Video Games

I never write about it here, but I’m a huge video game fan. I play all kinds… first-person shooters (the ones that make you violent), role-playing games (the ones that act as a prophylactic), real-time strategy games (the ones that let you play god by having economic control over a city and sending people off to die in battle; i.e. the ones that make you Republican)… I have also played across several different platforms, from our family Apple IIe and the original Nintendo to the Playstation 2 and my very cherry computer (well, good for being a Dell).

Perhaps later tonight I’ll compile my top ten favorite video games of all time, but in particular I want to bitch about the state of gaming in general. My wife wants to get a Wii, and I suppose it might be fun, but I really don’t have any urge to get it, let alone a PS3 or Xbox 360.

New console games are awful. I remember playing Super Mario RPG on the Super Nintendo for months. When I downloaded an emulator which lets me play Super Nintendo games, I spent over a month playing through it at an hour or two a day. I got several hundred hours of enjoyment from that game, and it wasn’t even multiplayer.

I play through and finish single-player games today in about a week. What’s worse, the games are so simple that they’re not worth playing through more than once. The odds of you missing something is very small, because games just aren’t very deep in the challenge department.

“Action” video games today are choose-your-own-adventure movies at their best, and tediously sappy stories punctuated by button mashing at their worst. This wasn’t always the case. Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog are classic action games. Most action games today seem like they were made by failed movie producers.

Super Mario Brothers is the quintessential action game, and one which was successful because it relied on simple mechanics, several different levels, and it never gave a shit about the story. Why did a spike-shelled lizard steal a princess, and how did a plumber get charged with rescuing her? Who the fuck cares, get jumping!

Action games today are bogged down by visual eye candy, professionally composed orchestral sound tracks, complex stories, and even more complex mechanics. None of these things can make a game any good.

Every time a new game comes out, it’s the same bullshit comment when it comes to aesthetics: “Look at the water! Wow, they rendered it so realistically!” Every successive game, they seem to get closer and closer to really making you believe you’re looking at water. Never mind that any gamer who wants to see water could pour themselves a fucking glass and set it next to the screen. Mario got it right: water is blue, move on.

When you buy a game, you get an instruction manual, which has four pages or so at the end which lists the credits. I’m glad that’s there, because I can look at it and see how many people they paid to work on the music. Those are all people who should never have had a job. The first thing I do when I load up a game is open the options and turn the music off. It’s not that I dislike any of the music; I’m sure it’s lovely, but in the age of the MP3, I don’t have to listen to what someone else wants me to listen to when I’m sitting at my computer.

[The only exceptions to this tend to be games with actual songs in their soundtrack. The Grand Theft Auto series, the Madden football games, and Fallout 3 come to mind, as their “music” comes through radios that the user controls in game which play classic hits.]

The only thing that is new about action games that can be argued to be an improvement is the multiple-path plotlines. Originally common in the RPG genre, the idea of making choices that affected the outcome – and often the displayed ending – of the game is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it is about the only thing that makes these games worth playing more than once. “Well I beat it as a good guy… I wonder what happens if I act like a jerk…”

The curse of the multiple-ending seeker is horrible mechanics. Games today are often too complex, trying to do too many things at once and forcing the player to seek help. This is no accident, as a small industry of “Guide” publishing has flourished on the esoteric solutions required of many modern titles. Of course, anyone with access to the internet should be able to circumvent the guide scheme.

I still play new games, but I find myself continually dissatisfied lately. I could probably come up with a top ten worst games before a top ten best games. I think this is because video game budgets are allocated more and more towards marketing. Commercials for video games are abundant, and every dollar wasted on getting the word out on TV is a dollar not spent on developing the game itself.

The only games that need advertising are bad games. Anyone who knows anything about video games knows about websites and magazines that review games, and that review site doesn’t care how many commercials are run for the game (only whether the publishing company paid off the reviewer…). Good games sell based on word of mouth and past success by the developers, not flashy promo videos.

I have always preferred multiplayer games. There’s really no fun in beating a program. Competing against another person is where the fun is. Cooperative play can be interesting, but it usually just opens the door to one person being frustrated at the other person’s incompetency, and is really just an extrapolation of the “beating a program” scenario.

With the internet, multiplayer gaming went beyond the kids on my block and spread worldwide. I have never been in a gang, but I’ve been in several guilds, clans, alliances, factions, and tribes (depending on the game, of course). The most fun is playing with people from other countries, since we have a jolly time ripping on the US for how horrible we are to the rest of the world. I often pretend I’m from Canada.

Which reminds me of another odd trait of mine when playing video games. Given the choice, I tend to play female characters. I don’t look at the person on the screen as a digital representation of me, nor are they who I want to be. Instead, I look at it from the perspective that if I’m going to watch my character’s backside as they run around in the game for several hours, I’d rather it be a woman. Plus, there’s nothing sexier than a woman who kicks ass.

