very good, so that any SF that is good must be something more than SF."
- Samuel R. Delany

"Once you know about a work of mine you own it. There's no way I can climb inside somebody's head and remove it."
- Lawrence Weiner

You could claim that the elephants, by destroying the acacias and uprooting the commiphora, are in effect gardening, creating conditions in which one of their favoured foods, grass, will continue to flourish and provide them with a good annual crop. But equally you could argue that the grass has recruited the elephants to help extend its empire and by growing more leaves than it needs for its survival, and developing a structure which allows it to be cropped without lethal damage, it is simply paying its employees a decent wage that it can well afford.

- David Attenborough, The Elephant and the Acacia

Almost any two guys can easily find plenty of things to talk about, whereas it's often difficult for a man to come up with even one thing he really cares about that a woman also cares about.

For example, I was talking to a woman who was talking to the wife of a guy I've ridden bikes with. The wife was telling a story about how her husband ordered some lights for his bicycle, and when they arrived, he immediately unpacked them and took them into his dark basement so he could try them out and see how bright they were.

Now, that is EXACTLY what I have done when I have bought similar lights! But neither the man's wife nor the other woman could comprehend this behavior.

- Danimal Archive

"Let's adopt each other!"
"Ha ha ha! You're my kid and I'm your kid!"
"Ha ha ha!"

Hood's experiments have focused on the importance that young children put on "attachment objects" - teddy bears and comfort blankets. His researchers convince the pre-school-age subjects that their special item will be put into a machine that can produce a copy of the object which is identical in every way. But the infants, who are offered the choice of having the original or the "perfect" copy returned to them, strongly prefer the original.

"You do not have the right to use this art form to feel inferior."
- Martin de Maat

Most people lose their talent at puberty. I lost mine in my early twenties. I began to think of children not as immature adults, but of adults as atrophied children.

- Keith Johnstone, Impro

"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves."
- Mahatma Gandhi

I organize in order to target
Balancing awareness
I seal the input of flowering
With the rhythmic tone of equality
I am guided by my own power doubled
- This Maya Moon

The problem with innovation is that you can't predict it. That's what innovation means -- the stuff we haven't thought of yet. Great innovations are ridiculous at the time of invention, startling on implementation, and obvious in hindsight.
- Cory Doctorow, The Street Finds its Own Use for the Law of Unintended Consequences

A communist was exhorting an audience of laborers: "Comes the Revolution, you'll eat strawberries and cream." One worker objected, "But I don't like strawberries and cream." The agitator glared at him. "Comes the Revolution, you'll like strawberries and cream!"
- Robert Ettinger, The Prospect of Immortality

One of our dogs would like to be human. He wants to eat in a chair at the table, and sleep in a bed. We don't let him, because his habits aren't hygienic enough and too much people-food isn't good for him. But surely no one can blame him for trying. And who can blame us for also wanting more and better?
- Robert Ettinger, Man Into Superman, 1989 preface

From the shoulder,
beyond the wrist...
look out, evil!
It's my fist!

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley, Invictus

"You've taken my whole life away, chewed it up, and shat it out again. Everything is shit! You've turned everything I had into shit! What am I supposed to do with this? Tell me! What am I supposed to do with piles of shit!"

"Spread them on your flowers, Greg."

-Greg Feely & Mother Dirt, The Filth by Grant Morrison

I am French. Your money means nothing to me.
- Five good responses for telemarketers or collection agencies

In January 1905, more than a year after the Wrights had first flown, Scientific American carried an article ridiculing the 'alleged' flights that the Wrights claimed to have made. Without a trace of irony, the magazine gave as its main reason for not believing the Wrights the fact that the American press had failed to write anything about them.

Reporter comes to Kitty Hawk, NC, in 1903. He asks a local, "What's that buzzing sound coming from the sky?" Local replies, "It's those crazy Wright Brothers. They think they can fly."

In my view the most important element in uploading will be our gradual transfer of our intelligence, personality, and skills to the nonbiological portion of our intelligence. -- Althought we are likely to retain the biological portion for a period of time, it will become of increasingly little consequence. So we will have effectively uploaded ourselves, albeit gradually, never quite noticing the transfer.
- Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near

All useful functions in one physical body

"Aging is as undesirable as leprosy."
- Aubrey de Grey

I'd like to know if the MPAA agrees with its spokesmen who have defended the practice of prohibiting backups of DVDs by saying, "Well, you can't back up a set of crystal glasses either?" and whether, should the ability to back up a set of crystal glasses ever emerge, should the glassmakers have the right to prohibit it?
Calvin Lawson, Seattle, WA USA


The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
- Star Wars

The Moslem god insists that you lose the right to have a beer, the god of Jehovah's Witnesses forbids you to have a blood transfusion, most gods will not allow you to have any kind of sex life unless and until you get married. Let's be honest - most peoples imaginary friends are real party poopers.

Existentialism -- if life is absurd and meaningless it is so because humans fail to exercise their own reason and independence, to take charge of their own lives and create their own meanings.

