My Zen Arcade

Oh, yeah…

best thing about iPhone 2.0 release: “I like to think that my bricked phone gave me access to a cool new app
that helps me learn to say “emergency” in 10 different languages.”

worst thing about the iPhone 2.0 release: the 2.0 firmware.  Jeez.

OK, been kind of strange working from home so I’ve really let this blog go.

But I’m working on boundaries and here’s just the crap I haven’t been talking about.

1. All the moronic flack General Clark has been getting makes me even more disappointed in the MSM (which is saying something).  Even Jon Stewart took a poke at him.  Never mind that Clark himself is a soldier, and a general, no less.  Never mind that he didn’t actually say anything bad about McCain.  Never mind that what he did say is fucking true.  He was an idiot to say it because he should have learned by now that McCain’s military service is sacred ground and qualifies him to be anything from pool boy to brain sugeon.

If McCain’s military service never came up as part of the campaign, then perhaps Clark would have been out of line, but when you say “X means Y”, that makes “X” fair game.  Of course, the only thing McCain has going for him is “X” so…

2. Metal Gear Solid 4: I think they made a mistake not using save points.  I used to hate those things, but they can be very useful for building tension and being able to save every step of the way makes nothing matter much.  Still a great game.

3. I must have SingStar2.  A ton of, yes, its true, Duran Duran (or, as we fans call them, ‘Double Duran’) tracks!!  DA DA DA DA THE REFLEX!!

4. Sometimes, all at once, I remember just how much I love my wife.

5. Sony’s E3 presentation: Upside: Using Little Big Planet as part of the business presentation.  Downside: Not enough game stuff, too service oriented

6. John Rogers has a great piece on why some people out there should stop being pissed at Obama for not doing something about the misogynistic tone of the campaign and the media.

7. Moving still sucks.

8. The Anglican Church is making me laugh.  Of course allowing homosexuals be ordained is nuts.  The Bible is pretty clear on how sinful homosexuality is.  Of course, the book is pretty clear on some other items too, like lying, covetting, keeping the Sabbath.  Oh, yeah, and helping the poor, and a whole bunch of other sins that, apparently, are forgivable even if they are in the Top 10.  On the plus side, maybe there’ll be a big old schism.  Divide and, well, you know.

9.  Its true.  Batman is a badass.

First, this joke is pretty damn old and hardly bernies.
Second, of course he shouldn’t have told the joke
Third, what, exactly, do you call a woman who has sex for money?

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time - Blogs from CNN.com

“My little nephew came to me and he said, ‘Uncle, what’s the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?”‘ Mac said toward the end of his routine. “I said, I don’t know, but I said, ‘Go upstairs and ask your mother if she’d make love to the mailman for $50,000.”‘

“Hypothetically speaking, we should have $100,000. But realistically speaking we live with two hos,” Mac said, delivering the joke’s punchline.

Ignoring the title of the article, the argument here makes no sense. Or, more specifically, doesn’t prove its point.
Soviets flock to religion, therefor god must exist (the implied premise).
The fact is that people have this tendency to head towards religion in hard times (like those experienced by former eastern block nations). Thats why it is so very good at controlling the masses.
Regardless of whether or not god exists, the fact that people WANT god to exist doesn’t prove anything.
(also, the fact that Einstein saw hidden workings of the universe really doesn’t support the standard concepts of god and theist should just stop insulting a great man)

Soviet Hostility To Theism Is Evidence Humanitys Need To Embrace Religion (from The Herald )

The Orthodox Church is undergoing a massive programme of baptisms, church building, opening of new monasteries. I must ask our atheist friends: why? Are the Russians just congenitally superstitious and backward? Or might this not be a manifestation of a basic human need?

No, you twit. Liberals hate what you’ve done to the word. Patriotism used to mean beliving in your country and standing up for it. You and your cronies have changed the definition to mean “blind obedience, regardless to consequence or even fact, to the standing powers that be and hatred for those who don’t fall in line”.
Michelle Malkin » NPR journo suggests politicians quit using the P-word.

So, politicians, please make no mention of patriotism on Independence Day. Liberals hate it when you say the P-word.

I think I love these guys (sorry that I’m late on this one)

McCain has already done this to a degree, and he will probably up the ante on it as well.
I believe GW honestly feels his own stances on homosexuality are right. While I think that position is insane, it is at least sincere. McCain, however, is willing to treat an entire section of humanity as trash to get votes.
Think Progress » Fred Barnes’s Advice To McCain: Revive Your Struggling Campaign By Using Gay-Bashing As A Wedge

BARNES: In particular, gays in the military for one. We know Barack Obama is for allowing gays in the military, and Bill Clinton tried to do, but backed off. This is not a popular issue. Gay marriage is another one. These are both issues that I think McCain’s going to have to use. You can’t ignore the right. If he does, he’ll lose.

So, I really do like Last Comic Standing.  Usually there are a number of non-ringers (i.e. people who HAVEN’T had a special on Comedy Central) who are just dead-on funny.  Further, unlike American Idol and the like, every contestant has had to work really hard, and put themselves on the line again and again before even getting to the point where they can audition.  The fact is that lots of people just end up with a great voice.  But no matter how funny you are, you have to generate material (which is different than shooting the shit with your friends and making them laugh).  More, singers don’t get heckled, as a rule.  In short, the folks on Last Comic have earned it, and the people on American Idol just haven’t had to go through the wringer that way.