After never writing about video games before, I’m sure this novella has turned most of you to the subject. Regardless, I’ll work on a top ten list of my favorite games of all time across all platforms, because I like making lists and my music is still pretty limited after my reformat.

An Inadvertent Change of Style

I don’t usually write about my day-to-day life, not because it’s boring… but I have no other way of ending that sentence.

However, today something funny happened. My wife got me a beard trimmer for my birthday a couple weeks back (no late birthday wishes, please). I love it because my beard only had two phases before: shaggy homeless-guy or horrible, patchy trim-job. I just never got the hang of using scissors so near to my jugular vein.

My wife, who has to look at me every day, got me an adjustable beard trimmer with nine length settings and a vacuum to suck up [some of] the hairs. It works great, and it even has a “Turbo” setting… in case the hairs evolve or something and become wily.

So I took the guard attachment off this morning to trim my neck line. When I was done, I clicked the setting to five and started trimming the right side of my beard… when I suddenly had no side burn anymore. I forgot to put the guard back on. I looked down at my dog, and he looked back at me. He wasn’t going to be any help.

I called my wife at work to ask if she’d still love me with only one side burn. She laughed and suggested I shave it into a goatee or something. So here I am, with a goatee. Thanksgiving is in a week, and I look like… well, I don’t want to say what I think I look like, because looking over my Followers list, I shouldn’t say anything bad about goatees.

Until my beard grows back in, it looks like I’m one of “you people.”

[Note: My face is so much colder on dog walks now.]

Are We Good?

On the old “Are people essentially/born good or bad?” question, I avoid the good/bad problem by altering it to ask, “Are people born socially acceptable?” The answer is “No.”

People are not naturally considerate. Worse, they are often not even aware of the consequences of their actions, so even those who are considerate have a tendency to be oblivious douchebags. We need things like parenting, education, love, punishment, ethics, shame, etc. There are even people who received all those things and still transgress – look at Bernie Madoff, a billionaire who steals. I’m almost positive most people would revert to poo-flinging without society.

It’s hard to imagine this to be the case if you live in a developed nation, and we can’t really test it by performing the necessary experiment (which is even given the ominous name, “The Forbidden Experiment”). Suffice to say, one needs only look back through history at the things people do that are socially acceptable (or even expected) at one time, but are considered crude or barbaric now. Slavery, treating women like property, pederasty, genocide, cannibalism… those were our ancestors, some only a few generations removed.

It’s not that we’re bad, we’re just confused. We’re born wet, bloody and crying, full of needs and wants, and all we can do is scream. Independence cannot be expected of an individual until at least around 15, and some people are never able to take care of themselves. All we know is what we see, and the people who want to be seen are often clueless. Ignorance is almost forgivable.

Yet despite all the obstacles, skeptics abound among the young. Of course, once they are busied by work and no longer have time to waste thinking (not to mention all that fancy book learnin’ that gets beer'ed away), they tend to settle down into a comfortable routine of family values and fag hating.

No matter how educated we are now, there will always be an endless stream of new people to laugh at us when we’re old for what we did. It’s always a child who points out that the emperor has no clothes.

Environmentalism

Environmentalism is quite a unique cause. It simultaneously affects and bores every person on the planet. I don’t consider myself an environmentalist, but I have a very different perspective than people who listen only to industry.

I really don’t care about animals. I tried, and I like plenty of domesticated animals (especially on my plate), but I just can’t bring myself to give a shit about wildlife. However, my understanding of science won’t allow me to ignore the resources lost whenever a species goes extinct.

I find projects like this one to be vital to the human race. Cataloguing the DNA of animals and plants can allow us to preserve at least some part of these living things which have evolved as little independent biochemical factories for millions of years.

Nearly all of our drugs – both medical and enjoyable – are chemicals we derived from living things. Scientists aren’t mixing up random junk in the lab and injecting them into rats to see what happens. They find chemical processes in nature, isolate the responsible molecule or compound, then inject it into rats to see what happens.

We have such a small understanding of biology that new discoveries are still made daily, even in well-known species. Animals like the Tasmanian Devil face extinction, and humans are not to blame. There is a facial tumor disease which is sweeping through mainland populations, and human efforts to form isolated colonies on other islands may be their only hope.

Even though the devils are not endangered because of us, I would say it is still in our best interest to help them. Saving the animals is not about guilt, it is about preserving knowledge. The problem is, there’s not nearly enough support for these kind of efforts.

Business does not like environmentalism. Business doesn’t like the labor movement, either. Business just doesn’t like having to treat anything with respect or decency. Business is about making money, and clean up is expensive. It’s much cheaper to just manufacture your product and dump the by-product.

