Oxford, UK: As it becomes increasingly clear that they can no longer truly believe in any major religion, the world's terrorists are facing a renewed crisis of faith and/or non-faith. With the announcement last Thursday from Atheist supreme leader Dr. Richard Dawkins that "no True Atheist can be a terrorist", none of the major denominations now contain terrorists in their ranks. This declaration comes only weeks after it was finally confirmed that Atheism is actually just another religion, requiring faith and a distinct ideology--something that many Christians have long suspected.
In his press release, Dawkins stressed that Atheism is a Religion of Peace, saying, "leading Atheist theologians who have deeply studied the holy texts confirm that killing is prohibited in Atheism". He added that the exceptions to this general rule will be published in two major volumes later this year. He went on to say that "terrorists have no religion. They are like Tom Hank's character in the Terminal, stuck in a [non-Catholic] limbo where the least religious belief is denied to them".
In his latest video message, Ayman al Zawahiri pleaded yet again to be allowed to believe in Allah and the prophets. "I long to once again shout from the rooftops that 'there is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet', but the decree of my mortal enemies, the decadent so-called moderate Muslims, is binding and I remain a despicable kafir", he laments. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, is also known to have expressed similar feelings to pacifist Christians who have the final say on exactly who are Christians and who are not.
Fears have now come to the fore that terrorists may now turn to some of the world's minor religions for spiritual solace. A group of leaders of the major religions are said to be drafting a joint resolution demanding that some of the lesser known religions, who have so far resisted what they see as a religious imperialist pressure, should make it abundantly clear that no terrorists share their religious beliefs and religious identity.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the latest newly contacted Korubo tribe of the Brazilian Amazon told our reporter that as soon as they understand what terrorists are and a word is created in their language for "terrorism" (possibly a derivation of the Korubo word for "neighbour-village-elimination-for-perceived-insult"), they will be making the formal announcement. It is hoped that a timely declaration can prevent a massive immigration of terrorists seeking to convert to the Korubo religion and unwittingly contributing to the destruction of the fragile rainforest ecology of the Javari valley.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Quick Letter to Paley
Hello William Paley,
We both agree that a laptop is designed by engineers. You now say engineers are designed by Yahweh, which is interesting. Taking the idea further, can I suggest that Yahweh was designed by the Invisible Pink Unicorn? It's just that when I look at something as intricate and well-designed as Yahweh, I can't imagine him coming into existence by accident. I mean, if Yahweh had 0.000001% more anger issues, we wouldn't exist. If he were 0.00003% less needy about worship, we wouldn't exist. The odds are 2.371x1076 to one against Yahweh coming together by accident. The fine-tuning of Yahweh cries out for an explanation. I think the maturity and even-handedness of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is precisely that explanation.
May the meta-goddess make your god bless you.
We both agree that a laptop is designed by engineers. You now say engineers are designed by Yahweh, which is interesting. Taking the idea further, can I suggest that Yahweh was designed by the Invisible Pink Unicorn? It's just that when I look at something as intricate and well-designed as Yahweh, I can't imagine him coming into existence by accident. I mean, if Yahweh had 0.000001% more anger issues, we wouldn't exist. If he were 0.00003% less needy about worship, we wouldn't exist. The odds are 2.371x1076 to one against Yahweh coming together by accident. The fine-tuning of Yahweh cries out for an explanation. I think the maturity and even-handedness of the Invisible Pink Unicorn is precisely that explanation.
May the meta-goddess make your god bless you.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Veruthe Oru Cinema
I generally avoid "mainstream" Malayalam movies like the plague, and one of the reasons was brought home to me (again) the other day when I had to watch a few scenes of "വെറുതേ ഒരു ഭാര്യ" ("Veruthe Oru Bharya").
The protagonist has a wife and a teenage daughter. He gives his daughter a cell phone. She uses it to talk to a secret boyfriend (a classmate). Secret, because there is no other kind in Kerala. They grow close and one day he invites her to cut class and go to some event she desperately wants to go, and she agrees. So off they go in his jeep. But the jeep breaks down, they are stranded in what looks like a deserted forest and it gets late. Then three young goons appear out of nowhere and promptly prepare to abuse the girl while the previously bold boy is watching helplessly(!). Now the distraught protagonist appears, prompting the three young thugs to attack him instead. It is never clear why the three scrawny young men would choose to assault a boy and a girl, much less a man, a boy, and a girl together. Anyway, enough of that and the police appear suddenly, and the scene is over.
