Virtual Illusions

Dear John,

As you know, we’ve been working real hard in our town to get prayer back in the schools. Finally, the school board approved a plan of teacher-led prayer with the children participating at their own option. Children not wishing to participate were to be allowed to stand out in the hallway during the prayer time. We hoped someone would sue us so we could go all the way to the Supreme Court and get that old devil-inspired ruling reversed.

Naturally, we were all excited by the school board’s action. As you know, our own little Billy (not so little, any more, though) is now in the second grade. Of course, Margaret and I explained to him no matter what the other kids did, he was going to stay in the classroom and participate.

After the first day of school, I asked him, “How did the prayer time go?

“Fine.”

“Did many kids go out into the hallway?”

“Two.”

“Excellent. How did you like your teacher’s prayer?”

“It was different, Dad. Real different from the way you pray.”

“Oh? Like how?”

“She said, ‘Hail, Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners…’”

The next day I talked with the principal. I politely explained I wasn’t prejudiced against Catholics but I would appreciate Billy being transferred to a non-Catholic teacher. The principal said it would be done right away.

At supper that evening I asked Billy to say the blessings. He slipped out of his chair, sat cross-legged on the floor, closed his eyes, raised his hands palms up and began to hum.

You’d better believe I was at the principal’s office at eight o’clock the next morning. “Look,” I said. “I don’t really know much about these Transcendental Meditationists, but I would feel a lot more comfortable if you could move Billy to a room where the teacher practices an older, more established religion.’”

That afternoon I met Billy as soon as he walked in the door after school. “I don’t think you’re going to like Mrs. Nakasone’s prayer, either, Dad.”

“Out with it.”

“She kept calling God ‘O Great Buddha…’”

The following morning I was waiting for the principal in the school parking lot. “Look, I don’t want my son praying to the Eternal Spirit of whatever or to Buddha. I want him to have a teacher that prays in Jesus’ name!”

“What about Bertha Smith?”

“Excellent.”

I could hardly wait to hear about Mrs. Smith’s prayer. I was standing on the front steps of the school when the final bell rang.

“Well?” I asked Billy as we walked towards the car.

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Mrs. Smith asked God to bless us and ended her prayer in Jesus’ name, amen — just like you.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Now we’re getting someplace.”

“She even taught us a verse of scripture about prayer,” said Billy.

I beamed. “Wonderful. What was the verse?”

“Let’s see…” he mused for a moment. ” ‘And behold, they began to pray; and they did pray unto Jesus, calling him their Lord and their God.’”

We had reached the car. “Fantastic,” I said, reaching for the door handle. Then I paused. I couldn’t place the scripture. “Billy, did Mrs. Smith say what book that verse was from?”

“Third Nephi, chapter 19, verse 18.”

“Third what?”

“Nephi,” he said, “It’s in the Book of Mormon.”

The school board doesn’t meet for a month. I’ve given Billy very definite instructions that at prayer time each day he’s to go out into the hallway. I plan to be at that board meeting. If they don’t do something about this situation, I’ll sue. I’ll take it all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to. I don’t need the schools or anybody else teaching my son about religion.

We can take care of that ourselves at home and at church, thank you very much.

Give my love to Sandi and the boys.

Your friend, Jack

Religion, School

We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have laboured in search for the truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it

–Acquinas

Philosophy/Religion, Quote

“Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.”

–Margaret Chittenden, writer

Quote

Note: This is not by me

As far as Roe v Wade goes, I agree that a woman has a right to choose what happens to her body, but if she chooses to engage in sexual activity and becomes pregnent, she doesn’t have the right to kill the innocent baby she and her partner created. Now you’re gonna say…what if she is raped? Well, that’s is a little different and IMO, it’s a sad thing, but the inconvienece of being pregnent for 9 months and then giving birth, is hardly worth comitting a murder over.

A ‘Baby’ is a strictly incorrect medical term. A baby has been born, we are talking about a fetus here. You use the term fetus prior to birth.