But what if your business is the environment? Logging has made great efforts to remain sustainable, with many operating on cycles of tree cutting and planting that gives them an essentially neutral presence. Fishing, however, is another matter. I love fish, but as much as it pains me to say, I shouldn’t eat any.

Besides the chemicals that they bioaccumulate from our disgusting dump habits, fish are disappearing. Not all fish, really, just the delicious ones. Salmon, tuna, sea bass… a lot of these fish only exist at levels hovering around 15% of pre-industrial age populations. That means we ate over 80% of the tasty fish.

If they couldn’t fuck (or more accurately, spawn) fast enough to replace themselves when their numbers were far greater (and humans were far fewer), there’s not much hope for them now. In all likelihood, some fish you commonly see on the menu will go extinct, maybe even this century.

It is a complex problem, but it’s downright brutal for fishermen. They have two options: they can collectively choose to stop fishing (either by significantly lowering their catch quota or stopping entirely until the populations recover), or they can fish until their jobs disappear.

One group has declined to recommend a ban, but they have been criticized for pursuing the short-term profits over the long-term stability of the industry. I wonder how many people making the decision were over 50 and how many were under 25… I can’t imagine those old farts have any vested interest in leaving young people any jobs – or fish.

Sometimes I wonder if the Eskimos had it right by sending their elderly out on ice floes. Maybe that’s why the old, rich bastards who sell us the idea that environmentalism is wrong have a vested interest in melting the caps. If it’s too inefficient to clean up after yourself or to leave things as you found them, maybe it’s too inefficient to care for the old.

Objector Rules

I’m no fan of the US military. I find it to be entirely un-American in its operation. It forces religion down your throat, makes sexual harassment a policy, desensitizes people to extreme violence, and demands obedience. The military is a factory for molding people into Republicans.

The Fort Hood shooting has drawn completely different conclusions from every corner of politics. Those on the right tend to point to all the warning signs that were ignored because of liberal tolerance. Those on the left blame guns and tension over the wars.

I think this was a case of desperation. All desperate animals will lash out when cornered.

It is my understanding that the Army paid for Hasan’s medical education, and that he worked with only minor incident for some time. Sure, there was the annoying proselytizing, but it was only noted because he chose the wrong religion to push. Those who push Christianity are completely above any kind of suspicion or criticism. I’m sure there’s thousands of Muslims in the military who are pushy about their faith who have not, and will not, attack a fellow soldier.

Hasan offered to pay back his medical bills, but the Army is pressed for people at the moment. Hasan may have even requested exemption from deployment as a conscientious objector.

I have long believed the military would be best served if it allowed those who enlisted to decline or “veto” deployment. I think it would go a long way in both increasing the morale of troops who are deployed, and in forcing politicians to carefully consider their wars. Most wars we fight are complete bullshit, and those in the military know this more than most.

Soldiers have no choice after joining, even though it is their lives at risk. There is no justice in saying, “But they signed a piece of paper saying…” There is no paper that can be signed which warrants being sent into harm for a cause you oppose. People join the military because they love their country. They want to chip in and make a difference. They don’t sign up for wars of ideological dick-measuring or economic rape.

Perhaps objector rules could be instituted which allow the military a degree of… *gasp*… democracy. Injecting a little America into our military could end the wars where our politicians have failed.

Societal Haircut

I have been poring over economic literature for a few weeks now. I have tried to understand the ins and outs of finance, investment, markets, etc. I have come to the conclusion that the entire field of economics is a sub-field of sociology, and is less a scientific pursuit of knowledge, like chemistry, and more a pursuit of wealth, like alchemy.

Economics is also largely in the business of creating jobs for those who create nothing. Economics is the realm of the middle-man. It’s a study in how to make money by doing as little as possible. Economics has become so efficient, the middle-men rose to the top.

Investment bankers, hedge-fund operators, CEOs, CFOs, COOs, a whole slew of people whose job it is to do nothing but manipulate money or make decisions which are handed to them by advisors and summarily ignored by everyone upon being issued… these people hold all the chips even though they’re not the ones making the bets; they get most of the reward without any of the risk. While the people doing the real work are thrown scraps as they scurry about the machinery of business, those at the top convince themselves that their deified voice of power must be calling all of this wealth and success into being, as though they were the God of Genesis.

If you think rich people need more, what the fuck is wrong with you? What do they need more money for? So they can buy off government employees? So they can funnel their money into tax-free, non-profit havens that function with political agendas?

Fuck privatized tyranny! They aren’t investing their billions in more jobs or more industries or any development; money for that stuff NEVER taken from the CEO’s pay check or bank account. Instead, money for those business-building activities is leached away by the ballooning salaries of these do-nothing douchebags at the top.

