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But We Like Our Little Fantasies

In the first couple of minutes of this clip from the 1981 Horizon documentary called the “Pleasure of finding things out” Professor Richard Feynman says…

"Science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery of a flower.
It only adds; I don't understand how it subtracts"


http://youtu.be/srSbAazoOr8

I don't know if the great man answered his puzzle (or if he was just asking the question to stimulate debate!) but my observation would be that people perceive it as a subtraction because, science removes doubt so, as the mysticism is slowly and steadily removed from the general knowledge cloud, wonderment and abstract imaginings are constrained, the chance for there to be biblical style mythological miracles, fairies or an afterlife etc, is reduced - replaced with plain fact.

Science has no middle ground, if it's the truth, then it's the truth,
and it doesn't matter what anyone ever said or wrote before!

Science has no moral code, no natural wool to happily pull over your eyes when you don't like the truths it reveals.
Science reveals and clarifies reality in all it's unyielding and
fierce, horror and beauty, sexy and revolting, ridiculous and touching, harsh, solid, extremes!

And the greater the comprehension of how reality actually is, the less room each individual has for spiritual, or otherwise, flights of fancy!
And we just DON'T like it!
We like our fantasies too much!

Now, it's fine, a little fantasy from time to time, (maybe more than a little) but we should all, at the very least, have the good grace to acknowledge to ourselves and others, exactly what it is that we are happily lying to ourselves about, and when we are doing it!
This is one of the Too many questions


PEACE   
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Back to the Core TMQ"

AC Grayling Fundraiser for One Law for All

Date:
January 28th 2010

Time:
7pm

Venue:
One of West London’s finest gastropubs


The keynote speaker will be the renowned philosopher, author, writer, reviewer, and broadcaster

AC Grayling


Comedian Nick Doody, Singer/Songwriter David Fisher and Magician Neil Edwards will also be there to entertain.


Tickets still available at £45.00 per person
To reserve tickets, email onelawforall@gmail.com or call 07719166731.
Payment can be made by
Paypal: www.onelawforall.org.uk/donate.html
Worldpay: http://ex-muslim.org.uk/indexDonate.html.
Cheque made payable to One Law for All or CEMB to BM Box 2387, London WC1N 3XX If you’re paying by cheque, please make sure you email them so we know to reserve a place for you. Further details on receipt of payment.

If you can’t go to the event but would like to support One Law For All nonetheless, please send in a donation to help cover the cost of the activities they have planned for 2010.
  • March 8 seminar on legal and legislative ways to get rid of Sharia and religious laws in Britain; an art gallery show in spring.
  • June 20 rally against Sharia and political Islam and in support of people resisting it everywhere.
  • December conference on apostasy and Sharia law
  • and much more…


One Law for ALL
- No Sharia Campaign -

Working against Sharia and religious laws
Supporting those renouncing religion and coming out publicly as Ex-Muslim, an act punishable by death under Sharia!



This is one of the Too many questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!


Tim Minchin - The Storm Movie


Tim Minchin Is Brilliant
no doubt there!
Storm Is Brilliant
when just simply read.
BUT NOW
There are pictures!!
Brilliant, cute funny, comic pictures!


Kudos
to Tim for the very classy poem

Kudos
to the production team
DC Turner, Fraser Davidson, Tracy King
for the equally classy animation.

But also

Kudos

to the collected hordes of poorly educated poodles
(the Storm's of the world)
for prodiving the pieces of this poetic poke and
sparking the rhyme in the Minchin mind.

Storm Movie production blog - http://www.stormmovie.net
The Official Website of Tim Minchin - http://www.timminchin.com/


This is one of the Too many questions

PEACE
Crispy
Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Your Point Is Not Valid

I think we've probably all heard the phrase

"Looking through rose-tinted spectacles"
but for those who haven't, it's a English idiom meaning


Perceiving with an unduly cheerful, optimistic,
or favourable view of reality.
One could describe the rose-tinted spectacle wearer as Panglossian, being
blindly or naively optimistic.
(Dr Pangloss is the character in Voltaire's satire Candide who embodies Leibniz' view that THIS is the best of all possible worlds.)

However, these meanings are somewhat conceptual; one can say, or read, "unduly cheerful" or "naively optimistic" without really considering the full meaning of the idiom.
so I have been...
considering it I mean...

Would you ask someone wearing rose-tinted spectacles
to tell you the precise colour of something?

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't!

What I mean is, with the greatest efforts to provide accurate information, the rose-tinted spectacle wearer can never truly see the actual colour without removing the spectacles.
I wouldn't go all fascist and tell everybody to remove their spectacles

You want everything looking pink?
That's okay by me!
What I would expect though, is that ALL pink-spectacle wearers would then be responsible enough to accept that they cannot give an accurate description of coloured objects, and agree to remove their glasses as and when required.
Further though, it would not be unreasonable to expect spectacle wearers, upon realising they cannot see 'properly' with the spectacles on, to henceforth, whilst wearing them, avoid offering descriptions where colour is involved, or offering opinions on whether colours or tones match, or any aspect which would fall within the colour spectrum.



Seem reasonable? Sensible?
All well and good so far?

But what about a situation where the wearer
has been told, from birth,
that removal of the spectacles would mean

INSTANT DEATH?

