Friday, March 16, 2012
Snippet: Communism vs. Laissez-Faire Capitalism
Someone who supports Communism doesn’t know the first thing about economics. Someone who supports laissez-faire Capitalism doesn’t know anything, except the first thing about economics.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
The Great Scientific Mystery of Which No One Speaks
The other day, I sought to answer something that I had no idea was actually a deep scientific conundrum…
There is a temperature at which, according to our understanding of physics, nothing can get colder. As many know, we call this temperature “Absolute zero.” It’s about -460 degrees Fahrenheit, -273 degrees Celsius, or precisely 0 degrees Kelvin (by definition, the Kelvin scale is based off of absolute zero, with degree intervals equal to that of the Celsius scale).
So, my question was: is there an opposite limit for temperature?
As it turns out, quite a few people have wondered this before, and some of the brightest minds in physics have pondered it… and no conclusive answer is out there yet. There are guesses which are based on physics as we know it, but the maximum temperature, or “Absolute hot,” is an issue whose answer lies at the heart of the formation of the universe.
I don’t know the scientific background of my readers, so if I get too dumb here, I apologize.
I think the most important thing to keep in mind in this kind of physics is that matter is composed of energy and heat is a type of energy. In particular, heat is a measure of the kinetic energy (or movement) of particles in a given medium. When you “heat” something, you are increasing its internal kinetic energy so that the atoms and molecules in that substance begin moving faster and faster.
This is why heating water makes it a gas: the water undergoes a phase change at 100 degrees Celsius, which is the cutoff (boiling point) at which water is moving fast enough to evaporate into gaseous form, while the cooling of water to below 0 degree Celsius causes ice to form, which we observe as a solid substance that does not allow for the easy movement of particles. There is another phase of matter, plasma, which is achieved by heating a gas even hotter (flames are in the plasma phase, as are stars).
Oh, there is another phase that occurs near absolute zero, at which point certain matter (which exists as a gas at room temperature and a liquid at very low temperature) becomes a superfluid. I don’t know much about it, but it’s pretty damn cool to observe. Superfluids exhibit no friction or viscosity, so they act in ways you would not expect, like climbing up the walls of a glass or forming perpetual fountains which can persist indefinitely:
I know there are other phases as things get hotter, but I don’t know much about them and can’t pretend to inform you if I’m just now looking it up to see what they are. Suffice to say, I know a lot of them involve the early building blocks of the universe, as it was the cooling of the universe from extreme temperatures which caused the various forms of matter and energy to coalesce.
Based on our current assumptions about physics, there is an upper limit to how hot something can get: particles cannot move faster than light. Something cannot get hotter than the point at which its particles are moving near light speed. According to some law Einstein came up with which I don’t understand at all, the mass of an object increases at as it nears light speed. In an atom, this can occur to a point where the laws of physics as we know them no longer work in a particle.
You see, to heat something up, you keep adding energy to it so that the kinetic energy of the subatomic particles of the matter increases. As the particles near light speed, their mass increases exponentially until it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate the particle to the point of moving at the speed of light. At some point, the force of gravity from the increasing mass of even the most basic baryonic (or mass-possessing) matter begins to overpower that of over other competing forces. At this point, regular physics breaks down, and the atom will cease to be matter as we understand it.
That temperature, as it turns out, has a name: the Planck temperature. So, how hot is it?
Well, it’s about 1.416785×10^32 Kelvin, which is 2.550214×10^32 degrees Fahrenheit. Here, I’ll write that out for you:
255,021,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000° Fahrenheit
or…
141,678,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000° Kelvin and Celsius (it’s basically the same, since 273 degrees difference is negligible at this temperature)
For a little bit of perspective…
Surface of our sun = 6,000° K
Center of our sun = 15,700,000° K
Neutron star about to super nova = ~100,000,000,000° K
Temperature achieved by LHC = 1,600,000,000,000° K
An interesting note: the hottest temperature ever recorded was observed during Large Hadron Collider experiments (it occurred for an infinitesimal moment in time). Take that, universe! We’re number one!
But we know the universe was once the Planck temperature, very early. In fact, it happened one Planck time after the universe began expanding. This Planck guy really liked naming stuff, huh?
As it turns out, one Planck time is so short, it’s the shortest length of time which can theoretically be measured. It’s the time it takes light to travel… wait for it… one Planck length. A Planck length is really small as well.
One Planck time is 10^-43 seconds, or…
~.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds.
One Planck length is 1.61619997×10^-35 meters, or…
Really fucking small. You have got to be kidding me if you want me to write out another ridiculous number that neither you nor I can ever fathom. Suffice to say, it’s so small, we have no way of currently even observing anything on that scale.
So, the universe is a tiny speck after a tiny fraction of a second into its existence as we know it… and it’s unbelievably hot. This makes sense, since there is so much energy in such a small area. I mean, you have to figure that everything in the entire universe was there in the form of pure energy, so of course it’s going to be pretty damn hot.
While this is one proposed maximum temperature, it could be lower (or higher for that matter, but I won’t bother there, because I don’t get it). String theory proposes a few possibilities, ranging from 1% of the Planck temperature (still an enormous number… just move the decimal over two places) down to just around 7% higher than temperatures achieved by the LHC. This is particularly exciting, because this means we may conceivably be able to achieve such conditions and observe the inner workings of the Big Bang.
It will be discoveries like this that help us better understand where we actually came from. If people claim that we should give thanks to the Creator, then the object of our praise should go to heat, and to the entropy that caused it to cool to the point that stars, planets, and life itself was able to take form.
There is a temperature at which, according to our understanding of physics, nothing can get colder. As many know, we call this temperature “Absolute zero.” It’s about -460 degrees Fahrenheit, -273 degrees Celsius, or precisely 0 degrees Kelvin (by definition, the Kelvin scale is based off of absolute zero, with degree intervals equal to that of the Celsius scale).
So, my question was: is there an opposite limit for temperature?
As it turns out, quite a few people have wondered this before, and some of the brightest minds in physics have pondered it… and no conclusive answer is out there yet. There are guesses which are based on physics as we know it, but the maximum temperature, or “Absolute hot,” is an issue whose answer lies at the heart of the formation of the universe.