If you hate government corruption, support campaign finance reform. Fight for strict limits on contributions from private companies and their owners. Government is indeed corrupt, because private industry keeps sticking its dirty fingers into it. Eliminating government is just childish and stupid, like an eight year old who wants to run away from home because mommy and daddy took his toy gun away. Boo-fucking-hoo, you whiney ass Libertarian diaper-fillers.

It’s not “the State,” with some ominous capital S, that is to blame; it’s us for continuing to elect industry shills. We’re blinded by private industry and their masters of deception down in marketing. The money buys the ads, and the ads buy the votes, and Americans are stupid, shallow, and lazy so we let our media do all the thinking. The government is our voice.

America doesn’t have cancer. America doesn’t need invasive surgery or crippling chemo to fix its economic ills. All we need is a haircut. Trim off the unruly hair that blinds us, and let it fall harmlessly to the floor. America just needs a little off the top.

I’m not even talking about killing or hurting anyone. All we need are progressive taxes. Taxing those who make millions of dollars a year (let alone billions) will do two things: increase tax revenues at a time when years of conservative neglect have left our government crippled, and give incentive for those at the top to self-limit themselves to a sensible couple million per year [fucking turd blossoms] so the rest can be spread around the company.

If you prevent companies from donating to political campaigns and limit individuals to fortunes that don’t allow for the purchase of Senators, I think you’d be surprised how much better off we’d be… all from just a haircut.

Gnosticism

All religions are essentially gnostic, which means they center their ideology around knowledge. Christians take this to the extreme, with many believing that accepting the knowledge of Jesus as their savior is sufficient pre-requisite for declaring oneself Christian. Other faiths place more emphasis on ritual, and less on knowledge, but it is still important in every faith to remember certain things.

Every religion boils down to a system for transferring knowledge, like an artificial form of genetics. Religion was most important before written language, when stories and songs would need to be transmitted between generations in order to preserve knowledge. Eventually, religion was written down, and as a result, long forgotten faiths sometimes find their way back into our memory.

Christian Gnosticism was a strong movement in the early days after Jesus. While the whole of the religion is lost to us, we get bits and pieces of it through lost papyri and codices. To make matters worse, it was certainly not a monolithic movement with a standardized belief structure. However, when taken together, the Gnostic world view is strikingly interesting.

In the beginning were the Archons, beings with limitless power, floating in an endless void. The youngest was Sophia, whose name means wisdom.

Sophia decided to create a companion for herself. Being the youngest and not wanting her older siblings to take Her creation away, she went off alone where she could not be seen. She created Yaldabaoth, the demiurge. She lavished it with attention and gave it everything He desired.

Because the apple never falls far from the tree, Yaldabaoth felt compelled one day to create. He didn’t want His mother to see it, so behind His back He created the world, our physical world (the world of mass, as opposed to the spirit world or just the Earth). He populated it with all kinds of animals and even one being that resembled Him and His Mother.

Seeing that His creation was alone, and having not given His creation the power to create, He made his creation a mate. He set up the events of Genesis as a game to amuse Himself. Some Gnostics found traditionally villainous characters like Cain to be heroic, though the circumstances of the Gnostic interpretation are lost to us.

Basically, the Gnostics were maltheists. They saw the Old Testament God, YHWH, as being this evil Demiurge, Yaldabaoth. The “Creator” was only a partial creator, for He made our world, but was Himself naïve to the whole of the existence. His imperfection accounts for the imperfection of our world.

At some point, we don’t know when Gnostics think this was, Sophia found out what Yaldabaoth had done. She saw our world and wept. No, this wasn’t the flood. What do we know is that Gnostics believe she sent Jesus to try to save us.

Gnostics believe Jesus was sent by Sophia with a knowledge that would allow human spirits to escape the prison created for us by Her Son. There is even evidence that Gnostics believed in the transmigration of souls, which is the Western terminology for reincarnation. This all likely comes about from a melding of Jewish and Platonic teachings, as Plato devised a system of reincarnation in which we are prisoners (see Plato’s Cave).

Judas, Thomas, and Mary Magdalene are some of the leading “Gospel” sources on Gnosticism. Their Gospels are classified as Gnostic because of their pronounced dualism and emphasis on knowledge. The Gospel of Judas is remarkable for its claim that Judas was asked by Jesus to initiate the events that led to the crucifixion, also portraying Judas as the most trusted apostle.

It is interesting to note that the Canonical Gospels all portray Judas and Thomas with great negativity; Judas is always called “the betrayer,” while the story of “doubting Thomas” is none too flattering. And calling Mary a prostitute is a play out of every schoolyard bully’s playbook. Smear campaigns have always worked on the ignorant masses.

Now you know more.

Pamphlets

While walking my dog, I noticed a bunch of religious tracts littered along my block. It seems someone put propaganda on the windshield of the cars in the area.