Now, I'm inclined to think that the moral of the contrived story is that the parents should know when their under-age children are on a date and where, but I forget where I am. So we cut to the Police station.
No surprises here--it is time for Mr. Responsible Policeman to tell the father and daughter (and the audience, no doubt) about the dangers of the cell phone and the internet, and how the two great evils of the technological age, namely, getting assaulted by psychopathic rapists and getting calls from a boyfriend, would have been avoided if the father weren't so liberal with the daughter.
*puke*
The protagonist has a wife and a teenage daughter. He gives his daughter a cell phone. She uses it to talk to a secret boyfriend (a classmate). Secret, because there is no other kind in Kerala. They grow close and one day he invites her to cut class and go to some event she desperately wants to go, and she agrees. So off they go in his jeep. But the jeep breaks down, they are stranded in what looks like a deserted forest and it gets late. Then three young goons appear out of nowhere and promptly prepare to abuse the girl while the previously bold boy is watching helplessly(!). Now the distraught protagonist appears, prompting the three young thugs to attack him instead. It is never clear why the three scrawny young men would choose to assault a boy and a girl, much less a man, a boy, and a girl together. Anyway, enough of that and the police appear suddenly, and the scene is over.
Now, I'm inclined to think that the moral of the contrived story is that the parents should know when their under-age children are on a date and where, but I forget where I am. So we cut to the Police station.
No surprises here--it is time for Mr. Responsible Policeman to tell the father and daughter (and the audience, no doubt) about the dangers of the cell phone and the internet, and how the two great evils of the technological age, namely, getting assaulted by psychopathic rapists and getting calls from a boyfriend, would have been avoided if the father weren't so liberal with the daughter.
*puke*
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Draw A Prophet Day
I don't want to talk about how I was intimidated into self-censorship on the Draw You-Know-Who Day, so it's Terrible Pun Day today:
What is the difference between suicide-by-cop and suicide-by-Islam?
In one you draw a gun, in the other you draw a prophet.
Why should cartoonists get life insurance?
So they can draw a profit from drawing a prophet.
***
What is the difference between suicide-by-cop and suicide-by-Islam?
In one you draw a gun, in the other you draw a prophet.
Why should cartoonists get life insurance?
So they can draw a profit from drawing a prophet.
***
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The Reductionism Delusion
I'm tired of these reductionists. My complaint is about these fundamentalist scientific reductionists who try to deny me the comfort of thinking that my computer fried because my friend played Wolfenstein on it--and used a flamethrower. He happens to be a reductionist who stubbornly resists holism; he has no intentions of thinking outside of his rigid digital electronic box and owning up to the destruction he's caused. It is one thing to talk about microchips and gates and whatnot--don't think that I don't know about Carry Lookahead Adders--and quite another to deny outright the very possibility that my friend's binge with the flamethrower had absolutely anything to do with a component (which has a max operating temp of 100oC) going up in smoke. Am I to believe that all those computing newbies who think that their computers will blow up if they press any key to continue are delusional? Such arrogance is the hallmark of reductionism. It is the sort of error that only a naive reductionist like Richard Dawkins will commit.
This attempt to reduce love, sadness and nailgun-wielding aliens to neural networks and NAND gates is not just objectionable on moral grounds, but also on rational grounds. Who in their right minds would think that a romp with a rocket launcher in Quake III will not have an adverse effect on the motherboard which is definitely not designed to survive large high-explosive projectiles? You may claim that there is no evidence for this, but reductionistic science can only get us so far. Anyone not affected by such scientism understands that digital electronics doesn't have all the answers.
Another more subtle form of this philosophical travesty is when they try to claim that faith is not a valid way of knowing about reality. Our senses are unreliable, so how can we be sure that science is the only way of reliably learning about the universe? I mean, we cannot reliably know what goes on inside those microchips no matter how carefully we inspect them--basic Quantum Mechanics. So who's to say that more insight into the operation of the Floating Point Unit is gained by looking at microchips than by exploring the Unreal Tournament 2004 world? The arrogance of scientism and atheism might, but not those of us who are more sophisticated in dealing with such matters. Those hardware engineers who rashly deny such reasonable possibilities should perhaps remain more open-minded to the possibility that the all-day wargamer might have some guiding insights into the design of CPU microcode, rather than claim that their reductionist view of digital electronics, ones and zeroes, provide all the answers that they need. Clearly, their views have only as much validity as the RPG player's given the unreliability of it all. I'm not claiming that faith is all you need to know about the world or that game playing experience is all you need to design CPUs--I'm saying that Science and faith, like Digital Electronics and Doom III expertise, are complementary. Digital Electronics is simply rudderless without hours of NFS: Most Wanted experience to guide it, whether you are designing a binary adder or a CPU bus.
