Week 8 - Expelled

I also enjoyed the movie. I didn't know much about it, or what the purpose of it was. The only thing I dislike about those propoganda films is how they always show the lamest, belittling clips of things they are trying to bash. Like the film zietgeist, everytime jesus was protrayed it was the lamest, oldest stupidest low budget film clip around. I understand its hard to show something you are passionate about without having your biased views to be evident, but I wish it was more neutral just provding information. Here's what a few people thought about the movie:

http://community.centredaily.com/?q=node/4666


One of my favorite parts was the very end of the movie, where Dawkins was stumbling over his words. I respect and admire the guys knowledge about so many theistic issues, but I'm not a huge fan of his attitude and the way he protrays himself as an intelectual. Hitchens is much worse, and is way to arrogant for me to seriously listen to what he has to say just based on his delivery. This is a funny website of a guy who is agnostic, but doesn't like Dawkins based on his pesonality and presentation of his views:
http://dawkinsdouche.wordpress.com/

week 7 --

conscious vs nonconscious. I never realized how many differences were in the two, and this site has a long list of what some of the differences are. Verbal, deliberate, single-tasking, orderly and analytical are all examples of our consciousness. On the other hand, our non-conscious side is based on emotional, multi-tasking, not the right here right now, and the understanding of why. Looking at the two,our non-conscious side leads much more to the possibility of outside realms and levels of reality. Our practical mind doesn't give us that option, and limits our living to the right here right now. Therefore, it appears we aren't able to consciously get outside our earthly limits until we are allowed to dream.

http://www.ayrmetes.com/articles/conscious_and_unconscious.htm


Does our brain control us, or are we in control? This article discusses cases with battered women and children, and how this sticks with us for a lifetime. Our fondest memories or deepest fears are always on our mind, and resurrected throughout life. Showing that we aren't really in control of our mind or emotions, but rather our brain brings them up throught life. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/186047/does_our_brain_control_us.html

Video Conference review

Science is based more on facts, while religion on emotions
They tend to have negative effects on each other

Science can't prove that god doesn't intervine with earth, but the older the earth gets, the less we see god having to intervene. Where is there a place for god?

Science shows the earth is a perfect, balanced place...

Weekly Posts, Week1, 2, 3, 4, 5

I ran across google authors on youtube, and found an awesome one with
charles hitchens. He starts out with about a 20 minute recap of his
book, God is not great, and discusses a few things of religion
poisoning our efforts and accomplishments as man in this day and age.
Then he answers questions from the audience

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7205668993419299046&vt=lf&hl=en

Here's another shorter interview of Hitchens, where he talks about the
frustration as he feels many are forced to believe in God. He felt the
timing was right to publish his book with the war, and so much turmoil
going on with distension among the country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YPmt8TUoX4

Sun Oct 5, 2008 5:13 pm

When Lane talked about how our brains are divided, and how we weren't
able to comprehend anything too complex, I wanted to check out to see
what some other people thought. In this link the argument is we use
our imagination to try to make sense of things we don't understand,
and give a basic interpretation to conclusions we want answers to
(even if they aren't there).

http://novan.com/god.htm


This is a great website, and gives a brief outline of all the lectures
so far. It starts with Einstein being a realist, and stating that
everything that happened is due to another subsequent action. Then
Newton, providing us he outline of the earths rotation around the sun,
and with time and motion you can figure out paths to find speeds, and
start times. But this does not apply to quanta.

http://www.eequalsmcsquared.auckland.ac.nz/sites/emc2/tl/philosophy/dice.cfm

Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:49 am

After starting to read Hitchens book, God is Not Great, I really
wanted to learn more about his history, childhood, and past
experiences. He makes a lot of bold statements, and I didn't know if
he had some bad/enlightening experiences in his past to shape his
character. He was involved in many left sided clubs and organizations
growing up, and has a ton of education, basically in economics,
philosophy and politics. He is extermely knowledgeable of various
religions, practices and political issues. He has been all over the
map in terms of opinions (protested vietnam war, but in favor of
bush's re-election and the Iraqi war. Its a good read, especially if
you are reading his books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens


Dawkins is another guy I wanted to know more about. Richard Dawkins is
an evolutionary biologist, and received most of his education from
Berkley. He is against the idea of creationism, saying it is something
we make up in our mind and want to believe. Evolution is a proven
thing, and something that has been observed, just not observed in the
process. Here's a link to his bio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins

Mon Sep 29, 2008 10:07 pm

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Here's a cool website where you can look at any verse in the bible,
with all the various translations of the books of the bible.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/


Dave also talked about how many religions tend to defend, instead of
falsify their beliefs and teachings ... one of the best known
apologetics Christian books I know of is "Evidence that Demands a
Verdict" by Josh MdDowell. Here's a guys opinion of the book in review..

http://www.islandnet.com/~luree/evidence.html

Sat Sep 13, 2008 3:18 pm

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After reading and watching those you tube videos, I think its
important to really check and see what the definition of religion is
to different people. To that Freeman Dyson guy, religion is just a
community based on ethics and morals, more so than a devine god.

This guy breaks down religion into people with the same interests,
with similar rules, who live similar ways that live a way of life.
Creed, Code, Ethics and Conduct. Religion doesn't have to have faith
in a God, creator, or neither. It could just stand for a group of
people living together with the same interests, laws, morals and way
of life, as described below:

http://www.crosscurrents.org/whatisreligion.htm


The Dead Sea Scrolls are an important part of biblical history,
proving the translation and relevance of the old testement. When they
were found in 1947, they contained parts of Genesis, Psalms, Danial
and about 15 other books of the old testiment. Here you can see
pictures, and learn more about the scrolls

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_scrolls

Thu Sep 18, 2008 2:34 pm

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Gammon at the Dell ..