I don’t know the scientific background of my readers, so if I get too dumb here, I apologize.
I think the most important thing to keep in mind in this kind of physics is that matter is composed of energy and heat is a type of energy. In particular, heat is a measure of the kinetic energy (or movement) of particles in a given medium. When you “heat” something, you are increasing its internal kinetic energy so that the atoms and molecules in that substance begin moving faster and faster.
This is why heating water makes it a gas: the water undergoes a phase change at 100 degrees Celsius, which is the cutoff (boiling point) at which water is moving fast enough to evaporate into gaseous form, while the cooling of water to below 0 degree Celsius causes ice to form, which we observe as a solid substance that does not allow for the easy movement of particles. There is another phase of matter, plasma, which is achieved by heating a gas even hotter (flames are in the plasma phase, as are stars).
Oh, there is another phase that occurs near absolute zero, at which point certain matter (which exists as a gas at room temperature and a liquid at very low temperature) becomes a superfluid. I don’t know much about it, but it’s pretty damn cool to observe. Superfluids exhibit no friction or viscosity, so they act in ways you would not expect, like climbing up the walls of a glass or forming perpetual fountains which can persist indefinitely:
I know there are other phases as things get hotter, but I don’t know much about them and can’t pretend to inform you if I’m just now looking it up to see what they are. Suffice to say, I know a lot of them involve the early building blocks of the universe, as it was the cooling of the universe from extreme temperatures which caused the various forms of matter and energy to coalesce.
Based on our current assumptions about physics, there is an upper limit to how hot something can get: particles cannot move faster than light. Something cannot get hotter than the point at which its particles are moving near light speed. According to some law Einstein came up with which I don’t understand at all, the mass of an object increases at as it nears light speed. In an atom, this can occur to a point where the laws of physics as we know them no longer work in a particle.
You see, to heat something up, you keep adding energy to it so that the kinetic energy of the subatomic particles of the matter increases. As the particles near light speed, their mass increases exponentially until it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate the particle to the point of moving at the speed of light. At some point, the force of gravity from the increasing mass of even the most basic baryonic (or mass-possessing) matter begins to overpower that of over other competing forces. At this point, regular physics breaks down, and the atom will cease to be matter as we understand it.
That temperature, as it turns out, has a name: the Planck temperature. So, how hot is it?
Well, it’s about 1.416785×10^32 Kelvin, which is 2.550214×10^32 degrees Fahrenheit. Here, I’ll write that out for you:
255,021,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000° Fahrenheit
or…
141,678,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000° Kelvin and Celsius (it’s basically the same, since 273 degrees difference is negligible at this temperature)
For a little bit of perspective…
Surface of our sun = 6,000° K
Center of our sun = 15,700,000° K
Neutron star about to super nova = ~100,000,000,000° K
Temperature achieved by LHC = 1,600,000,000,000° K
An interesting note: the hottest temperature ever recorded was observed during Large Hadron Collider experiments (it occurred for an infinitesimal moment in time). Take that, universe! We’re number one!
But we know the universe was once the Planck temperature, very early. In fact, it happened one Planck time after the universe began expanding. This Planck guy really liked naming stuff, huh?
As it turns out, one Planck time is so short, it’s the shortest length of time which can theoretically be measured. It’s the time it takes light to travel… wait for it… one Planck length. A Planck length is really small as well.
One Planck time is 10^-43 seconds, or…
~.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds.
One Planck length is 1.61619997×10^-35 meters, or…
Really fucking small. You have got to be kidding me if you want me to write out another ridiculous number that neither you nor I can ever fathom. Suffice to say, it’s so small, we have no way of currently even observing anything on that scale.
So, the universe is a tiny speck after a tiny fraction of a second into its existence as we know it… and it’s unbelievably hot. This makes sense, since there is so much energy in such a small area. I mean, you have to figure that everything in the entire universe was there in the form of pure energy, so of course it’s going to be pretty damn hot.
While this is one proposed maximum temperature, it could be lower (or higher for that matter, but I won’t bother there, because I don’t get it). String theory proposes a few possibilities, ranging from 1% of the Planck temperature (still an enormous number… just move the decimal over two places) down to just around 7% higher than temperatures achieved by the LHC. This is particularly exciting, because this means we may conceivably be able to achieve such conditions and observe the inner workings of the Big Bang.
It will be discoveries like this that help us better understand where we actually came from. If people claim that we should give thanks to the Creator, then the object of our praise should go to heat, and to the entropy that caused it to cool to the point that stars, planets, and life itself was able to take form.
Snippet: Men, Women, and Their Porn
Both men and women love porn. The difference between men and women is that every guy will admit they watch porn, but they won’t admit which kind. Few women admit to enjoying porn, but those who do will tell you precisely what they like. For women, I guess there’s nothing embarrassing about getting off on something you read, whereas for men, perhaps the most awkward moment of our day is closing all the browsers after we’re done and having to confront what we’ve just been watching.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Most Generic Place in America
And don’t forget the richer suburb, New East Mount Santa Greenchesterfordingtonsideportvilleburglandianapolisfieldshire-viewborowood Spring Hills
Survey Results: Can Atheism Be a Religion?
Out of 83 votes cast on my site, 14 say “Yes,” that religion can be a religion, while 69 say “No.” He he he… 69…
Anyway, I think this is one of those times where people didn’t think too hard before responding. Maybe I’m wrong, but I bet most of the people who said “No” were atheists who are both sick of religious people calling atheism a religion and read the question as more like, “Is atheism a religion [to you]?”
I didn’t vote, but if I had, I would have voted “Yes.” Of course atheism can be a religion. Come on people, all someone would have to do is form a religion, call it atheism, apply for tax-exempt status, and boom: atheism is a religion. So yes, in a superficial and near meaningless way, atheism can be a religion, like how a Lamborghini can be turned on its side and used as a section of fencing or a telescope can be used as a murder weapon.
But in a less facetious, literal sense… will atheism become a religion? That’s a question worth exploring.