Lets draw a further distinction. A baby will cry when unhappy, smile and laugh when happy, and in general have emotions. How does it do this? Well, the neurons of the brain have created an electrochemical network where messages travel around in the form of electrical firings and chemical releases. This beautiful dance of electricity and neurotransmitters is the human mind. Granted, you may not believe this, you may think in the way of Descartes in that the mind is some otherwordly sort of substance connected to the brain somehow through the pituitary gland, but I am sure I speak of the near entirety of this board on what we have been convinced beyond reasonable scientific doubt is the human mind. To draw a crude analogy, the brain and the neural structure is the hardware for thought, while the mind is the software programs running on this hardware. To make it less crude, it is better to say that a vast collection of programs and layers of metaprograms interact to form a working society we call the human mind.

Consider what is happening at (judiciously) the second trimester. The neurons (or neuroblasts as they are called while immature) do not have a connective structure in place between them. No axions, no dendrites. This is not entirely true, there are some temporary axions created to act as anchorpoints to facilitate the movement of the neuroblasts into their final resting points in what will be a brain. This movement and architectural set up is not mediated by any consiousness or pre-mind, but rather through the chemical program of the unique DNA sequence common to all cells of the developing fetus (except the haploid reproductive cells which contain only half the code, and RBCs which contain none, and perhaps a few others). There is no neural firing, and even if there was, there is no connective pattern. To go back to the computer analogy what we have here is not simply a CPU that is ‘turned off’ but less than that, a blank silicon wafer that has not yet been etched by way of ultraviolet lithography, a featurless surface which could in the future have some sort of interconnective structure.

What many people deem to be sacred is not the human body, or vessel, but the dance of electricity convienently called thought. The idea that a nonfunctioning brain is also sacred is not only wrong, but in some sense offensive. It seems to say that a unique genetic sequence defines an individual, this being a far simpler program then the society of programs and metaprograms culminating in the mystery of the observer. The actions of the DNA sequence are as rote as a well evolved computer program (very well evolved). The actions of the mind are the most beautiful complexities noted in the universe.

Ethics may follow from this viewpoint not through the whim of our immediate creator (which, being just an evolved DNA program, is not something imperative to follow), nor that of an initial creator, since we really have no way to tell what (if any) things such a creator might want. Instead, ethics may follow both from reason and the structure of the human mind. ‘Do onto others’ is not just a religious maxim, but an excellent game theoretic strategy. Longterm happiness is mostly determined by friendy social relations, and so in order to provide for ones happiness it is sensible to treat sentient beings, other minds, with respect: not killing, stealing, or lying. Furthermore, seeing happy people (smiles and laughter) causes us to be happier, and thus it is sensible to try to cause other people to be happy, as the reciprocal happiness we gain back is often greater than had we tried to please only ourselves.

However, a fetus is not a sentient being, but merely a vessel. It has no social standing outside a bulge on someones body. All it is is a chemical DNA program derived from a combination of two others. To destroy it is not to destroy any sentience, any human mind. As this destruction is complicated, expensive, and has emotional reprocussions on the female carrying it, such a procedure should not be routine. Since the welfare of a baby (a sentient being) is so demanding, it may be the case that the parents lack the resources, know that they will later be better prepared to bring in a human to the world, or are engaged in a task more valuable to humanity (cancer researchers perhaps) to use up their emotional resouces on a developing mind. In these cases, it is better to destroy the vessel than to have a human mind emerge in a setting where it will invariably suffer and/or cause undue suffering.

Since there is emotional stress involved, sexual partners should be careful to take precautions against conception. This does not mean people should forego the therepeutic and emotional benefits of sex (not to mention the exercise so badly needed today) for fear of having to halt the execution of a DNA program.

-Syllepsis

Philosophy/Religion, Politics

“There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.”

– Bertrand Russell –

Politics, Quote

“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”

– H. L. Mencken –

Politics, Quote

Via 400Bench

What organizations are there out there for specifically atheist people?

At GAMOW Ellen Johnson of American Atheists (www.atheist.org) mentioned (as in past tense) forming an Atheist PAC. I signed up for that mailinglist. I was hoping to provide more specific information but there doesn’t seem to be any information on their website. They don’t seem to have gotten around to updating it post GAMOW yet.

I consider AA the strongest nationwide organization. It states as its purpose the winning of civil rights for atheists. I consider their rhetoric to have a bit more vitriol then is strictly helpful. On the upside they have money. A good number of in the closet atheists tend to send them anonymous checks. It is the first organization I came across as an atheist.