Tuesday taco night, town center, a great night for gammon , but, not so much for kozmo
3-1. He tried a new strategy, the picture you see is after game one (where he leads 1-0) soon, reality hit. Its a good thing he enjoyed that shake before the next roll ..

Charles Hitchens on Google video talking about his book .. God is not Great - How Religion Poisions Everything

We are all part of nature

We can be assure that the big bang is still moving away from us, and can be sure that it is not a design like you are reading this now. God , if there is one, wouldn't know or care that we are here.

Religion poisons matters, because it asks why don't we pretend we aren't going to die. Why do we not pretend that modern diseases (which we can sequence), why do we keep fooling ourselves? It attacks the integrity we need, to investigate the evidence we need to prosper and grow.

We shouldn't tamper with god's design, like limiting stem cell research is absurb!!! why not use technology to protect human kind?

Religious people ask where would our morals come from if there is no god? If god is dead, isn't everything acceptable? I take it as an insult ... we don't rape because we are affraid of divine punishment

I don't believe in moses, or the excile of the jews etc, I don't believe that my ancestors believed in rape and everything until they got to mount siani, then when they get there learn its bad.

Nobody could get that far, unless they know that human solidairty demands we look at each other as brohter and sister.

There are psychopaths, which makes the image of god questionable? or can they be explained and be held back in society..

There's a temptation of something that is really poisonous, and it is the fear of freedom. We like to live under documentations, and its our brithright to be free and liberated.

Do we really wish it is true that there is a god that watches over us all day, all night, knows our thoughts,convicts us for our private thoughts, and doesn't let go of us when we are dead! who wishes that is true?? who wants to lead the life of a servant all the time??

Some religious people have done great things! don't get me wrong ..

Name me an ethical statement, by a religous person in the name of faith, that couldn't have been made my someone with no faith? Nobody has been able to do it ..

That being the case, think of a wicked thing said or done by somoene of religous faith, and everyone could name a bunch of things instantly.

If everyone can nam an instance, where religion has made each other act worse, its all the time. Humans are better off, with our technology, than by the rules of any god. We have small microscopes which look at the double helix in awe, the fools that believe in the supernatural are wasting their time.

What about the seperation between church and state? God isn't mentioned in the constitution, other than to keep it out of the country. Jefferson made that very clear, he built up that wall and may nobody take it down.

The word islam, means give all to god

we want someone to take care of us all the time

John Maynard Smith and evolution...

Game theory -- Thinking, concious, rational beings
He applies to animals as well as humans

Applied game theory to plants, insects, all aspects of life
he borrowed the mathematical notation.. the idea of the payoff matrix ( I do this, you do that)

Natural selection and design produce the same results...
One just isn't done conciously

frequency dependent selection -- the idea that the selection in favor goes to how frequent it lives in the population.
The rarer sex would have more children, and have a better chance to survive

Hawk/Dove theory -- One is like to withdraw, and the other aggressive. He shows that that, in theory, can stabelize.
He made it as a hypothetical way of looking at the problem, which was derived from game theory.

Being aggressive is a more costly thing, which can cause equilibruim.


The reasons animals fight without getting in an escelated fight, if they fought more aggressive, they would die. That is bad for the species..

He has hard times answering questions on humans, and its more difficult to test <>
Human behavior is very odd, there's lots of traits it lowers the fitness of a person

Depression, recessions, can limit reproduction .. outside factors
While genetics can change the human race, too .. many of which are common

The Evolutionary Stable Strategy -- -- simple minded idea, he came up with the theory -
If there is strategies, then the ESS, provided everyone in the population does it, there's no way to beat it.

the more cooporation in a species, the more it will do well.
Human psychology, if you put 2 people in a situation where they are playing for money, and there's no chance they will meet ...
If one of them cheated, the other person gets mad, and they will punish their opponent even if it hurts themselves

Multi-cellular life can seem so impossible from chance.. does it still seem unlikely on theoretical ground? yes, its very hard to come up with an explenation of primitive cells divide and evolve is an incredible process of meiosis.

Evolution happens in a sexual active population much quicker than random mutations...

In not so long, in evolution terms, you find intelligent species. The species looks back, and is in awe that the evolution happened

Dinosaurs were bi-pedal too, why didn't species have high intelligence? they weren't given enough time to evolve that ..

If one species evolves with high intelligence, it will stop other species from doing that as well, so you only have one dominant species

The last major transfomation wasn't language, but technology and storing information. that only took 50 yrs, what is it going to look like in 500 years? could we be replaced by electronic organisations? it will depend on us letting them and how they do without our electroic aid.

As far as darwin, its hard to picture a species changing by environmental means. He thinks there's more to it than that .. but a strong conflict between Marx's view <> are a result of society and our role in the economy. Vs human beings are a product of million of years of being and evolution.

darwinsim is hard, because he says there is no higher purpose in the universe. And its hard, because we don't know what it means to have a higher purpose. this feeling is a product of humans, not a product of the universe. People create their own meaning.

Darwinsim helps with understanding of the world, with an intelligent interest.

Gammon at the Ol' Charby ...

As Kozmo munched on Chili Cheese fries and slurpies, a dominating performance, 4-0 was displayed

Gammon of the week--

After a fine cuisine at Miyakos , Kozmo's fate was handed to him with the winning roll of double 6's ( as shown by the chopsticks ) ... thus marks the epic role of the day ..

honorable mention .. ronnie d whipped the floor with me in online backgammon, finishing a 2-game series 4-2 (im calling major online shananaggans)