There are people trying. I hear they aren’t doing a great job, and I’m unfamiliar with their work, but apparently there is an entire branch of “atheology” wherein atheists are trying to adapt aspects of theistic religions for use by atheists. From what I have observed, there is a general distaste for these types of atheists in the overall community, and I sense that most who are not hostile to such actions are like me: disinterested.
Still, some types of atheists I have encountered make me fairly confident there will be a movement of atheist-based religion (and I don’t mean pre-existing religions which are atheistic, though those may gain influence and acceptance as atheism itself becomes more popular).
How many others of you have interacted with people who describe themselves as “atheist but spiritual?” It’s reminiscent of “spiritual, but not religious.” There is a great range of beliefs covered here, from those who believe in reincarnation or some form of afterlife (and by extension, belief in some eternal part of us, akin to the idea of a soul) to those who simply see a need for organized community and morality.
In a world where the majority is atheist (a reality I see happening someday, even if not in my lifetime), there may be a push from the masses towards forming some kind of Atheism (with a big A) that people can rally around. In fact, it will probably happen before a true majority is achieved. It is hard to imagine a movement becoming very popular without some form of organization behind it, even if it’s decentralized, egalitarian, and non-religious. Many would point out it’s already happening.
The real question, I think, is how does one define religion?
I have noticed that people who haven’t studied religion formally have a drastically different way of defining religion than those who take the time to learn about many religions. The average person sees religion in the context of the religions they see and interact with, ignoring a vast spectrum of faiths which are undeniably religions, but would be unrecognizable as such according to the definition of an average person.
And yet, the definition given by many academics is not much better. I have tried to no avail for years to try to adopt it, and I have verbalized an acceptance of it, but I don’t feel it. Academics are focused on the notion of ritual as religion. I find this view vague, because while all religion has ritual (which is why this aspect was chosen by those who study many religions), there is a problem in determining if a ritual is religious or not, because not all ritual is religion.
Basic hygiene is full of rituals, and many religions prescribe elements of proper hygiene, but hygiene itself wouldn’t be viewed by most people as “religion.” There is something else almost intangible which makes a set of rituals a religion.
Many people (I imagine atheists in particular) might jump to say that the presence of gods is the missing piece, but this is erroneous. Gods have little or nothing to do with what makes a religion a religion. You can believe in gods without practicing any religion at all (and indeed, irreligiosity has existed far longer than atheism). You can also practice a religion without believing in gods.
So… ultimately, you cannot use gods to define religion, even though most religions we are familiar with rely upon them. Saying “religion relies on the belief in gods” is basically as false and narrow minded as saying, “religion relies on the belief in God.”
This is ultimately why I know atheism can be a religion. If religion was defined as “the belief in gods,” then obviously atheism could never be a religion, but that is not a working definition for religion, it is the definition for “theism.”
Ultimately, it almost seems as though “religion” is a meaningless term. Every definition appears to be too narrow or too ambiguous (religion is in good company, though, alongside “life” and “love,” as being simultaneously undefined and accepted as real). I have never seen a proper definition that includes all religions while also excluding all non-religions. How meaningful is the word, then?
Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, but perhaps religion is just one’s worldview in practice. If this is the definition, then all people have religion, or rather, all people who are able to think and make decisions have religion. This doesn’t mean that an atheist’s religion is atheism, though. I know for me personally, going by this definition of religion as worldview, my religion wouldn’t be atheism, it would be liberalism.
Liberalism is my worldview. That is the outlook that informs my opinions and decisions. There is very little I do because of atheism, and almost none of it goes on outside of this blog. Few of my opinions of the world, other people, or ideas have anything to do with atheism. Yet I don’t know if liberalism should be considered a religion (except by those who would like to deride it).
Strangely enough, if you look back through history, what we call “religion” would have been seen by those living under it as merely “the law.” Politics and religion were one in the same for all of recorded history before the Englightenment, and it took many efforts to separate the two in Europe and then the US before it became common practice to run government in a secular manner, independent from religion.
So then, what is a religion? Well, as near as I can tell, it’s a political philosophy that doesn’t have to pay taxes. That’s the best definition I can come up with, and it’s bullshit (though bullshit that is at least true).
Will atheism ever be a religion? I don’t know, but perhaps if people started truly seeing it as one, atheists could argue their points with the full, undeniable weight of religious freedom and fair treatment on their side (even though I think that is what we are due, anyway). In many ways, it may help atheism if it were seen and accepted as a religion, even though most atheists cringe at the thought.
What would Atheism, the religion, look like? I can tell you what I would like it to look like. I would like it to be everything religion is not. Oh the irony…
I would want Atheism to be concerned with universally applied equal rights. I would want Atheism to be uninterested in judging a person by their gender, race, age, sexuality, nationality, language, disability, class, political affiliation, or even religious views. I would want the outcome of a person’s actions to represent them, not superficial perceptions or even their well-intentioned motivations. I would want Atheists to be charitable, and to aim their efforts at helping those who have the most difficulty in this world. Finally, I would want Atheists to have a sense of humor…
… because our religion would be a joke.
Anyway, I think this is one of those times where people didn’t think too hard before responding. Maybe I’m wrong, but I bet most of the people who said “No” were atheists who are both sick of religious people calling atheism a religion and read the question as more like, “Is atheism a religion [to you]?”
I didn’t vote, but if I had, I would have voted “Yes.” Of course atheism can be a religion. Come on people, all someone would have to do is form a religion, call it atheism, apply for tax-exempt status, and boom: atheism is a religion. So yes, in a superficial and near meaningless way, atheism can be a religion, like how a Lamborghini can be turned on its side and used as a section of fencing or a telescope can be used as a murder weapon.
But in a less facetious, literal sense… will atheism become a religion? That’s a question worth exploring.
There are people trying. I hear they aren’t doing a great job, and I’m unfamiliar with their work, but apparently there is an entire branch of “atheology” wherein atheists are trying to adapt aspects of theistic religions for use by atheists. From what I have observed, there is a general distaste for these types of atheists in the overall community, and I sense that most who are not hostile to such actions are like me: disinterested.
Still, some types of atheists I have encountered make me fairly confident there will be a movement of atheist-based religion (and I don’t mean pre-existing religions which are atheistic, though those may gain influence and acceptance as atheism itself becomes more popular).
