OriginBlog

As PZ says, I do.

Here is a link to the Expelled exposed website.

Far easier than taking out the telescope in the freezing cold is looking at the amazing pictures those professionals put out on the interwebs. Thats why I keep NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day as my homepage.

They’ve now put out their Pictures of the Year 2007. Phil Plait has his top ten list over at the Bad Astronomy website.

These kind of pictures have become so ubiquitous that I feel that many people shrug them off with a quick glance. I like to pour over every small detail, determining how much I understand of whats going on in the pictures, and the implications of the photo about where us humans really are in the universe. I always found it kind of sad that people go to synagogue to chant some prayer over and over again looking for some glimpse of spirituality, and they have no idea that the bright reddish star rising in the east is the planet Mars, and that they could see it with their naked eyes, or even the elementary knowledge that the sun is a close star undergoing constant nuclear fusion.

Science is unbiased and neutral, but by no means is it sterile. May we look forward to a day when most people can appreciate that.

Well, how ’bout that? Another skeptic blog on the internet, how interesting?

I had the idea for this blog a while back, when I was still in the infant stage of skepticism. I had been thrown into a wily vortex of confusion that struck me after I couldn’t convince myself of:

• Rabbinical Authority
• Modern Judaism
• Biblical Inerrancy
• Biblical History
• An Almighty God

And boy was it fun. Fun, like when one first found out how to change a tire: appreciative of the new experience, but damn if it wasn’t a nuisance. When my new ideas were discovered by the people around me, I was afraid. Would the rest of my life be a complete cutoff from everybody I know because I don’t share their ideas?

I countered anyways. I read skeptical books and blogs. I countered arguments left and right. I was a fighter for the cause.

And then it phased out. People around me no longer cared. I won.

The Best Defense is a Great Offense

Why? What caused people, who earlier were offensive and judging, to end up respecting my ideas and carefully weigh them? I guarantee you it wasn’t my respect for their beliefs, or my live and let live policy; I had none of those. People respect those who respect their own beliefs.

Staying in the closet reinforces the idea that one has something worth hiding. Respecting nonsensical beliefs is just as morally suspect as having them. Ignoring the debate for the sake of peace delays the inevitable.

It is in honor of these concepts that I start my side of the debate on this bastion of new media.

P.S. In case you didn’t figure it out. My first post was a joke. More on that later.

7 Proofs That We Live in a Computer Simulation or Why Proofs of Gods Existance Are Unconvicing

1. Argument from statistical reasoning
   If there are only two highly technological civilizations in each universe, and each civilization only creates two computer simulated universes, then there are more computer simulated universes than real ones. We should thus expect that our own universe is probably a computer simulation.
2. Argument from liking of conclusion
   Saying this, it is reasonable to conclude that there must be a Programmer who created our computer simulated universe.
3. Argument from personal I think it needs it
   Evolution cannot completely explain the creation of life thus the universe needs a Programmer who must have created life (who else?).
4. Argument from the saying of wow
   The universe is so beautiful and elegant, it must have had a conscious Programmer. (Imagine! There are people who have this crazy belief that it all that elegance came just willy-nilly!)
5. Argument from Star Wars
   The universe has many attributes which don’t need to be the way they are, but if they were different, human beings could have never created science fiction movies or nacho cheese. It should be obvious to everybody that a programmer would have liked that stuff.
6. Argument from no turtles all the way down
   Everything is programmed in that everything is caused from something else. If you go back all the way to the beginning of time, you realize there needs to be somebody who programmed the first moment. Thus there needs to be a First Programmer.
7. Argument from betterness of existence
   To create a computer simulation the programmer would, by definition, be a really really really good programmer. Programmers are better if they exist. Thus the First Programmer exists.