So, I picked up all of them that I saw and threw them away. I even took the pre-litter I saw still on people’s windshields; I think it’s safe to say the owners of these cars know all they care to about Jesus.

I kept three, the ones least wet. They’re so precious, I feel compelled to share excerpts of them.

My favorite has quite a wonderful message on the cover:

Entertainment, Amusements, Fun
What Does God Say?
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves…,lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;” (2 Timothy 3:1,2a,4b)

First of all, I love a nice, short Bible passage taken out of context almost as much as I like using ellipses to redact portions you don’t like. Here’s the full quote from the KJV, verses 1-5:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

One might almost be able to accuse modern Christians of many of these… Anyway, I guess these particular Christians are against fun. Also, I love the implication that we’re living in the “last days.” The pamphlet continues:

One of man’s principal goals in life is happiness. Happiness can be elusive. Many are seeking happiness in pleasures and entertainment [not Christians, who like pain and boredom?]. They seek to satisfy themselves by doing what “feels good.” What feels good may actually be detrimental to one’s character and inner spiritual well-being. [Kind of like how religious people follow their “feeling” on God? And atheists are just supposed to leave believers alone because their faith makes them “feel good?”]

Then there’s a paragraph about how money can’t buy things that make you happy. Then there’s a paragraph about how amusement parks, TV, movies, music, the internet, and even books (at least the “shameful” kind) are ruining society. Then there’s more stuff about how we are driven to earn more and nothing is ever enough.

Then there’s a gem:

As this selfish drive is pursued the following happens: churches languish, welfare programs are left to the governments, and the homeless may be fed but not cared for. Even more tragically, children are not finding the security of a stable home.

So here we have the foundation for conservative thought when it comes to welfare: ending government welfare puts that power in the hands of churches, where they think it belongs. When people have no secular charity to turn to, they get stuck going to a church. There’s no magical reason getting aid from a church is better than getting it from the government.

They use the tactic of juxtaposing a completely unrelated tragic to their claim, in order to draw some sort of connection. How does the “selfish” drive of people to economically succeed cause churches to languish and welfare to be administered by a cold, uncaring government that will apparently spit in poor people’s soup? And how does any of that relate to at-risk children in broken homes?

Religious people love to do that: merely mention a problem in society and then link it to our “lack of” or “disappearing” faith. Forget trying to convince a believer that they’re in the majority. They have so much time on their hands not helping people, they divide themselves up into “true believers” and… frankly I don’t know if they have a name for it, I guess “fake Christians,” or maybe “Catholics.”So even though most of America believes, our problems clearly stem from the fact that most “Christians” are doing it wrong.

Another tract I have here is titled “Why Must I Suffer?” I have never found theodicy to be a particularly compelling argument, but I imagine it’s a popular one among neophyte atheists.

Theodicy is the question of evil; in a world created by a good and loving God, why are there bad things? The simplest formulation of non-theism stems from this dilemma, and is credited to Epicurus:

God is all powerful and good, but evil exists. Therefore:
1. God is good, but does not have the power to prevent evil.
OR
2. God is has the power to prevent evil, but chooses not to.

God either cannot or will not prevent evil, and is therefore unworthy of praise under Epicurus’ model.

However, these are flawed arguments because they overlook a concept central to Christian theology. The make a long discussion short, Christians explain theodicy away using the concept of “free will,” a power possessed by humans which is outside the influence of God and allows sin into the world.

This view is never explicitly stated in the Bible, but theologians point out that it does explain why God is always asking, or commanding, people to do stuff – rather than just making them do it like a puppet. You have characters like Mary and Abraham asked to do things, which they willingly choose to do (or almost do). Then you have characters like Jonah who deny the request and experience God’s wrath until they agree to obey.

Of course, none of this explains natural disasters, but I don’t even want to imagine the rhetorical gymnastics required to explain that. The whole pamphlet I have in front of me focuses instead on the suffering we inflict on each other, which I concede is greater at this point in history than the toll taken by nature. I will therefore overlook the injustice of nature’s wrath for the purposes of this discussion.

Besides blaming people for most of the ills of the world, this pamphlet exhibits the most annoying (and damaging) response to suffering: the old “well you think you have it bad…” routine.

People who are suffering don’t want to hear about someone who has it worse. If I sprain my ankle, I don’t want a friend to diminish my pain by telling me about they’re brother’s hair dresser’s cousin-in-law whose leg was blown off by a land mine while picking linden berries.

This pamphlet mentions Joseph from Genesis, who was sold into slavery by his brothers. Yeah, I guess being unemployed isn’t as bad as that… and yet I don’t feel any better. By the way… why isn’t slavery a sin? God really dropped the ethical ball on that one.