This year, my number 1 choice is God’s Pottery.

Unfortunately, there are always a few who have no business being there.  I do understand that the show is about making money, selling ad time, and so forth.  Therefor, the people picked have to fit into that framework.  I understand, and, as I said at the beginning, they’ve all had to work to get where they are in the first place.  But sometimes I have a real problem with one of them.  At the moment, its Papa CJ.  First, he just isn’t that funny.  Thats a taste issue, yes, so I can let that slide.  The thing it that he falls into one of my “Annoying Comedian Classes”.  This includes comics with just one gag, comics with just one source of humor (Josh Blue, anyone?  BTW, I think he’s pretty funny and will do well if he can learn to write about things other than his handicap), and so forth.  Papa CJ drops into the most annoying bucket of all.  He thinks he’s edgy.  He comes out and says he’s edgy and offensive (all without irony):

Papa CJ’s cutting edge wit & social commentary represents the rising voice of a billion people - fresh and entertaining with a sly sting in the tail.

And, perhaps in India, he is.  I don’t know.  But he isn’t in the U.S., and that gets in the way of him actually being funny.  He has a bit where he picks an audiance member and talks about being reincarnated as the guys kid and getting to suck on his girlfriend’s breasts.  This is a funny line, but he goes into it by saying ‘Oh, yes, now you are all probably mad at me for saying these things and are thinking I’ll die’.  But he hasn’t said anything controversial (at least in a comedy club).  Its sort of like bragging about having paid your taxes on time and then talking about how people are so offended by you for being so smart.

Anyhow…

Basically, Dawkins says he believes in determinism from an intellectual perspective, but from a personal one, can’t act upon it.
This does seem inconsistent, but Dawkins makes a point of saying:

What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don’t feel determined.

We don’t FEEL determined and so we don’t act that way. This is pretty common, really. We are spinning on a big chunk of rock in space. We don’t act like we are. If we did, we’d be running around terrified. Time is flexible, and not a constant. We don’t feel like it changes based on frame of reference, and so we don’t behave as if it does. We all will die. We know this intellectually, but we don’t feel like we will (most of the time), so we don’t do many things because we think we have all the time in the world.
How we KNOW things are and how we FEEL things are don’t necessarily match.

Theism has to answer every question with ‘because’. That’s a bit of a clue to whether or not it’s true.

More Than Words: Atheism doesn’t work

There we have Professor Dawkins’ candid admission that whilst atheistic determinism is a nice idea which in his own head he believes to be true as the explanation for reality …

… on the other hand, it’s impossible to put into practice in the real world. It’s an idea, and he believes it and writes and speaks plenty in its favour, but by his own confession it’s not an idea that works once you leave your typewriter and actually try to do something.

Consistent atheism doesn’t work. That’s a bit of a clue to whether or not it’s true.

This, of course, is a common idea for theists.
And a desperate ploy on their part.
1. First, using ‘god help us’ or ‘god damn it’ or ‘god-awful’ are simply parts of our colloquial language. For many people, they mean nothing. Even theists. Lets face it, do you honestly think that when someone who believes in god says ‘god damn it’, they are really asking god to take action or pass judgement on some person or event? No, of course not. I’ve been brought up in a christian country (this isn’t a criticism, simply a statement about the dominant religion in the US). Of course I say things like ‘Jesus’ as an exclamation. And I have never ever even for a second believed he was some sort of holy being.

2. In fear, we ask for help from anyone and anything, even if we know that help doesn’t exist. Would we be surprised if a woman begged and pleaded with a doctor to bring her husband back from the dead? No. But we don’t believe she really thinks he could anyhow. She’s asking for help from the only source she knows right then. The gentleman on the plane was afraid and so, assuming he wasn’t using an idiom, he was looking for help in a place he knew didn’t exist, but it was the only place he could go. Had he been in the cockpit, he no doubt would have been begging for the pilot to save him.

Truth be told, this sort of ‘argument’ is simply sad and belittles any serious discussion between theists and atheists.
But given how few theists actually take time to ponder their faith deeply, it isn’t surprising that it comes up often.

Charles “Chuck” Colson: There Are No Atheists - On Faith at washingtonpost.com

There Are No Atheists

On a cross-country flight some years ago, we hit severe turbulence. The gentleman in the seat next to me who had been insisting vehemently that he was an atheist shouted out loud, “God help us.”

Yes, even atheists pray because the image of God is implanted in us. Independent studies have showed that we yearn to know God. It’s the way we’re wired. So to be an atheist takes a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that which deep down we all know to be true.

I have, in fact, never met an atheist. When a person professes to be one, I ask him to offer me the proof that God does not exist. I’ve never had anyone successfully respond to that question. Most retreat and say they’re really agnostics. I then ask them if they have examined every religion exhaustively. Their answer is usually no. I explain they cannot be agnostics unless they are sure that God can’t be known.

There are no atheists. There are simply people whose pride overwhelms their innate knowledge.