Some thoughts, from yesterday:

mech_angel told me about the fact that Time's 100 Most Influential People list had Michael Behe do the write-up for Richard Dawkins. You can read it Here.

Now, when people talk about "The New Atheists," they tend to make a bad comparison, in saying that they are just like the fundamentalists against whom they rally. That's not quite right; you see, what people mean to say is that they are Just as Zealotous as those fundies. They are exactly as spit-in-the-face-of-those-with-whom-we-disagree as any other person who holds an essentially groundless belief.

Yeah, I went there.

Science, rationality, religion, emotional entanglement, every label we make and name we give things is essentially Empty. They are ways to describe what we see and feel via the apparatus we have developed, over billions of years. We are not Right or Wrong, Helpful or Harmful, Dangerous or Safe, we are instead on More or Less Successful. Religious intolerance may have been a cause of war and persecution, down through the ages, but let's take a look at simple political theories, shall we? When we had our war against "the Commies," sure we called them "godless," for mister and missus Joe and Jane Sixpack-Zinfandel, but it was mostly a political war, causing fear and hatred, and suspicion.

You can make more people do things more easily with a religious angle, than without, but that's not what makes people do things. People are emotional creatures, they are rational and irrational. They Have Internal Conflict. It's what makes things Very, Very Interesting, for all of us. If you remove the irrationality, then things become simple, easy, yes-- but boring. Not a logically valid reason, perhaps, but what did I just say about logic? Empty.

I'll talk more about this, later, but the basic fact is we have no evidence for the way in which we evaluate our evidence. Under optimal conditions, all structures of evaluation can be made to function perfectly. We do not have what could be called "optimal conditions," under most rubrics. It's strange, in that we latch on to whatever best describes the world, for us, and run, from there, seeking to exclude all other views.

That's pretty funny, to me, honestly.

Later

Religion, now politics. Next we'll discuss the weather.

From greygirlbeast: Keith Olberman on the toothless Iraq Funding Bill.

As I told mech_angel and lord_of_smoking, I love Keith Olberman, because he is So Very Angry. He is never not angry. He sleeps angry. In his sleep, Keith Olberman rants and punches his pillow, dreaming that it is every stupid politician, every ignorant voter, and if he just keeps punching hard enough and ranting cogently enough, eventually they will understand.

I know the feeling.

Been feeling a bit off, this past hour.

I'm trying ti figure out what's wrong with me. I've been kind of spacey, a little... tilted.

Watching the second season of The 4400, cleaning the house, a bit, doing laundry, Very hot, in here.

Need to call Sam. Supposed to do coffee.

Anyone alive, out there? Or, in being alive, have you all gone out into the world to Do Things?

Bleh... Weird.