How many others of you have interacted with people who describe themselves as “atheist but spiritual?” It’s reminiscent of “spiritual, but not religious.” There is a great range of beliefs covered here, from those who believe in reincarnation or some form of afterlife (and by extension, belief in some eternal part of us, akin to the idea of a soul) to those who simply see a need for organized community and morality.
In a world where the majority is atheist (a reality I see happening someday, even if not in my lifetime), there may be a push from the masses towards forming some kind of Atheism (with a big A) that people can rally around. In fact, it will probably happen before a true majority is achieved. It is hard to imagine a movement becoming very popular without some form of organization behind it, even if it’s decentralized, egalitarian, and non-religious. Many would point out it’s already happening.
The real question, I think, is how does one define religion?
I have noticed that people who haven’t studied religion formally have a drastically different way of defining religion than those who take the time to learn about many religions. The average person sees religion in the context of the religions they see and interact with, ignoring a vast spectrum of faiths which are undeniably religions, but would be unrecognizable as such according to the definition of an average person.
And yet, the definition given by many academics is not much better. I have tried to no avail for years to try to adopt it, and I have verbalized an acceptance of it, but I don’t feel it. Academics are focused on the notion of ritual as religion. I find this view vague, because while all religion has ritual (which is why this aspect was chosen by those who study many religions), there is a problem in determining if a ritual is religious or not, because not all ritual is religion.
Basic hygiene is full of rituals, and many religions prescribe elements of proper hygiene, but hygiene itself wouldn’t be viewed by most people as “religion.” There is something else almost intangible which makes a set of rituals a religion.
Many people (I imagine atheists in particular) might jump to say that the presence of gods is the missing piece, but this is erroneous. Gods have little or nothing to do with what makes a religion a religion. You can believe in gods without practicing any religion at all (and indeed, irreligiosity has existed far longer than atheism). You can also practice a religion without believing in gods.
So… ultimately, you cannot use gods to define religion, even though most religions we are familiar with rely upon them. Saying “religion relies on the belief in gods” is basically as false and narrow minded as saying, “religion relies on the belief in God.”
This is ultimately why I know atheism can be a religion. If religion was defined as “the belief in gods,” then obviously atheism could never be a religion, but that is not a working definition for religion, it is the definition for “theism.”
Ultimately, it almost seems as though “religion” is a meaningless term. Every definition appears to be too narrow or too ambiguous (religion is in good company, though, alongside “life” and “love,” as being simultaneously undefined and accepted as real). I have never seen a proper definition that includes all religions while also excluding all non-religions. How meaningful is the word, then?
Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing here, but perhaps religion is just one’s worldview in practice. If this is the definition, then all people have religion, or rather, all people who are able to think and make decisions have religion. This doesn’t mean that an atheist’s religion is atheism, though. I know for me personally, going by this definition of religion as worldview, my religion wouldn’t be atheism, it would be liberalism.
Liberalism is my worldview. That is the outlook that informs my opinions and decisions. There is very little I do because of atheism, and almost none of it goes on outside of this blog. Few of my opinions of the world, other people, or ideas have anything to do with atheism. Yet I don’t know if liberalism should be considered a religion (except by those who would like to deride it).
Strangely enough, if you look back through history, what we call “religion” would have been seen by those living under it as merely “the law.” Politics and religion were one in the same for all of recorded history before the Englightenment, and it took many efforts to separate the two in Europe and then the US before it became common practice to run government in a secular manner, independent from religion.
So then, what is a religion? Well, as near as I can tell, it’s a political philosophy that doesn’t have to pay taxes. That’s the best definition I can come up with, and it’s bullshit (though bullshit that is at least true).
Will atheism ever be a religion? I don’t know, but perhaps if people started truly seeing it as one, atheists could argue their points with the full, undeniable weight of religious freedom and fair treatment on their side (even though I think that is what we are due, anyway). In many ways, it may help atheism if it were seen and accepted as a religion, even though most atheists cringe at the thought.
What would Atheism, the religion, look like? I can tell you what I would like it to look like. I would like it to be everything religion is not. Oh the irony…
I would want Atheism to be concerned with universally applied equal rights. I would want Atheism to be uninterested in judging a person by their gender, race, age, sexuality, nationality, language, disability, class, political affiliation, or even religious views. I would want the outcome of a person’s actions to represent them, not superficial perceptions or even their well-intentioned motivations. I would want Atheists to be charitable, and to aim their efforts at helping those who have the most difficulty in this world. Finally, I would want Atheists to have a sense of humor…
… because our religion would be a joke.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The Protestant Reformation’s Contribution to Atheism
I love studying religion, because if you study religion through history, you get a very interesting look at history itself. If you combine this with a study in scientific history, literary history, and military history, you have yourself a pretty damn comprehensive look at the full extent of human development since the advent of writing (looking back further is also interesting, but it’s more speculative and factually patchy).
One thing I tend to keep in mind when studying religion is atheism, even though most atheists wouldn’t consider it a religion. I’m pretty sure you can imagine why I do lump it in with religious studies, even if atheism isn’t a religion itself (or is it… but that’s a topic for another post).
So, even though atheism does not ideologically emerge until the 19th century, I look for precursors and influences towards atheist and skeptical thought as I peruse the history, philosophy, theology, and even mythology of the world.
While I must give a nod to the ancient Greeks and Muslims of the Golden Age of Islam for preparing the soil, I think you really see the seeds of atheism planted in Europe during the Protestant Reformation and subsequent Enlightenment.
When Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Church of Wittenberg in 1517, what he accomplished was almost as significant as the work of Copernicus. He stood up to the authority of the church, and he did so as an insider. He helped pave the way for acceptance of the Copernican model and scientific discoveries by Galileo, beginning a process of (sometimes labored) Church endorsement of science which culminates with Isaac Newton.
This isn’t to say that I sing the praises of religion during this era, nor do I think religion is a pre-condition for science, but rather, the reality was that Europe had been thrown into a several century-long rut since the fall of the Roman Empire, and part of this was attributable to the monolithic and suppressing power of the Church.
