The Many Looks of Spiderman Over the Past 50 Years [INFOGRAPHIC]
Saturday, August 11, 2012
The Many Looks of Spiderman Over the Past 50 Years [INFOGRAPHIC]
The Many Looks of Spiderman Over the Past 50 Years [INFOGRAPHIC]
Friday, August 10, 2012
FacePalm of the Day - Debunking Christianity: Solomon's Decision Was the Dumbest Judicial Ruling in History
We all know the story told in I Kings 3. Solomon was given wisdom by God more than anyone else. To show us how wise he was Solomon issued a ruling involving two prostitutes who both claimed a particular baby was theirs. To settle the matter Solomon ordered that the child be cut in two, with each woman receiving half of him. This is supposed to be considered wise. I demurr. I think it was the dumbest judicial ruling in history, well, at least one of them. Here's why.
So let's look at what the Bible says that happened. Loftus makes it look like Solomon decides to cut the baby in half because he can't decide whose the baby's mother is. IF this was true, then maybe Loftus has a point. But before pulling the string revealing just how whacked Loftus' reasoning really is, let's see how he tried to develop his "point.
Just imagine Solomon’s so-called “wise” judgment in our day in a courtroom situation in a divorce child custody case.
How is a child custody case in a courtroom in anyway like the scenario in the Bible? In cases involving custody of children, the court knows the relationship of the people who are vying for custody to the child in question. And today with DNA, birth certificates, and all the documentation around today, it's almost impossible to not to be able to tell a child's parentage. In this case, Solomon was looking for the identity of the baby's mother given that two women claimed to be the baby's mother.
Given that people abort children without shame or conscious then maybe today both mothers could have an "as-long-as-she-doesn't-have-him "attitude, but I doubt it. I would think that a woman who goes through pregnancy and birth would so cavalierly give up her child. I mean there is that pesky little quality we call love. Even after 3000 years, I wouldn't count motherly love out. Solomon was wise enough not to ignore mothely love as a motivation for human action even if Loftus misses it.
Even the real mother might have wanted the child killed rather than have it raised by such a lying conniving pretender/thief.
Why? Why would not a mother love her child so much that she would rather see him live than die.
If this had happened then the child would have been killed since that’s what Solomon said, and he could not back out of it, could he? Any civilized judge issuing such a judgment would be thrown out of the country it’s so utterly repulsive. It’s actually the dumbest ruling that was ever made.
I think the dumbest thing is that Loftus doesn't see that Solomon was wise enough to see that the real mother would love her son so much that she'd rather live without him than die. Don't forget that love is about sacrifice.
Unlike John Loftus, some atheists are honest. While I disagree with the conclusion the commenter draws on the Bible, he at least correctly states what the Bible does say..
Solomon was wise enough to know that in the situation he orchestrated he would not have to kill the baby because her knew the baby's mother would rather give him up than for him to die. It's nice to see that a person can be honest with the Bible although they don't believe it. As of posting this, I have not seen any response from Loftus. I hope that he's own up and just apologize for his blunder. Not sure if he's wise enough to see that.
Debunking Christianity: Solomon's Decision Was the Dumbest Judicial Ruling in History
The 10 Smartest People Alive Today
Source: SuperScholar.org
Take a few minutes and think about what intelligence is and how you measure it? Bow ask: Is that how you would think God would define it?
The 10 Smartest People Alive Today
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Neo video games: mind controlled or mind control? - National Worldview and Science | Examiner.com
Read Mariano's article here:
Neo video games: mind controlled or mind control? - National Worldview and Science | Examiner.com
And watch the short film I referenced here:
If you would like to know more about Google Glass check out this link and videos.
Project Glass: what you need to know
First Known Use Of OMG In Letter To Winston Churchill (PHOTO)
First Known Use Of OMG In Letter To Winston Churchill (PHOTO)
Monday, August 6, 2012
Crip Walking on Heaux: Serena Williams' Gold Medal Dance Criticized
Crip Walking on Heaux: Serena Williams' Gold Medal Dance Criticized
Sunday, August 5, 2012
FacePalm of the Day - God and Thunderstorms
Yesterday a thunderstorm got us. You've seen them approaching. You know their effects. I was thinking as one approached what God had to do with it. No really, what did God have to do with it? At what point did he decide when to send it?
Good question. I'd argue from the time God spoke the universe into existence, God knew when this particular storm was coming, where it went, and how long it would last. I'd argue this because of God's omniscience. - which Loftus concedes that is a characteristic that describes God.
