Science and Religion are incompatible PERIOD!

Let me make it perfectly clear for anyone out there that fundamentally there is no reconciling science with religion so quite trying.

Science is defined as the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Science can only invoke physical explanation and the experimentation must be repeatable.

Religion is a set of beliefs drawn from some source usually a person or a book but it can also include cave paintings and other things. The important point is that in religion the belief comes first, regardless of the facts which is opposite to science.

Most rebuttals are about the "god in the gaps" type of belief. Science has no explanation for something so god did it. That god has been steadily losing influence since he'd is now confined to making pancakes with faces on it and such. I won't say anymore since this rebuttal is clearly nonsense.

The alternative is the rejection of science completely to embrace the holy document/painting/person completely, fundamentalism. Basically the gap mentioned above was too small so you cut out science and god has a role. So it seems clear that as science explains more and more people turn to fundamentalism since they want to keep their religion (as in the US) although I doubt this is the only reason (retardation or head trauma comes to mind).

What does this all mean? To myself it shows that discussion with religious people is not technically possible. For instance let talk politics. A scientifically minded person will say that no system is perfect since there is on way to satisfy all the needs of a large number of people so the discussion is pros and cons of different systems. A religious person believes they were told the absolute truth but their "source" and so a perfect system is possible if they just get everyone to follow their belief. For instance a Christian/Muslim/Jew all think that there is a god so following his rules will lead to a perfect system. As you can see we aren't even talking the same language. The assumptions that religious people have are not reconcile with science so their opinions are worthless unless you believe exactly what they believe.

Annoyed at crazy people

Reading Scientific American: Engineering Life: Building a Fab for Biology [ BIOTECHNOLOGY ] in this months SA it is annoying to think that security from people has to be a concern. Just thinking about the current nuclear problem, imagine what one smart person can do with a small biology lab once things like DNA synthesizers and sequencers become affordable and mainstream. Of course the rewards outweigh the danger but it is annoying that crazy people can learn to use these things (as they learned to make IED's). Guess we will have to one day deal with The moral Virologist (a superb story by Greg Egan and definitely worth reading)!

The DaVincie Code

I had a lot to say about this but it can be summed up better by ths blurb from
Mark Perkel

Dear Church of Reality Members,

Here's a letter to the Editor I email to my press list. I think you'll
all enjoy this:

I don't understand why everyone is so worked up over fiction these days.
The movie "The Da Vinci Code" is a work of fiction. It's a fictional
story about the Bible which is also a fictional story about fictional
characters like God and Jesus. None of this is real. I haven't seen
people so worked up over a movie since we found out that Darth Vader was
Luke Skywalker's father in Star Wars! Will I watch the movie? Probably
not. I think I'll wait for the X-Men movie because the characters are
more realistic.

Enjoy ....

Marc Perkel
First One
Church of Reality

Secular Freethought Center

Amazingly some rich intelligent guy has agreed to pay the ~$15000/month rent in order for us to have a secular community center, provided we raise the rest of the money (internet, phone, maintenance etc). It's been really fun so far mostly because of the people. I always enjoy being around intelligent people and it is all the more enjoyable when they are completely reasonable (not having any remnant of childhood beliefs of elves or jesuses). We are going to start getting involved in the campaign to stop the funding of Catholic Schools in Ontario and I may start an initiative to call for an end to the Stem cell ban. It's really great, it's been soo long since I have been around a large and active group of such people and so I only felt I could get small doses of reasonable discussion with a rare few friends in person or here.

As for the center, the idea is for it to be a base for secular groups (we are currently courting the Toronto Humanists) and so give a meeting spot to the intelligent minority. The group I'm with (the TSA) is one group and we hope some others will join but it looks like the skeptics are out (I don't know why but it's some politics). So the task is now to try and find ways to rent the place when we aren't using it to raise money so we can do more campaigns.

Also the progress we have made and experience we have gained is helping other similar groups form in other cities. The prevailing logic is if there are 5 million non-religious people in Canada why are there only a few thousand Humanists. The answer must be (and the reason I never joined) that people don't know about these organizations and they don't feel they will get anything by joining. Naturally atheists are hard to court since they are very independent minded, but, as I feel, it is desirable to make intelligent friends and have a political voice.

I'm Back!!!

After 14 days without high speed (and only 2-3 minutes of reliable dial-up) I'm finnaly back up!! It feels like I've finannly rejoined the world!! It's been hell trying to work over an ssh line in 2 minute intervals or using maple.

On the other side I've gotten more involved with the TSA (Toronto Secular Alliance) in getting our new club house up the Secular Freethough Center.

Happy Ten Amendments day!

In a response to more evangelical political crap (10 commandments day, a movement to lie to American public saying America was founded by Christians who wanted them to be a theocracy) some bold and patriotic American's have set out to create 10 amendments day. This is a way to remind people of the genius of the separation of church and state (to which I will be forever grateful for) and to hopefully educate people as to what are the ten amendments. Myself and I'm sure others feel we owe a great debt to the founding fathers of America that designed such a great system of government (although after 200+ years it needs a tune up). I can't imagine living without the freedoms I enjoy today.

The hope of the movement is this is something the "left" and "right" can come together on since it affects both their philosophies. What's really neat is the wording:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

*Respecting*, now that's is bold! Talk about visionary. They realized that religion was just a problem for government and that people must have freedom of conscious. At the same time they put forth a public religion ("In god we trust" etc) that was groundless but help "sell" the idea of the religion being nothing more than empty words. This was a great marketing feat since the religious think they are in a religious society but the laws forbid it, keeping us all safe. If only religious people would realize how detrimental government involvement in their religion would be! Careful what you wish for it may come true (see Iranian revolution 1979 :-)

Federal Budget

They raised the lowest tax bracket rate from 15% to 15.5%!! I like the ideas of these rebates but talk about a complicated tax code! Do I need a receipt for my bus pass? There are some good points. I like the cut to the Natives. We need to stop funding them!! Let them separate and be their own "country" or "nation" but we should have them constantly suckling at our tax tit! Last year we gave them $6 billion dollars!! That amounts to about $5000 per Native! Thanks to some libertarian friends I have changed my bleeding-heart-ways and think letting people stand up for themselves will be more productive. Beside why are we paying? For conquering them? But I digress.

The main problem (and this is the same I had with the Ontario budget) is there is no stable funding or tax shifting. I think tax-shifting is very important and a big problem that needs addressing. The way I see it citizen want most of their services from the lower levels of government but the tax powers and therefore the money is top down. Instead of transferring tax powers to the lower levels of government so they can pay for the desired services, but instead they give one-time funds and so they only patch the problems. This leaves cities and municipalities unable to plan too far ahead for infrastructure when it is cities that drive our economy. But we get the usual begging higher levels of government for one-time funding.