OriginBlog

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.