Did he violate any known natural laws to do so? Did he make it rain here because of anything we had done or not done? Matthew 5:45 has Jesus, supposedly the Son of a creator God saying, "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
Why would God need to violate natural laws in order for this storm to be created? There is no reason to conclude that or that the storm is a consequence of anything that particular people have said or done. The passage that Loftus quotes is taken completely out of context. Jesus was not talking about rain in terms of natural disasters but in terns of the sun and rain in the ways that benefits people.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? - Matthew 5:43-47
I wonder why Loftus didn't use more appropriate words of Jesus....you know something that actually talks about why people suffer?
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” - Luke 13:1-5
With the rise of meteorology and of modern science how are we to understand this verse?
We know what the ancients thought. They thought God literally makes these things happen. Well does he? Then God must continually intervene in the natural order of the world, to send the rain here rather than there. Does he do this? Then the world is full of miracles on a daily basis. If that's the case then we couldn't do any science at all, including predicting the weather.
Since when could we accurately predict the weather? We can't - let alone control it.
Since we can do science then God doesn't intervene in the natural order of the world.
That is a seriously flawed conclusion based on nothing. I think there is no way you can demonstrate that God never intervenes in the natural order no matter how often you assert it.
The very basis of science is predicated on a non-miraculous world order. Since science is possible a miracle working God doesn't exist. Scientists do not detect miracles in the natural world simply because they do not take place. This world looks exactly like one without a God in it. And if there is no miracle working God in our world now, then why should scientists think there was ever a miracle working God who created it? This goes for modern medicine too. The very fact that we can do medicine is predicated on the non-miraculous workings of the human body.
Christians have but one lame excuse. They try to save their faith from refutation by relegating God's activity in the world to merely creating the initial laws of nature.
I wouldn't make that argument. It is truly flawed. Why must it be God intervenes in nature moment-by-moment or not at all? The Bible does not give us the room for either flawed conclusion. God intervenes when God chooses to intervene. We have all heard stories of tornadoes inexplicably changing course, or whole neighborhoods being flattened in a natural disaster except for a single home.
This, however, is a deistic god not the
Omni-God of Christianity, the one we read about in a canonized set of
writings by ancient superstitious pre-scientific agency detectors. Such a
God would have been rejected by Jesus himself, as this and many others
passages in the Bible say. God is continually active in the world, the
Bible says over and over. So doesn't this show us Jesus didn't know
anything about science because like other ancient human beings he was a
child of his times? I think so, most emphatically.
I think that Loftus makes the mistake that if a person accepts the idea that there can be miracles, then they must reject science. I see no reason at all that conclusion follows and he can't show that it does. Yes, the God revealed in the Bible is not deistic, however God is not said to be constantly fine-tuning everything moment-by-moment.
Was Jesus a Man of Science?
John’s post got me thinking about my lake experience last month. While out water skiing, I noticed that when I cut my slalom ski, the spray behind my ski was making a rainbow in the noonday sun. So I decided to have some fun with God as based on his covenant with Noah. According to Genesis 9, God uses all rainbows throughout the world like a string tied around his figure to remind him: “Hey, you don’t need to use water again to destroy humanity!” (How quickly God keeps forgetting about the million he destroyed)!
“God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. “It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. “When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.” (Genesis 9: 12-17)
Compare what Loftus says the promise God made is and compare it with what Genesis says the promise is.
As I cut my ski, talking to myself I said, “God, show me your covenant with Noah.” God did!
As I cut a second time, sending up a spray rainbow, “I said, “God, show me your covenant with Satan.” God did!
Third cut spray, “I said, “Satan, show me your covenant with God.” Satan did!
Fourth cut spray, “I said, “Buddha, show me your covenant with Noah.” Buddha did!
Fifth cut spray, I said, “Show me a sign you don’t exist and the Bible is a lie via a rainbow. Damn, God does answer prayers, as he did!
This is a real stupid analogy because Noah didn't ask for the physical confirmation of the Covenant,. God did this.
More to the point, when it comes to the thousands killed in a tsunami, what difference does it make (apologetically) to the person (be it a Bible Believer or not) dying in a flood if the promise / covenant with Noah was about a worldwide flood? Rainbow or not, their asses are drowned!
There is a big difference. There will never be another world-wide flood that will wipe out all life on land. God promised.
Finally, if science wants to know about Global Warming flooding the major coastal cities . . . Screw it! Just look at the rainbow!
I haven't seen a single computer model anywhere that shows that Global Climate Change will lead to a flood covering the whole earth. Even if all the polar ice caps melt, there will still be dry land in some places on the earth.
Thank you God!
As well we should!