When Luther stood up to the Christian authority and called into question the practices of the Church, he started a revolution of the mind that swept Europe. It even affected those loyal to the Pope, for even if the papacy was the ultimate authority in your mind, you could not deny he was no longer the only authority. Just the mere existence of choice is enough to force the mind to think, consider, and ultimately reject something.
There have been religions (like Buddhism and Jainism) and philosophers (like Epicurus or the Stoics) who have adopted the view that the gods do not need or deserve worship, but only in 19th century Europe did people reject the very idea of gods.
This may surprise some people (though hopefully not regular readers of my blog). I’m of the opinion there must have been individuals who were atheists in the modern sense, but there is no record of them. The term “atheist” and it’s etymological roots go back to Greek, where an atheist was merely synonymous with “impious.” Mocking, taunting or questioning the power of the gods would be the act of an atheist. The problem is, that does not entail a lack of belief in gods. With the rise of Christianity, believers in the Roman pantheon called the Christians “atheists,” and the Christians called the Hellenes “atheists.” Both believed in god(s), it’s just that they disagreed on which one(s).
Oddly enough, monotheism’s rejection of the very existence of other gods played a small part in the formulation of atheism, as it is a shift away from the syncretism (or blending of foreign faiths with the familiar) among the Greeks and Romans towards one of flat out denying the very truth of heathen religions.
In order for serious philosophers to reach the point of formulating and adopting atheism as we know it, it was important to have a greater understanding of the universe. It’s not that atheism required science. Science provided answers, and people find answers comforting, so it provided a soft landing for those jumping off the religious bandwagon. Any atheist prior to the Enlightenment would have been wandering aimlessly in the wilderness of the mind, which may be why we never hear of them.
Luther’s decision to base his religion off the Bible, rather than the Church hierarchy, was a major step towards looking outside the traditional structure for answers. Luther’s courage in following what he thought was right in the face of what could well have been his tortuous demise was a priceless philosophical action that ranks in importance alongside the death of Socrates and the American Revolution.
More than any non-scientist of his era, I believe Luther’s actions set the stage for atheist ideology to not only emerge, but gain acceptance and even influence. Now, I know what most victim-minded atheists might think, but trust me, there is widespread acceptance where Luther’s work is influential. People in Europe, America, and Australia aren’t being put to death for atheism. I know that’s a low bar, but it is an important milestone; you cannot flourish if you are being hunted down.
The Protestant Reformation wasn’t just about skeptics leaving the Catholic Church, either. It was also about the Catholic Church itself changing. This began a long tradition of slow progress in modernizing religion, both within the Church and among Protestant sects. Continued “reinterpretations” which are so often fueled by internal and external social pressures to liberalize have allowed most Western religions to lose a great deal of their bite.
Besides becoming more and more harmless, modern liberal religions are only a philosophical hop, skip and a jump away from atheism. While fundamentalism gets all the attention from the media and atheists, this is largely because they are such lightning rods for controversy and they make for a good news story or boogeyman. They are easy targets of criticism and disgust, and it is right to oppose them, but the majority of people are not a part of the more nefarious or just plain irritating strains of religion.
This should be heartening to any atheist. People have gotten less and less religious as a whole over the years. Even in the US, the supposed bastion of Western religion, the young continue to embrace atheism more and more with each passing generation. I’m not a particularly positive person, but I am hopelessly optimistic in regards to the notion that atheism is on an inevitable path towards being the dominant religious affiliation of the future.
The question is… will atheism pick up the flag of religion and run with it, or is this the dawning of a new era in post-theist philosophy?
One thing I tend to keep in mind when studying religion is atheism, even though most atheists wouldn’t consider it a religion. I’m pretty sure you can imagine why I do lump it in with religious studies, even if atheism isn’t a religion itself (or is it… but that’s a topic for another post).
So, even though atheism does not ideologically emerge until the 19th century, I look for precursors and influences towards atheist and skeptical thought as I peruse the history, philosophy, theology, and even mythology of the world.
While I must give a nod to the ancient Greeks and Muslims of the Golden Age of Islam for preparing the soil, I think you really see the seeds of atheism planted in Europe during the Protestant Reformation and subsequent Enlightenment.
When Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Church of Wittenberg in 1517, what he accomplished was almost as significant as the work of Copernicus. He stood up to the authority of the church, and he did so as an insider. He helped pave the way for acceptance of the Copernican model and scientific discoveries by Galileo, beginning a process of (sometimes labored) Church endorsement of science which culminates with Isaac Newton.
This isn’t to say that I sing the praises of religion during this era, nor do I think religion is a pre-condition for science, but rather, the reality was that Europe had been thrown into a several century-long rut since the fall of the Roman Empire, and part of this was attributable to the monolithic and suppressing power of the Church.
When Luther stood up to the Christian authority and called into question the practices of the Church, he started a revolution of the mind that swept Europe. It even affected those loyal to the Pope, for even if the papacy was the ultimate authority in your mind, you could not deny he was no longer the only authority. Just the mere existence of choice is enough to force the mind to think, consider, and ultimately reject something.
There have been religions (like Buddhism and Jainism) and philosophers (like Epicurus or the Stoics) who have adopted the view that the gods do not need or deserve worship, but only in 19th century Europe did people reject the very idea of gods.
This may surprise some people (though hopefully not regular readers of my blog). I’m of the opinion there must have been individuals who were atheists in the modern sense, but there is no record of them. The term “atheist” and it’s etymological roots go back to Greek, where an atheist was merely synonymous with “impious.” Mocking, taunting or questioning the power of the gods would be the act of an atheist. The problem is, that does not entail a lack of belief in gods. With the rise of Christianity, believers in the Roman pantheon called the Christians “atheists,” and the Christians called the Hellenes “atheists.” Both believed in god(s), it’s just that they disagreed on which one(s).
Oddly enough, monotheism’s rejection of the very existence of other gods played a small part in the formulation of atheism, as it is a shift away from the syncretism (or blending of foreign faiths with the familiar) among the Greeks and Romans towards one of flat out denying the very truth of heathen religions.
