I Take an Open Poll

Go to the comments, and tell us your favorite movie of all time. If you can't pick one, pick three. That's all. In 48 hours or so, the three of us (right Swede?) will post our top one or three. The 6 or 7 most common movies will get put in that snazzy little sidebar poll thing, and so we will determine the movie most loved by the readership, so then we can bash it more than the rest, and so further alienate the people we enjoy.  Sounds like fun, eh? 

No but seriously, I think I'll do this once a year or so and then we can see if our overall tastes change. Also, we get to make fun of each other for our favorite movies. It will be amazing! 

Finals at NSA

Finals for the Jerusalem term at NSA are almost over. Pretty soon the only thing we'll have to remember them by is our memories, a few grades, and some wacky pictures. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it seems like study materials have a tendency to end up in weird places when NSA students use them.

This, ladies and gentlemen is why God made camera phones:

I have found something both fun and addicting

Judging a book by its cover. It shows you the cover of a book, and you guess how many stars Amazon users have given it. I did this 30 times, and got 10 right. That's after going to 3 and 15, so I'm pretty proud of myself. It's a lot harder predicting where people are tasteless than you might imagine.

http://www.judgeby.com/

Props to the oh-so-wonderful Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter; my concession to my inner geek.

I gave a great big sigh of relief

The world gets a reprieve! Turns out that yours truly predicted exactly what was going to happen with the old CERN project. Remember? Okay, well, maybe not exactly. But the problem turns out to have been the "hi-tech version of a soldering joint to link the two stretches of cable together." I said it before, I said it now, and I'll say it again. You gotta love it when a multi-billion dollar science-fair project gets sidelined because some random intern or highly skilled welder didn't want to miss his Manchester United game. Well, looks like the good old earth'll be around till 2009.

Brother and Sister Atheists. . .

This is going to be like one of those cheesy restaurant kid puzzles, what's wrong with this picture? You mean other than the fact that a school-bus is underwater with a clown as the driver? Oh, I think I found it. It must be that Kangaroo chillin' on the bottom floor, this is obviously the Atlantic ocean (pretty far from the kangaroo's native Australia).

Can you spot the utter absurdity?

My brother and sister atheists. . . This is the way Eddie Tabash, a militant atheist, addressed his audience of Minnesota atheists not long ago (I looked this up on Youtube because last night I saw him debate Pastor Doug Wilson). He proposes that the nonbelievers, atheists, agnostics, and general freethinkers of today should have an inner peace believing that their efforts, though not putting a dent in today's "superstitious" America, will bear its fruit in a future godless era. In previous times, atheistic efforts had a very short half-life of effectiveness. Spinoza, Hume, Ingersoll, and many others did their best at removing superstition beliefs but their efforts (though initially successful) failed to bring about lasting change. Atheists should do their part, first, by continuing to show the wont of evidence for the theistic (particular Christian theistic), and consequentially how childish belief in a non-existent God is. Secondly, atheists should support their "cause?" by voting for atheist politicians who (among other things) oppose the teaching of creationism in public schools, advocate the separation of church and state, and who are in favor or removing God from the pledge. This will lead to greater acceptance of the stance of unbelief, and generally more tolerance for religious (or non-religious) minorities. In a recent poll (Tabash claims) it was found (by whom, I don't know) that most in the religious right would rather vote for a homosexual than for an atheist. If he thinks long enough, I believe Tabash would realize why this is (presumably) the case.

I have a few things to say. What Tabash is proposing sounds an awful lot like a religion. Was he attempting irony when he addressed his constituents as "brother and sister atheists"? The very fact that they have to band together like this is evidence that they are kicking against the goads. For many of them, the only thing they have in common is a disbelief in the supernatural. It's likely that many of them are political liberals, but this leaves a very large margin for disagreement. Anyway, if you get a chance I recommend watching this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmwqL_JL3mI

I could just embed it, but I'm not going to (I don't like explaining myself). Just go to Youtube and watch it. You will find your faith strengthened by the stupendous effort that these brave men and women, atheists, put into ensuring that God takes no part in their lives. And all it does is make God laugh.