Another organization with national scope is the Council for Secular Humanism (http://www.secularhumanism.org/). I only recently heard about them and couldn’t speak much about them but if you feel more comfortable with secular humanism than atheism they may be for you. The American Humanist Association (www.americanhumanist.org/) is probably better poised poised and organized politically, but they are not a strictly secular organization. They have members who are extremely liberal religious, but they are currently calling for a boycott of Chevrolet and doing other things that support the general cause of non-belief.

If you are a student you may want to look into the Campus Freethought Alliance (www.campusfreethought.org/) they seem most interested in forming student support groups. It is an outreach program for CSH. I didn’t encounter them while I was a student or I might be able to tell you more about them.

From a purely social angle you may want to check out meetup.com, they have an atheists topic (http://atheists.meetup.com/).

Another great place to check is to go to the GAMOW website ( www.godlessamericans.org) and look through the lists of sponsoring organizations. That is how I found Religion Free DC, I don’t know if there is anything close to you

If that doesn’t work, Internet Infidels has a list of local organizations (http://www.infidels.org/org/index.shtml). They break the local organizations by state so you hopefully you’ll be able to find a local group most places. On that page is also links to a couple of other lists.

Maybe this will help you find local or national groups.

–Zafkiel

Philosophy/Religion, Politics

Via AngelMay

When a country is attacked, it responds. To this point I have not heard anyone put forth an alternative plan for ending these terrorist groups and the horrors they seem perfectly able to commit without any conscience whatsoever.

I have seen exactly one credible method, there may be others, but I have only seen one. We may be be engaging in it right now, by its nature it wouldn’t get front page press. Heck this assassination might be part of a credible methodology. Let’s just say that I don’t trust our current administration or defense department with the level of subtlety involved.

The one credible method I read comes from a news article published in the Washington Post on September, 17 2001, it was called Disconnect the Dots and surprising enough it is still online (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41015-2001Sep16.html)

how do you attack, degrade or destroy a small, shadowy, globally distributed, stateless network of intensely loyal partisans with few fixed assets or addresses?

“It takes a tank to fight a tank. It takes a network to fight a network,”

The solution suggested by this article is that you must attack the trust structure of the network (i.e. Terrorist organization). If you can degrade the efficiency and responsiveness of the command and control structures within the network you will have effectively defeated the enemy. It is recommended that you leave the neutered network around so you can keep an eye on it and keep something else from filling the power vacuum.

Simply killing people without engaging in some sort of long range plan to degrade the network doesn’t advance the tactical situation any. Like I said earlier this killing may be part of such a plan, but I don’t trust the administration to look beyond launching munitions at real estate.

–Zafkiel

Politics

Via Someone

Just curious here, but when amongst a group of people that are praying do you still bow your head? I don’t now, and I’m just curious if I’m the only one.

Depends. Usually it triggers a response that makes me stand up as straight as possible. Something like a military parade rest (okay I’m guessing here I’ve never been close enough to a military parade to know what that really means.)

During Thanksgiving (and other “big” family meal, Christmas eve, etc.) my family version of prayer is taking hands and we say “Blessings on this meal.” I participate, because it would seem like I was just trying to cause trouble otherwise. It is sufficiently vague about the source and nature of those blessings that it doesn’t really cause a defensive reaction.

–Zafkiel

Philosophy/Religion

Via corbetti

Is it just for a woman to have all the power in the decision making, but that the man be held responsible if she chooses situation #2? Since, in the final analysis, she decides whether or not a child will actually be born, doesn’t it fall onto her shoulders? One could argue that in getting the reproductive rights and freedoms that Roe v Wade provided, the burden also was shifted away from the man to the woman.

Since in this long discussion no one has said so yet I would like to postulate that the choice to have the child or abort the pregnancy isn’t the mother’s alone. That decision is (or should be) a matter of negotiation and discussion between the parents. In a perfect world these parents will come to a consensus and together they would bear the consequences of that decision.

Yes, we live in an imperfect world and sometime no matter how hard they try (or don’t) the parents can’t come to a mutual consensus that both could accept. It is only in that case that the mother, as the one who will carry the child to term, is allowed to break the deadlock.

Is there a practical difference between that and the mother gets to decide. Maybe not from a legal standpoint. But it bears keeping in mind that when mother and father are acting as adversaries the biological system for raising the child has already broken down.

Politics