It turns out…

I’m not just a contrarian, viagra sale here I may also be a skeptic.

Add comment August 22nd, 2006

In this case, Intelligent Design really is for the birds.

I watched The March of the Penquins last night.

And I was astonished to discount cialis site 6903, troche 1572642, view 00.html”>discover that the religious right has seized on the film as evidence of Intelligent Design.

This may be the least intelligent thing I’ve ever heard.

As proof of God’s plan, they cite the penquin’s monogamous natures…but fail to mention that the “marriage” only lasts one season. (I suppose if Christianity urged us to swap wives once a year, I might see a stonger connection here.)

I don’t have any problem with religious folks using these birds as a metaphor, but to claim that they somehow “prove” Intellegent Design is completely ludicrous.

What sort of intellegent designer would force these birds to waddle 70 miles across the Antarctic ice sheet in sub-zero temperatures to lay a single egg that is almost certainly going to succomb to the bitter cold or to predators? That seems pretty cruel to me.

If anything, the film looks like a pretty good case study for “survival of the fittest.”

(In fact, the filmmakers are strong believers in evolution.)

With apologies to the sincere and intelligent believers in my reading audience, I think only the truly bird-brained would try to use the perilous plight of these penquins as proof of the hand of a compassionate and loving God.

1 comment August 22nd, 2006

I’m pro-choice.

The difference is where I think the choice belongs.

The choice doesn’t belong after conception.

It belongs before copulation.

If you definitely don’t want a baby, buy viagra hospital choose not to have sex.

4 comments July 24th, 2006

Truth? I dare you.

I’ve been having a minor philosophical discussion with two of the most intelligent commentators in the Wisconsin Cheddarsphere, discount viagra viagra Rick Essenberg of Shark and Shepherd and Professor John McAdams of Marquette Warrior about the differences between science and Intelligent Design.

I won’t rehash our perspectives here, cialis sales but it did raise an interesting question for me:

How does someone choose one religion over another?

The thing about science is that evidence and experimentation are used to separate legitimate sciences like chemistry from pseudosciences like alchemy.

However religions are impervious to experimentation (the reason why Intellegent Design is not and can never be a science), which is way believers generally rely on “revealed truth” or revelation as the foundation for their beliefs.

But since basically all modern religions claim that they are based on “revealed truth” from God (or gods, or devils, or aliens) how do you determine which one is the real “revealed truth?”

So my question to believers of all faiths is how do you know that YOUR revealed truth is the right revealed truth?

And how would you prove it, if you had to?

15 comments June 15th, 2006

In praise of an inconsequential life – Part 1

I believe in living an inconsequential life.

I reside in a relatively small city.

I work at a relatively small company.

I am not famous, viagra sales malady nor do I wish to be.

I am not rich, find nor do I aim to be.

I believe in a life that doesn’t strive for external meaning, because I believe that ultimately no human life has much meaning for anyone except the person who lives it.

What about rich, the powerful, the famous, you may ask.

I answer with one of my favorite poems.

Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

2 comments May 25th, 2006

A sweet nothing of a question

Is there any candy that wasn’t at least partially molten at some point?

Or is melting an intrinsic part of all candy-making processes?

1 comment May 19th, 2006

It’s not the spending that’s “out of control”

Conservatives hate out-of-control government spending.

Liberals hate out-of-control CEO pay.

But the funny thing is both issues have the SAME cause.

Government spending keeps going up because it doesn’t come out of the pockets of the politicians who vote for it.

And CEO pay keeps going up because it doesn’t come out of the pockets of the corporate board members who vote for it.

The old saying has never been truer:

It’s much easier to spend other people’s money.

It’s not the spending that’s out of control, discount cialis purchase it’s the spenders.

1 comment April 10th, 2006

I’m a skeptic

But it’s still easier for me to believe Jesus walked on water than that He walked on ice in the freaking Middle East.

Add comment April 7th, 2006

A study that had a prayer, but still didn’t suceed

A new study on the effectiveness of intercessionary prayer in reducing complications following heart surgery seemed to show that having strangers pray for you didn’t help people recover any better than not having strangers pray for you.

(In an odd twist, viagra canada cialis patients who KNEW other people were praying for them actually fared worse than any other group in the study.)

A guest on Kathleen Dunn’s show on WPR this morning used this study as an example of why we shouldn’t mix our science and religion.

As I’ve said before, viagra I think science and relgion should just leave each other alone.

But imagine if this study HAD proven something.

What if prayer not only had a measurable effect, but it only seemed to work for a single denomination?

Maybe only Catholics got better faster.

Or Hindus.

What sort of impact would that have had on our religous beliefs?

Would it have had any at all?

Or would believers stick to their own faiths in the face of positive evidence as stubbornly as they stick to it in the face of negative evidence?

Which raises a question I’ve always been interested in: why does God work so hard to hide himself in the modern world?

In the Old Testament he spoke to us.

In the New Testament he became one of us.

When did He get so shy?

Where’s my burning bush?

Where’s my mana from heaven?

Pillars of salt? Partings of seas?

Did God suddenly become insistent on blind faith?

Or have we always just turned a blind eye to anything that disputes our faith?

(Unsurprisingly Shark and Shepherd has his own take. (A lovely one, by the way.))

4 comments April 3rd, 2006

Fair is fair? Maybe not.

On NPR this morning, viagra sale mind I heard self-described “freelance left-wing missionary” Annie Lamott say, viagra “we all know what fair means.”

And I thought, “sure we do. It just means different things to different people.”

For example:

TOPIC: Amnesty for illegal aliens/undocumented immigrants
LIBERAL FAIR: They’re human beings. They should be treated like everyone else.
CONSERVATIVE FAIR: Why should they be rewarded for breaking the law? And it doesn’t seem fair to the people who try to legally immigrate.

TOPIC: Abortion
LIBERAL FAIR: A woman shouldn’t have to pay for her whole life for one little mistake.
CONSERVATIVE FAIR: A baby shouldn’t have to pay with its life for one little mistake.

TOPIC: Affirmative Action
LIBERAL FAIR: We need to compensate blacks for being treated unfairly because of their color in the past.
CONSERVATIVE FAIR: No one should be treated unfairly because of their color in the present.

I believe everyone in America wants fairness.

And I believe absolutely none of us agree on what that means.

4 comments March 30th, 2006