In order for serious philosophers to reach the point of formulating and adopting atheism as we know it, it was important to have a greater understanding of the universe. It’s not that atheism required science. Science provided answers, and people find answers comforting, so it provided a soft landing for those jumping off the religious bandwagon. Any atheist prior to the Enlightenment would have been wandering aimlessly in the wilderness of the mind, which may be why we never hear of them.
Luther’s decision to base his religion off the Bible, rather than the Church hierarchy, was a major step towards looking outside the traditional structure for answers. Luther’s courage in following what he thought was right in the face of what could well have been his tortuous demise was a priceless philosophical action that ranks in importance alongside the death of Socrates and the American Revolution.
More than any non-scientist of his era, I believe Luther’s actions set the stage for atheist ideology to not only emerge, but gain acceptance and even influence. Now, I know what most victim-minded atheists might think, but trust me, there is widespread acceptance where Luther’s work is influential. People in Europe, America, and Australia aren’t being put to death for atheism. I know that’s a low bar, but it is an important milestone; you cannot flourish if you are being hunted down.
The Protestant Reformation wasn’t just about skeptics leaving the Catholic Church, either. It was also about the Catholic Church itself changing. This began a long tradition of slow progress in modernizing religion, both within the Church and among Protestant sects. Continued “reinterpretations” which are so often fueled by internal and external social pressures to liberalize have allowed most Western religions to lose a great deal of their bite.
Besides becoming more and more harmless, modern liberal religions are only a philosophical hop, skip and a jump away from atheism. While fundamentalism gets all the attention from the media and atheists, this is largely because they are such lightning rods for controversy and they make for a good news story or boogeyman. They are easy targets of criticism and disgust, and it is right to oppose them, but the majority of people are not a part of the more nefarious or just plain irritating strains of religion.
This should be heartening to any atheist. People have gotten less and less religious as a whole over the years. Even in the US, the supposed bastion of Western religion, the young continue to embrace atheism more and more with each passing generation. I’m not a particularly positive person, but I am hopelessly optimistic in regards to the notion that atheism is on an inevitable path towards being the dominant religious affiliation of the future.
The question is… will atheism pick up the flag of religion and run with it, or is this the dawning of a new era in post-theist philosophy?
Conservatives Over Four Times More Racially Intolerant Than Liberals
The headline of this five-month-old Gallup Poll is a bit misleading, in my view. “Record-High 86% Approve of Black-White Marriages” doesn’t really focus on what I found most disturbing, which is that 14% of Americans are ignorant racists. That’s about 1 in 7 Americans.
Among the results, there are some telling details.
The most striking to me is the difference between liberals, moderates and conservatives. Liberals are 95% in favor, moderates are 90% in favor, but a whopping 22% of people who identify as conservative are not okay with a white person and a black person getting married. That’s over 1 in 5 people who identify as “conservative,” compared to 1 in 20 liberals and 1 in 10 moderates.
The age breakdown is also quite telling. People aged 18 to 29 are 97% in favor, people 30-49 are 91% in favor, people 50-64 are 88% in favor, but then you get into people over 65, where only 66% approve of black-white interracial couples. Age seems to be an even more likely indicator than political view, as 1 in 3 people over 65 oppose interracial marriage between black people and white people.
Another area that is also worth noting is the disparity between those of differing education levels. Those with a postgraduate degree are 94% in favor, college graduates are 92% in favor, those with some college experience are 91% in favor, but those who dropped out of or only completed high school are only 78% in favor.
Region also seems to play a minor role. Those from the West are 91% in favor, those form the East are 90% in favor, and then you see a marked drop off as you look to the Midwest (86% approval) and the South (79% approval). While this may seem significant, they are noticeably less drastic than age, and slightly less pronounced than education.
Age, education and region are also indicative of political leaning, with those who are young, more educated, and living on the coasts more likely to be liberal, while the old, less educated, and those living in the South and Midwest are more likely to be conservative… and apparently, racist.
Among the results, there are some telling details.
The most striking to me is the difference between liberals, moderates and conservatives. Liberals are 95% in favor, moderates are 90% in favor, but a whopping 22% of people who identify as conservative are not okay with a white person and a black person getting married. That’s over 1 in 5 people who identify as “conservative,” compared to 1 in 20 liberals and 1 in 10 moderates.
The age breakdown is also quite telling. People aged 18 to 29 are 97% in favor, people 30-49 are 91% in favor, people 50-64 are 88% in favor, but then you get into people over 65, where only 66% approve of black-white interracial couples. Age seems to be an even more likely indicator than political view, as 1 in 3 people over 65 oppose interracial marriage between black people and white people.
Another area that is also worth noting is the disparity between those of differing education levels. Those with a postgraduate degree are 94% in favor, college graduates are 92% in favor, those with some college experience are 91% in favor, but those who dropped out of or only completed high school are only 78% in favor.
Region also seems to play a minor role. Those from the West are 91% in favor, those form the East are 90% in favor, and then you see a marked drop off as you look to the Midwest (86% approval) and the South (79% approval). While this may seem significant, they are noticeably less drastic than age, and slightly less pronounced than education.
Age, education and region are also indicative of political leaning, with those who are young, more educated, and living on the coasts more likely to be liberal, while the old, less educated, and those living in the South and Midwest are more likely to be conservative… and apparently, racist.
Top Ten: Realities We Would Be Facing If McCain Had Been President
10. Zero international respect
9. No repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’tTell
8. The death of the American auto industry
7. Troops still in Iraq
6. Higher taxes for 95% of working families
5. Insurance companies dropping sick people
4. Being deeply embroiled in a war with Iran
3. No economic turn around
2. Two more conservative Supreme Court appointments
1. No questions regarding Obama’s birth
9. No repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’tTell
8. The death of the American auto industry
7. Troops still in Iraq
6. Higher taxes for 95% of working families
5. Insurance companies dropping sick people
4. Being deeply embroiled in a war with Iran
3. No economic turn around
2. Two more conservative Supreme Court appointments
1. No questions regarding Obama’s birth
Monday, March 12, 2012
On Video Games and Censorship
If you indulge me with this one final post on the matter, I shall retire my near endless series on posts about word choice. I think you’ll see I’m taking this in a novel direction, and hopefully I can get some feedback from people who can either confirm or deny some of these ideas (where the gamers at?).