Understandably, it would take a huge amount of convincing for the fearful wearer to remove them. Most likely the wearer would refuse, saying...
"Discerning the colour of something is insufficient grounds for risking one's life! Does knowing the true colour of things really matter?"
They may even argue that there is no distortion, and why should they prove to you, that what they see is not reality?

Whereas the individual rose-coloured spectacle wearer, may have a temporary, psychological need to believe the best of someone, to overlook another's faults, to achieve a work contract for example, the rose-tinted spectacles worn by the religious, are enforced by the religion too which they are bound!

Under threat of immortal damnation!

As an atheist, I am free to consider the mythical supernatural landscapes objectively, free from fear of reprisal, but religious doctrine often prohibits the faithful the same freedom. The moment a religious person psychologically steps away from the god figure to, freely, critically assess the concept, they have instantly committed the "worst" sin and are condemned to the hell conjured by their doctrine.

Under the beady eye of an all-seeing god and his partner in crime Satan riding Shotgun, a religious person's thoughts are constantly

hindered by the very doctrine they promote!




This is obvious but,

It is not possible
to properly question a subject
that you are mortally prohibited
from questioning properly.

Faith shackles the religious person to off-the-peg Rose-tinted spectacles, limiting their view of reality to what can be seen through their doctrine's brand of lenses.
As such,

Is any point a religious person makes valid?



I pity those trapped in the superstition soup.
Remove the spectacles friends and
"Let's think about God"
http://crispysea.blogspot.com/2008/11/let-us-think-about-god.html 
Alternatively, what happens if we apply this reasoning to our Justice system? 
"Trial by Jury on Trial"
http://crispysea.blogspot.com/2010/09/trial-by-jury-on-trial.html
 
 

This is one of the Too many questions

PEACE    
Crispy
Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Back to the Core TMQ"

Is It Really All About AssKissing

Sometimes, somethings, are just so entirely brilliant, they make you laugh outloud.
The entire OpEdNews article "Religion and the Asskiss Factor" (1) is a nice piece and well worth a read but I really liked this paragraph.
"So how does all this asskissing come about? I think that it all stems from god being superhuman and infinite in power, wisdom, omniscience and so on coupled with his being a severe and deranged disciplinarian who murders people for either not believing, behaving badly, worshipping other gods or even looking at him. There is no other way to deal with a superhuman psychopathological character as this except by sucking up and flattering, in short, asskissing."
Eric Stone


Thanks Eric.

Also thanks to @mattincinci - http://twitter.com/mattincinci/ for tweeting about it
(1)http://www.opednews.com/articles/Religion-and-the-Asskiss-F-by-eric-stone-100101-294.html
This is one of the Too many questions

PEACE
Crispy
Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

Visiting Ireland

Free Wales Calling... Free Wales Calling....

Urgent Travel advice for those traveling to Eire.
For the foreseeable future
Any prospective visitor, from any country which values freedom of expression, who is planning, or considering a trip to the Emerald isle,
PLEASE BE AWARE
Your visit may cost you more than you were expecting!

If you are from a free country, as Ireland once was, you will be accustomed to the practise of conversation about life's little, and big, mysteries, without the fear of legal persecution.
You no longer
have this right
in Ireland.

As of the 1st of January 2010 Ireland's government took a step away from reason, and brought the possibility of a medieval persecution nightmare a step closer, with the introduction of what amounts to a draconian tax on atheists!

As atheists are the only group whose worldview is entirely contradictory of any blasphemy law, it's atheist who will bear the brunt of this law's enforcement.
Even simple conversation about the works by prominent atheists, humanists, evolutionary biologists, or even geologists, could easily fall within the boundary of giving offence to some nutbag religion or other.

If you are atheist, humanist or other likewise at risk group cannot avoid visiting the region, foreigners office best advice is currently a little less than encouraging...
  • Wear a gag.
  • Or, if that would be to orally restrictive, perhaps you could chew gum.
  • Practice smiling and nodding when a religious person says something stupid anything.
  • Find ways to extricate yourself from conversation with the religious. (See the leaflet '200 fascinating facts about the weather' for more details)
  • Be sure to travel at night; less chance of interaction with any local religious nutter.
  • Avoid visiting on sundays.
  • As a precaution learn a prayer of the native people of each of the locations through which you will be travelling. Muttering it in their presence is usually enough to throw them off the scent - at least long enough for you to beat a hasty retreat.
  • Finally - Good Luck

There appears to be no word yet, as to whether the Irish government has gone to expense of hiring a KGB style enforcement squad

The BBB ?
Blasphemy Boot Boys ?
"Ready to Silence and Control"?

but you can probably expect to see special trained police chasing kids for saying god in the 'wrong' part of a sentence!
Already, strange shadowy figures in black can be seen stalking the streets, wagging bony fingers when they feel that some unsuspecting citizen has crossed the blasphemy line.

Am I taking a risk even typing the word cross?
Could it be misconstrued?

I meant nothing by it your worship!


Ireland, come to your senses
repeal the nonsense law.
This way lies only
fear and mistrust.


More Blasphemy
Against Blasphemy Laws
Irish Blasphemy Law - Discriminatory?
Even Irish Gods are Bullshit
Is this Blasphemy?
And Your God Watched


This is one of the Too many questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!


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you will also enjoy my novel
21 days in May


Please be aware this blog may be considered Illegal almost anywhere!

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