The third and final pamphlet I kept to look over is titled, “Peace of Mind in a Troubled World.” I should preface this by saying I hate peace of mind; your mind should always be at war. You should never declare an intellectual ceasefire. The minute your mind settles, you become ignorant. You will bar new ideas from challenging the established order to which you cling. Worse, you will likely bend and twist all that you perceive in order to reconcile it with your flawed outlook.

That being said, I can’t say I disagree with this pamphlet. Religion will indeed give you peace of mind. Religion rarely changes. It reiterates itself over and over, relying on repetition over rhetoric. Anything said often enough appears true.

Science, on the other hand, provides no peace of mind. Opinions are always changing. Wasn’t Pluto a planet? What happened to the Brontosaurus? What the hell is quantum entanglement? If you aren’t paying attention, your “scientific knowledge” quickly goes stale. Science has the shelf life of a loaf of bread; religion is more like a Twinkie, with a creamy salvation middle.

Science doesn’t say what we want to hear, either. We aren’t important in science. Science says we are just one of trillions of life forms on a planet circling just one of trillions of stars in the Milky Way, which is one of just trillions of galaxies. Science is the cold hard pursuit of truth, a journey with no final destination; religion is the warm and cozy fireplace back home.

Religion is indeed the gift of peace of mind. Scientists should thank religion for soaking up the ignorant like a sponge. Without religion, the scientific world would be populated with all those mentally-stunted people who would otherwise gravitate towards faith. It would be best if science did not fall prey to the intellectual laziness of religion.

Science has a responsibility to never get comfortable. But that’s science, not atheism. Atheism also carries with it a burden of responsibility. It’s our job to help clean up the mess religion makes, one pamphlet at a time.

Wipe That Stupid Smile Off Your Face

Score another one for the cynics.

In a study that compared subjects in a positive mood to subjects in a negative mood, the sad people scored better in areas such as critical thinking, awareness, judgment, persuasive argument, and memory.

It turns out that thinking positively makes you more gullible. No shock there, but what is interesting about this study is that people in a bad mood are “less likely to make snap decisions based on racial or religious prejudices.”

Rather than negativity being the cause of intelligence, I would hold that intelligence tends to breed negativity. It’s not like frowning and being negative in and of itself should make someone any smarter, or more tolerant...

However, this study was not done based on the normal mood of the subject. The moods being tested were induced through movie viewing and memory recall. The people who were induced to be sad simply scored better.

I have long felt that good perception skills tend to lead towards negative thoughts, but perhaps it works both ways. However, if you’re always positive or always negative, chances are pretty damn good that you aren’t really paying attention.

Islam: The Billion Member Elephant

Among atheist sites I read, Islam is the elephant in the room. We take free shots at Christianity in all its snowflake forms; unique, though basically all the same. Scientology gets it from all sides, from both believer and non-believer alike. Even Judaism gets a fair amount of shit heaped on it – usually from former followers (anyone else is usually off limits… I’m talking to you, Mr. Gibson).

There was that row over the Mohammed cartoon, but it blew over, and there hasn’t been an incident since. With the recent attacks at Fort Hood, maybe this will change. However, there’s always a pre-emptive, anti-backlash campaign after incidents like this. Don’t get me wrong, no Muslim should be persecuted in any physical way, but it’s time we engage on the intellectual battlefield.

The free transmission of ideas is one right that should never be infringed, no matter the circumstance. I emphasize “transmission of ideas,” because the common retort of yelling “Fire!” in a theatre is not about discussion. To me, even yelling “Jihad” or “Allah akbar” is free speech I defend, up to the point where they pull the trigger or flip the switch and harm people. Still, I appreciate them making their message clear; there’s nothing I hate more than unanswered questions.

Islam is not above criticism. Atheists and Christians spar quite frequently over the implications of fanatical violence, but Islam seems to be paired with Judaism as unmentionable – and even Judaism is often indirectly addressed in discussions about Israel. There seems to be a shortage of discussion about Islam that is critical.

I don’t understand why. Atheists: this is the opportunity to expose religion for what it can do to people. We always bring it back to the Crusades when talking to Christians, and they point out that was a long time ago – by the way, yeah it’s a long time ago, like 400-500 years, but you know what’s 2000 years old? That whole Jesus Christ garbage, so stop with the “That was a long time ago” stuff.

Muslim nations provide an endlessly growing list of oppressive acts in the name of religion. Maybe it’s just easier to criticize what’s close to you. It’s also not easy for us to hear someone say “Islam means peace,” and to look them in the face and say, “You lie. It means ‘submission,’ and I submit to no imaginary god, no matter how violently you disagree with me.”

Conservatives Are Insane

The illicit drug market is almost the ideal free market. It works very efficiently and effectively, and it certainly maximizes profits for the vendors, but one can see why regulation is very important for consumables. While drugs are not healthy, the things people “cut” them with are worse.