I used to play video games all the time. I still do, but I used to, as well.
[RIP Mitch Hedberg]
What I don’t do anymore is play online multiplayer games, for a few reasons. Without going too in-depth, since this isn’t really important, I don’t think it’s right for me to play expensive, time-consuming games while I’m unemployed. I’m more into simple, classic games now (i.e. free games or games I already own).
But there’s a strange phenomena within the online gaming community that always confused and irritated me: censorship.
Most online games allow for chat between players, and as you might guess, in a world where people experience frustration and are completely anonymous, a lot of incredibly horrible things get typed out for others to read. That always struck me… because it’s one thing to shout “Fuck!” at the moment of defeat, but it’s another entirely to hit Enter, type “Fuck,” then hit Enter again. It seems stupid to me, but it happens constantly.
And “Fuck” is about the kindest thing you can expect to find. That’s what Mormons who lose might type (that comment is based on a true story). You can generally expect some random stream of the following words all mushed together in a seemingly incoherent epithet: nigger, cunt, bitch, fag, faggot, pussy, twat, retard… you get the idea.
And those are just expletives. People casually throw around words like “rape” and “gangbang,” perhaps in a way most people would find offensive, but which has no such negative connotation in the game. People willingly even use the terms in reference to themselves: “Holy fucking shit, that nigger just jumped out of nowhere and raped me,” or “those cunts just gangbanged our whole guild.” Here’s an instance where I would rather have been the nigger or the cunt.
As you might imagine, this offends people, and when people get offended, they often get very bitchy. So, they bitch to the company who runs the game, and the company either tells them to fuck off or they put in a word filter that censors out naughty language.
And it never works. [A third option, which does “work,” but is grossly unfair because of the selective application of such rules, is to suspend or ban players who break certain ambiguous, undefined guidelines.]
A few things happen. First, people start typing the words using alternate letters or symbols. Sure, you can’t call someone a “cunt,” but you can call them a (unt, [unt, kunt… or any of a number of other permutations using 1337 5P34|< (leet speak, a generally well understood alternate alphabet using numbers and symbols). People find different typed characters that allow them to get around the filter to say what they wanted to say in the first place.
“Retard” can be written out as just “r-tard,” since any retard can fill in the blank. This is actually particularly damning, because a whole new set of insults arise from people using this system. There are people now who actually say out loud, in real life, “r-tard,” pronouncing the letter “r” and then saying “tard.” Talk about retarded. You also have “!” able to fill in any “i,” so you see n!gger and b!tch. It’s common to see f@g and @ss. It’s just not difficult to get around filters.
Then you have folks like me. I always prided myself on coming up with creative insults, usually aimed more at making people laugh at my expression of frustration than at actually insulting them (though plenty of them were insulting if taken seriously, they were so over the top, they were mostly just amusing). Unfortunately, none come to mind… oh wait, I remember one in particular that I used for quite a while as a sort of go-to insult: cum-gargling assclown (azzclown if “ass” was filtered).
So, enough mindless insults… what’s the point of me bringing this up?
Even if you flat out ban the use of certain words, people still find ways to be offensive. If anything, word filters in video games have hyper-charged the evolutionary process of insults. I think George Carlin would have had a joygasm is he had been a video game player, because the level of creative filth flying around the chat logs of online gamers is – for lack of a better word – epic.
In fact, one thing I learned is that I think you can be more offensive not using dirty words than by relying on dirty words alone. Calling a black person a “nigger” is offensive, and I think everyone reading my blog can agree you not only shouldn’t do it, but you look like a racist piece of shit if you do. Is that as offensive as questioning someone’s species? Is that as bad as being blamed for AIDS? Is it as awful as taking what are truly tragic statistics about the real difficulties faced by black people and using them to belittle an entire race of people?
Which would you rather be called? A nigger, or AIDS-ridden monkey jailfodder? Yes, the correct answer is, “neither,” but if you had to choose…
Calling someone a word that is offensive is a shortcut to offending them, but it’s also a slightly sterilized euphemism. We can all acknowledge such terms are boring and lazy, but should we be encouraging people to get creative when it comes to insulting others? I kind of like the quaint feel of a single word, because it can never mean something more offensive than the mind of the one who hears or reads it. There’s an almost limiting-factor to traditional insults, one ignored by people who think such words are the worst of the worst (I assume such people are boring and unimaginative).
In my experience, I have insulted a lot of people. I mean… I’ve insulted more people than I’ve met. That is not easy to do. From that, I’ve found one thing in particular to be true: anyone can handle being called a name, but many people can’t handle a finely tuned insult based on a truth which applies to them, even if it lacks any word that would be bleeped on daytime television.
In fact, you can offend people to no end without ever using profanity. If your goal is to piss people off, you don’t need to use one dirty word. I’m not saying you shouldn’t… in fact, I think you should use foul language, because using a word like “fuck” early is like putting up a big flag saying, “If you offend easily, this is not for you.” I do use such language when I know what I say might offend someone because I want people to know they should have their guard up before I swing (I’m not one to sucker punch).
Personally, my goal isn’t to insult people, but I love saying things that are true and which I can’t find said elsewhere. There are just certain things I know other people have noticed too, but perhaps they were just too big of a pussy to say something before. And that’s cool, I want to share that moment with you, and I’m happy to take the heat if anyone with sand in their vagina happens to come across it and think they need to give me a piece of their mind. I can handle whatever piece they give me, and if they hand over the whole thing, I’m happy to have been the reason they lost their mind that day.
It’s not that I enjoy pissing people off, it’s that I know when people get pissed off at something I say, it’s because I struck a nerve. People react to lies and mistakes in a completely different fashion than to how they react to some fact they don’t want to confront. When people throw a hissy fit over something, it’s because there’s a nugget of truth there. This isn’t to say everything that people get upset about is completely true, but I also know that if it was completely untrue, it would have been largely ignored.
Nothing confirms a theory quite like having someone it applies to calling you names while ignoring the message. Again, it’s not that I like pissing people off, it just so happens that I like finding out the truth, and the truth pisses people off.