The bullet had entered through his open mouth
That was our picnic in the park.
And now
Every night
I go out and make the world sane.

- MAX Punisher #1, In the Beginning

In Moominpappa at Sea, the family leave their home behind. By the last book, they have disappeared altogether. A party of seekers gathers in the empty kitchen, and, while they wait for the family to come back, undertake the slow, adult task of replacing them. One by one, they go home alone.

- Moomin and Me

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

- Epicurus

Why Atheism?

Atheism helps us to see reality as it actually is, without the mental filters of superstition preventing us from directly experiencing it.

Atheism opens us to experience our selves, without the debasing idea that we are innately sinful.

Atheism allows us to experience true interpersonal love, without any imaginary supernatural intervention.

Atheism gives us the freedom to think for ourselves, to construct our own meanings. We each can choose what we think has value.

Atheism shows us that we can gain meaning by seeking to make our world a better place, for ourselves and our posterity.

Atheism teaches us to take responsibility for our behaviors in the here and now, not in an imaginary afterlife.

Atheism lets us see that we have to make choices about our future. No big daddy god is going to protect us from bad decisions.

Atheism teaches us to treasure this moment, this life, and this world — because we realize that it’s all we have.

Existentialism isn't so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God doesn't exist. Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing.
- Jean-Paul Sartre

My first memory is of being held up in front of a tiny black and white TV set by my mother and being told, "Remember this. This is history, this is." July 1969. I was seventeen months old.
- Warren Ellis

"We are not monkeys!"
- Creationist

"We are not immigrants!"
- Odala, Star Trek Voyager: Distant Origin

"The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it today. 'Knife' and 'pain' are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient. To this compulsory combination we shall have to adjust ourselves."
- Alfred Velpeau, 1839

The bird struggles out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born, must first destroy a world.
- Herman Hesse

It's amazing! The male phallus fits snugly inside the male anus! It's proof that homosexuality is a result of intelligent design! Just like the banana!

Eiköhän se jumala löydy kaikista niistä joilla on reikiä elämässä.

"Uskon vittu tähän aineettomaan avaruuden herraan ja sen nojalla voin katkoa sulta kaulan"

The Saudi's lackey starts to yell: "You can't talk to him like this! This man is Prince --"

Paul cuts him off with a whistle, a New York cab whistle. Sets his shoulders and says:

"This is America, which makes you the Prince of absolutely fucking nobody."

via

I am Jack's Total Lack of Surprise.

If it's longer than it's wide/
Then it's phallic!
If it's longer than it's wide/
Then it's phallic!
If it's not longer than it's wide/
You just turn it to the side/
then it's longer than it's wide/
and thus phallic!

Hip hip! HURRAY!

Kristillisyys - roomalaisen kidutuslaitteen palvontaa jo 2000 vuotta.

So I phoned him up that day and said "Let's form a band called The Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu". And he knew exactly, to coin a phrase, "where I was coming from".

"move straight onto the art of super selective theft"

"Just the idea of starting over is exciting. Starting over on what? Well, they have such great ideas, like buying submarines"

"I know. But I'm not going to tell, because then other people would have to stop having to wonder and the thing about beauty is for other people to wonder at it. It's not very beautiful once you know"

the pop myth of The KLF can never be blown apart by anything they do, no matter how dumb or embarrassing. The myth will suck it up, like a black hole

Wikipedia - The KLF

Human beings can kick the hell out of anything.

No one accomplished anything by being humble (unless you're Gandhi and HIS HUMILITY IS GREATER THAN YOURS).

It’s not how hard you can hit, it’s how hard you can GET hit.

all the world's a stage and i am the prompter

The bad guy is never, ever dead. Not until you see him crushed into a trillion particles of dust and scattered to the four winds is he definitely gone forever and frequently not even then.

Yes, but will it smash my enemies?

I was thinking the same thing.
- Borg queen

Resistance Is Character Forming.

I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME.
- Rorschach

The lightsaber. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room.

You have to love languages where you can multiwordcombine in order to singleconceptexpress.

Kun huoneeseen tulee koiria, niillä näyttää olevan hurjan hauskaa. Ne juoksevat pallon perässä, pureskelevat tavaroita, läähättävät ja iloitsevat. Sellaisia meidän ihmistenkin pitäisi olla.
- Lynch on Lynch

Tietyssä pisteessä ohjaaja joutuu tilanteeseen, jossa hän pyytää jotain tyyppiä laittamaan hassut viikset nenälleen, pukeutumaan vaatteisiin joita tämä ei normaalisti käytä, ja sanomaan asioita, joita tämä ei normaalisti sano - ja odottaa katsojien uskovan sen.
- Cronenberg on Cronenberg, s. 210

I curse the day I found my freedom
You took the mirror from the wall
Placed it in a single suitcase
Pointed down a hollow hall
And said you see your true direction
I'll be there behind the sun
And I'll go with you in the springtime
When all your travels have been done

Jandek

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