Debunking Christianity: Having Some Good Biblical Fun With God
Saturday, August 4, 2012
The Advantage of Being Awestruck - by @Jason_Silva on Vimeo
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| Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
This video was created by @Jason_Silva and shot and edited with my friends at Bravo Media, and is non-commercial and for educational and inspirational purposes only. Full credits and clip attributions can be found below. This video was inspired by three big ideas:
1) The ideas of psychologist Nicholas Humphrey who has written of "THE BIOLOGICAL ADVANTAGE OF BEING AWESTRUCK". Basically, our ability to awe was biologically selected for by evolution because it imbues our lives with sense of cosmic significance that has resulted in a species that works harder not just to survive but to flourish and thrive...
"Humphrey refers to consciousness as a magic show that you stage for yourself inside your head, which lights up the world and makes you feel special and transcendent... this magical theater provides a reason to live, a love of occupying the present moment, and a desire to sustain it into the future, that over time has proved stronger than anything else, and accounts for humanity’s swift and triumphant success--
Humphrey says “being enchanted by the magic of experience, rather than being just an aid to survival, provides an essential incentive to survive.”
"We relish just being here. We feel “the yen to confirm and renew, in small ways or large, our own occupancy of the present moment, to go deeper, to extend it, to revel in being there, and when we have the skill, to celebrate it in words..”
Our desire to understand brings exquisite pleasure... and feeds our exploratory voyage, our scientific inquiry, our technological development, and even our poetic self-regard..
I would argue that this what drives science. But how did it get there? And not everyone has these feelings and desires in equal measure. I think those who love arts, science, and engineering the most have the strongest case. It truly is another way humanity expresses itself.
2) The Stanford study that found that AWE is clinically good for you, expanding perception of time, increasing compassion and empathy and promoting well being:
I think that it's this benefit is why we find the inquisitive nature and traits being discussed ingrained in Children. They are like sponges for information. We all should never forget what it's like to have your mind blown by learning something that impresses you. What I love is that you never have to give that up just because you grow up. What I love about musicians, artists, scientists, and engineers is that they never do.
3) Ross Andersen's rapturous meditation on the ontological awakening of our psyches provided by the Hubble Space Telescope: "At first glancing the Deep FIELD “one might mistake it for gemstones scattered across black velvet, but a closer look reveals that each smudge of light, 2,600 in all, is a galaxy dense with billions of star-fired worlds, pinwheeling in deep time. … To that point, astronomy had imaged objects only four billion light years away, and poorly at that. Here a telescope reached 11 and a half billion light years into space and delivered an image legible to the layman: an unprecedented expansion of human vision."
I agree.
**Music by John Murphy - "Kaneda's Death Pt 2" from Sunshine Soundtrack
itunes.apple.com/us/album/sunshine-music-from-motion/id297702863
itunes.apple.com/us/album/sunshine-music-from-motion/id297702863
**Featuring Stock Footage from Shutterstock
Still images courtesy of THE IMAGINARY FOUNDATION - imaginaryfoundation.com/
And clips from Knate Myers' "ISS at Night" featuring NASA images: vimeo.com/45878034
Still images courtesy of THE IMAGINARY FOUNDATION - imaginaryfoundation.com/
And clips from Knate Myers' "ISS at Night" featuring NASA images: vimeo.com/45878034
Camera: Liam O' Sullivan
Edited by Jess Betz and Jason Silva
Shot and edited at BRAVO MEDIA - bravomediainc.com/
Edited by Jess Betz and Jason Silva
Shot and edited at BRAVO MEDIA - bravomediainc.com/
I think a far more interesting question is where does this trait go in so many adults? I think society bludgeons most of it out of us when we are told to stop asking questions and to stop dreaming - in other words: school. One thing I've noticed is that many anti-theists will agree that the ability to be awed is an integral part of being human that we can recognize beauty. They say that we have no need of God in order to enjoy beauty or to be blown away by the universe. Yet they also argue that no one's life has transcendent value. How can you be amazed and awed by your existence and yet deny that there is anything of purpose or transcendent value (i.e. created). For example, here is Christopher Hitchens making the same argument against Douglas Wilson as the above video.
The Biological Advantage of Being Awestruck - by @Jason_Silva on Vimeo
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
FacePalms and FacePlants
"FacePalm" means "(sometimes also face-palm or face palm) is the physical gesture of placing one's hand flat across one's face or lowering one's face into one's hand or hands. The gesture is found in many cultures as a display of frustration, embarrassment,[1] shock, or surprise.[2]" Source
"FacePlant" is a similar idea. It is used to described a failed attempt at something, I tend to use it as a strong description for a failed argument than a facepalm. It's not just a failure it's an epic failure.
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