I used to play video games all the time. I still do, but I used to, as well.
[RIP Mitch Hedberg]
What I don’t do anymore is play online multiplayer games, for a few reasons. Without going too in-depth, since this isn’t really important, I don’t think it’s right for me to play expensive, time-consuming games while I’m unemployed. I’m more into simple, classic games now (i.e. free games or games I already own).
But there’s a strange phenomena within the online gaming community that always confused and irritated me: censorship.
Most online games allow for chat between players, and as you might guess, in a world where people experience frustration and are completely anonymous, a lot of incredibly horrible things get typed out for others to read. That always struck me… because it’s one thing to shout “Fuck!” at the moment of defeat, but it’s another entirely to hit Enter, type “Fuck,” then hit Enter again. It seems stupid to me, but it happens constantly.
And “Fuck” is about the kindest thing you can expect to find. That’s what Mormons who lose might type (that comment is based on a true story). You can generally expect some random stream of the following words all mushed together in a seemingly incoherent epithet: nigger, cunt, bitch, fag, faggot, pussy, twat, retard… you get the idea.
And those are just expletives. People casually throw around words like “rape” and “gangbang,” perhaps in a way most people would find offensive, but which has no such negative connotation in the game. People willingly even use the terms in reference to themselves: “Holy fucking shit, that nigger just jumped out of nowhere and raped me,” or “those cunts just gangbanged our whole guild.” Here’s an instance where I would rather have been the nigger or the cunt.
As you might imagine, this offends people, and when people get offended, they often get very bitchy. So, they bitch to the company who runs the game, and the company either tells them to fuck off or they put in a word filter that censors out naughty language.
And it never works. [A third option, which does “work,” but is grossly unfair because of the selective application of such rules, is to suspend or ban players who break certain ambiguous, undefined guidelines.]
A few things happen. First, people start typing the words using alternate letters or symbols. Sure, you can’t call someone a “cunt,” but you can call them a (unt, [unt, kunt… or any of a number of other permutations using 1337 5P34|< (leet speak, a generally well understood alternate alphabet using numbers and symbols). People find different typed characters that allow them to get around the filter to say what they wanted to say in the first place.
“Retard” can be written out as just “r-tard,” since any retard can fill in the blank. This is actually particularly damning, because a whole new set of insults arise from people using this system. There are people now who actually say out loud, in real life, “r-tard,” pronouncing the letter “r” and then saying “tard.” Talk about retarded. You also have “!” able to fill in any “i,” so you see n!gger and b!tch. It’s common to see f@g and @ss. It’s just not difficult to get around filters.
Then you have folks like me. I always prided myself on coming up with creative insults, usually aimed more at making people laugh at my expression of frustration than at actually insulting them (though plenty of them were insulting if taken seriously, they were so over the top, they were mostly just amusing). Unfortunately, none come to mind… oh wait, I remember one in particular that I used for quite a while as a sort of go-to insult: cum-gargling assclown (azzclown if “ass” was filtered).
So, enough mindless insults… what’s the point of me bringing this up?
Even if you flat out ban the use of certain words, people still find ways to be offensive. If anything, word filters in video games have hyper-charged the evolutionary process of insults. I think George Carlin would have had a joygasm is he had been a video game player, because the level of creative filth flying around the chat logs of online gamers is – for lack of a better word – epic.
In fact, one thing I learned is that I think you can be more offensive not using dirty words than by relying on dirty words alone. Calling a black person a “nigger” is offensive, and I think everyone reading my blog can agree you not only shouldn’t do it, but you look like a racist piece of shit if you do. Is that as offensive as questioning someone’s species? Is that as bad as being blamed for AIDS? Is it as awful as taking what are truly tragic statistics about the real difficulties faced by black people and using them to belittle an entire race of people?
Which would you rather be called? A nigger, or AIDS-ridden monkey jailfodder? Yes, the correct answer is, “neither,” but if you had to choose…
Calling someone a word that is offensive is a shortcut to offending them, but it’s also a slightly sterilized euphemism. We can all acknowledge such terms are boring and lazy, but should we be encouraging people to get creative when it comes to insulting others? I kind of like the quaint feel of a single word, because it can never mean something more offensive than the mind of the one who hears or reads it. There’s an almost limiting-factor to traditional insults, one ignored by people who think such words are the worst of the worst (I assume such people are boring and unimaginative).
In my experience, I have insulted a lot of people. I mean… I’ve insulted more people than I’ve met. That is not easy to do. From that, I’ve found one thing in particular to be true: anyone can handle being called a name, but many people can’t handle a finely tuned insult based on a truth which applies to them, even if it lacks any word that would be bleeped on daytime television.
In fact, you can offend people to no end without ever using profanity. If your goal is to piss people off, you don’t need to use one dirty word. I’m not saying you shouldn’t… in fact, I think you should use foul language, because using a word like “fuck” early is like putting up a big flag saying, “If you offend easily, this is not for you.” I do use such language when I know what I say might offend someone because I want people to know they should have their guard up before I swing (I’m not one to sucker punch).
Personally, my goal isn’t to insult people, but I love saying things that are true and which I can’t find said elsewhere. There are just certain things I know other people have noticed too, but perhaps they were just too big of a pussy to say something before. And that’s cool, I want to share that moment with you, and I’m happy to take the heat if anyone with sand in their vagina happens to come across it and think they need to give me a piece of their mind. I can handle whatever piece they give me, and if they hand over the whole thing, I’m happy to have been the reason they lost their mind that day.
It’s not that I enjoy pissing people off, it’s that I know when people get pissed off at something I say, it’s because I struck a nerve. People react to lies and mistakes in a completely different fashion than to how they react to some fact they don’t want to confront. When people throw a hissy fit over something, it’s because there’s a nugget of truth there. This isn’t to say everything that people get upset about is completely true, but I also know that if it was completely untrue, it would have been largely ignored.
Nothing confirms a theory quite like having someone it applies to calling you names while ignoring the message. Again, it’s not that I like pissing people off, it just so happens that I like finding out the truth, and the truth pisses people off.
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