You see, it’s not enough that dealers sell their product for 25-100% profit, tax-free. Human greed knows no bounds, and dealers are not saints (not all of them, anyway). They cut powder drugs like heroin or cocaine with all manner of substances. Baking powder, baking soda, sugar, artificial sweeteners, salt, crushed pills of all kinds… they often find their way into drugs which users snort and inject.

The government tends to control for those kind of things in a normal market. You don’t open up your Cheerios and find metal nuts and pennies with holes drilled in them (although I wouldn’t put it past the cereal companies… “Now with 200% more of the essential minerals Iron and Copper!”).

I don’t know the definition of “conservative.” I have no clue what it’s really all about. All I know is what I have observed, and I have observed that conservatives are insane.

When markets fail because private companies engage in windfall profit seeking, a conservative will say, “This never would have happened if there were less regulations.” When someone gets shot, they say, “The whole thing would have been averted if everyone had a gun.”

Look… let’s say you and your friends used heroin. If one of your friends OD’d, would the solution be to use more heroin? Of course not, but you’d probably do it anyway. Why? We build up mythological existences for ourselves. When the light of reality creeps in, we shrink deeper into the shadows.

I don’t think drugs should be illegal. I don’t think all guns should be illegal. I don’t think market economics is wrong. But when things get fucked up, I don’t recommend doing drugs, buying a gun, or granting predatory companies who screwed us over the freedom to do it again.

You cannot keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

Violent Eruptions

Guns aren’t to blame for America’s violence. The kinds of guns we have often make the numbers go up, but no one [in their right mind] blames guns for violence. Most people should be able to acquire a gun of some kind if they choose to, but I urge casual gun purchasers to really think about why they want a gun.

Don’t buy a gun because you think it will make you safe or because it’s patriotic. Buy a gun because you like guns and plan to use it, perhaps hunting or target shooting. And please, if you’re going to kill yourself, just do it and don’t take other people with you – even if you have a list of reasons as thick as a phone book to blame everything on others.

That being said, it has become routine in America for “tragic” shootings to grip media attention for a day, then be forgotten. I emphasize “tragic,” because these are always shootings where white people die. If you care about anyone who would get asked for proof of membership at a country club, you have to watch local news.

Apparently violence occurs in minority communities so often that it’s hardly worth mentioning. Violent crime often occurs due to external pressures. Rarely does someone kill because a wire got crossed and they just go nuts. People don’t do drugs and suddenly have the urge to kill. Even a verbal altercation leading up to a murder is rarely the root cause of the murderer’s actions.

Stress builds in each of us every day, and for some people it’s too much. When a society is stressed, more crime occurs. Worse, when our myths become exposed and we are left desperate, all kinds of horrible things become commonplace.

Americans are presented with many appealing fallacies, which we often cling to for comfort. Every time you hear about someone shooting up his former workplace, killing his family, or going to a public place to take pot shots… know that they are someone who had their comfort taken from them. Exposure to a harsh existence does strange things to even the best of us.

I believe we’re all like popcorn. Those at the bottom get exposed to more heat initially, so they pop first. The rest of us follow suit. It is a lonely few kernels at the end who keep their integrity under pressure.

Gun Magic Goes Dud

If only the world were filled with guns, and everyone had one, neigh, a dozen. Then we’d all be safe, because no one would try anything. And even if they did, surely they would be stopped before they did any real damage, right?

This ridiculous myth is perpetuated among many conservatives, from Republicans to Libertarians to Democrats who don’t know any fucking better. It’s a load of bullshit, and today’s “rampage” at Fort Hood proves it.

In a crowd of men trained for combat, where it can be assumed several people, if not everyone, was armed… a dozen people are dead after an incident involving one officer and possibly two others (one shooter was killed and two people were taken into custody, details are too early to tell if they are in any way actually linked).

The whole situation is disheartening, because the shooter is suspected of being an officer who was about to be deployed to Iraq. I think we should chalk these up as deaths resulting from the wars we have no business still being in. I see no need to blame the guns, but I do appreciate that reality continues to support my argument that guns cannot make you safer.

Why I Am Thankful For Government

What’s the difference between a banker and a mugger? Answer: a mugger will only take what you have on you. A banker will take your savings, your car, your house, your kids’ education fund, your credit rating, etc.

I find white-collar crime to be worse than violent street crime. Not only does white-collar crime impact the victim more severely, each act usually affects many people. So when I read stories about insider traders getting hauled off to jail, I smile.

These pricks had it all, and it was not enough. String them up by their ties.

Top Ten: Other Gods

I haven’t been posting much because things are hectic for me lately. There’s been plenty of stuff for me to post about, and I have started about a dozen posts, but something always comes up before I can finish and I end up leaving it half done. Story of my life.

I also had some major computer problems a couple of weeks back. I backed up the important stuff and reformatted my hard drive. After getting the drivers all updated and everything transferred back, my computer is running great.