[Okay, so nobody broke my computer; but I have faith that somebody will, that ought to count]
This attempt to reduce love, sadness and nailgun-wielding aliens to neural networks and NAND gates is not just objectionable on moral grounds, but also on rational grounds. Who in their right minds would think that a romp with a rocket launcher in Quake III will not have an adverse effect on the motherboard which is definitely not designed to survive large high-explosive projectiles? You may claim that there is no evidence for this, but reductionistic science can only get us so far. Anyone not affected by such scientism understands that digital electronics doesn't have all the answers.
Another more subtle form of this philosophical travesty is when they try to claim that faith is not a valid way of knowing about reality. Our senses are unreliable, so how can we be sure that science is the only way of reliably learning about the universe? I mean, we cannot reliably know what goes on inside those microchips no matter how carefully we inspect them--basic Quantum Mechanics. So who's to say that more insight into the operation of the Floating Point Unit is gained by looking at microchips than by exploring the Unreal Tournament 2004 world? The arrogance of scientism and atheism might, but not those of us who are more sophisticated in dealing with such matters. Those hardware engineers who rashly deny such reasonable possibilities should perhaps remain more open-minded to the possibility that the all-day wargamer might have some guiding insights into the design of CPU microcode, rather than claim that their reductionist view of digital electronics, ones and zeroes, provide all the answers that they need. Clearly, their views have only as much validity as the RPG player's given the unreliability of it all. I'm not claiming that faith is all you need to know about the world or that game playing experience is all you need to design CPUs--I'm saying that Science and faith, like Digital Electronics and Doom III expertise, are complementary. Digital Electronics is simply rudderless without hours of NFS: Most Wanted experience to guide it, whether you are designing a binary adder or a CPU bus.
[Okay, so nobody broke my computer; but I have faith that somebody will, that ought to count]
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Answering an Amonoceratist
Hear ye heathens!
You, in your petty human vanity, think that Unicorn is silly and ridiculous. You refute a unicorn that has a horn and four legs. What a stupid strawman, Amonoceratists! All of you who revel in demolishing the idea of a hooved Unicorn, have you ever taken Monoceratology 101? Surely not, because if you had, you'd have noticed that the caricature that you despise and hate has nothing to do with the real Unicorn. The real Unicorn is more subtle than that. I am sure that those of you who are so literal minded will not accept or recognise the real Unicorn.
Sure, there are fundamentalists who promote the idea of an actually pink coloured Unicorn. They may not know that She is also invisible. Such foolishness! But surely, my Amonoceratist friends, you are not foolish enough to condemn the whole of Monoceratism by these misguided people? Who doesn't know that Her trampling of the heathen under her hooves is completely metaphorical? A literalist, surely. But I had imagined that the Amonoceratists are more intelligent than that. Apparently not.
Those of us who understand Monoceratology recognise the obvious arguments against the existence of a literal pink-maned Unicorn. But let me ask you, Amonoceratist, do you wish to throw the baby out with the bath water? Shouldn't you try and understand our beliefs before you stridently dismiss them based on a strawman?
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Some Ideas for Our New Memetically Engineered Religion
Purely memeplex survival-based:
(edited: 22/05/2010)
- Promote evidence-free faith as a virtue.
- Threaten with penalties for unbelief.
- Offer perks for belief.
- Tell believers to go forth and multiply.
- Tell believers to treat women as breeding machines and convince women to accept it.
- Oppose contraception and abortion.
- Indoctrinate children early on.
- Order them to behave well in society and preserve order as long as it serves the memeplex.
- It is okay to kill unbelievers, but do not provoke wars that you cannot win.
- Enjoin them to preach the true faith.
- Attribute good deeds to the memeplex.
- Maintain a priestly class who will preserve the integrity of the memeplex out of self-interest.
- Create an inquisition.
- Attempt to explain the world by integrating known science (risky--since it may threaten to tear the memeplex apart when new empirical evidence comes along).
- Integrate cultural practices for better acceptance and familiarity from the believers, and to provide a distinct identity at the risk of endangering horizontal transmission.
(edited: 22/05/2010)
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