The problem is, I lost all of my music. The 33,000 or so mp3’s I had won’t be replaced overnight. I just didn’t have any practical way of backing up that much stuff. I made a playlist file of all my music, so I can open that and literally see every song I used to have, but I can’t search through it the way I could before.

Instead of Top Ten lists of songs, I figured I would branch out and do some other top ten lists. Since I haven’t being doing much about religion lately, I figure why not come up with a top ten list of gods who are better than YHWH (which is the name of the Judeo-Christian God, for the sake of all those Christians who have asked me in the past).

Also, I figured I would explain a little about each pick, rather than just list them and leave it up to you to figure out who the Hel these gods are.

10. Hel – Hel is the Norse goddess who oversees a location also called Hel. Hel is where people who die of sickness and old age go. It’s not the burning Hell of Christianity, it’s more a gloomy, boring place. It’s not as glamorous as Valhalla, which is where warriors who die in battle go to fight to the death all day, until they rise again to eat dinner and drink themselves into a stupor while recalling the battle. Hel is more like waiting at the DMV, and the number on the ticker always stays the same. Still, chances are good you’ll die of sickness or old age, so Hel is someone you might want to get to know.

9. Kronos/Saturn – An often forgotten god, his Roman name still lends itself to Saturday, the planet, and a line of cars. He dispatched his father by castrating him, so this god might be a great pick for those who fight dirty. He also ate his children, for fear they would overtake him. Maybe he should be the god of Republicans, as well.

8. Mithra – The only even quasi-Eastern god on my list, Mithra was an interesting god. The word “mithra” means “binding,” and Mithra was the god of truth and oaths. It is likely with this early god pre-dating the Greek pantheon that the practice of formerly swearing oaths to a god was popularized among early Indo-Europeans, a practice still common even in secular Western nations. Mithra was popular in Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism.

7. Odin – Just in case you are in the military, Odin is your guy. If you die in battle, his Valkyries way grab you up and swoop you off to the unending bliss of Valhalla. Odin is the god for whom Wednesday is named (Odin being an Icelandic derivative of Woden). Odin is also the prototype for Santa Claus. Norse children used to put sugar cubes in their socks at night for Odin’s horse to eat. In return, his eight-legged horse Sleipnir (the prototype of Santa’s 8 reindeer) would crap out confections and leave them in the sock. Children who were bad and forgot would be left bloody bones (the Norse were pretty dark).

6. Aphrodite/Venus– Often thought of as the goddess of love, Aphrodite is more accurately the goddess of beauty. She was born from the semen hitting the ocean waves after Kronos castrated his father and threw the testicles into the waves. Hard to believe the result of such an act would be Aphrodite, but myth doesn’t lie!

5. Hades/Pluto – Interestingly, Hades also oversaw a land which shared his name, much like Hel. The difference, however, was that Hades got everyone who wasn’t turned into a god. His Roman counterpart Pluto was further associated with wealth, for he controlled the underworld, the home of gold and gems. Words like Plutocracy (rule by the rich) originate from his name. He would be quite popular in America.

4. Hermes/Mercury – Another popular choice for Americans would be Hermes/Mercury. He is the originator of letters, the fastest of the gods, and is simultaneously the god of both merchants and thieves. Hmm… coincidence? The very name Mercury is the basis for words like merchant, mercenary, and mercurial. Mercury has a planet, line of cars, and an element on the periodic table. YHWH/Jesus has none of those.

3. Apollo/Helios/Sol – Sun worship is one of the only religions to me that makes sense. George Carlin had a great bit about it; you can see the sun, it’s real, it influences you and makes you happy when it’s around. I did a blog post about Heliolatry. There’s plenty of reasons to worship the sun, and Apollo or Helios are good choices, but Sol is another option; she is the Norse Goddess of the sun, and is the namesake of our Solar System.

2. Gaia/Terra/Urd – The earth is an excellent choice when it comes to worship. Environmentalists are already halfway there. Many cults to the Earth Mother are very popular, not only in antiquity, but also today. Gaia is often the most recognizable incarnation, while the Romanized Terra is used in words derived from Latin which pertain to the earth, like terraform. Urd or Urth is the Norse equivalent, and this is the origin of the English word Earth.

1. Eros/Cupid/Love – According to Hesiod, Eros was the first God, before even Uranus. Eros is love, the union between two people. Eros is where we get the word erotic. He is Romanized as Cupid, the winged helper of Venus. Cupid still makes appearances on Valentine’s Day. I have talked to many atheists, but few deny the existence of Love. Yet Love is no more real than any god on this list. Sure, we feel the effects of love, but everyone who has prayed to, or even cursed, a god has felt the influence of that deity. I may not see love the way I see the sun or the Earth, but I feel it, which is what religion is supposedly all about.