Bob Carroll is a great guy!

First of all, for those of you who don't know, Professor Carroll is the author of The Skeptic's Dictionary.  And The Skeptics Dictionary is my bible.  Which is why, he got the Babe Ruth Gold Star in my Hall of Fame.  Between Skeptic.com and MMFA, one can find  enought information to account for about 90% of my political ideology and life's philosphy.  So there was no question that those two would be the first two inductees.  When I read the Skepdic's Dictionary, I am filled with a life-affirming experience that most people only get from religion.  In it's pages I have found vindication and validation of every belief that I've ever held.

So... yeah, I'm a bit of a "fanboy."  I have no problem admitting that.

But what I found to be even more striking was just how cool and approachable and accessible the man himself is.  I've emailed him several time now, and he has been gracious enough to either reply back, or post my comments on his blog.  And other than the folks at Newshounds, and ClassicLiberal (who was already a redulat poster here) he is so far the only other inductee in my Hall of Fame to do so.

He recently penned an absolutle scathing criticism of the kind of "journalism" praciced by Andrew Breitbart and Fox News, using the recent case of Shirley Sherrod as an example.  It's solid, and I encourage everyone to read it.  (Well, I encourage everyone to read every single page on the site, top to bottom, cover to cover, but read that ONE if nothing else!)  Related to this article, as entried on The Backfire Effect and Motivated Reasoning.  These entires are far more neutral from a political perspective, but I think that both are useful when it comes to deconstructing how the Conservative Media operates and how the modern Conservatives THINK.  (And Liberals do it to, so be sure to keep these principles in mind when you are defending a liberal point!)

In the "well done" letter that I sent him regarding the Brietbart piece, I let him know obut my own "four levels of conservative reasoning" post.  He replied back that he loved it, and suggested a fifth level:

Level 5 (Ronald Reagan, G. W. Bush, Ann Coulter):
Person A lies, makes stuff, tells stories that are allegedly composites from "real" people or taken right out movies.

Person B exposes the lies, cites the movies, and exposes the fictional nature of the stories.

Person A replies by saying "See, you just proved my point."

Now... I actually wasn't writing him about the Brietbart piece originally.  I just had to 'high-five' on that because I thought it was incredibly well-done.  What I originally was writing him about was the fact that a few nights back, my wife and I were talking about autsim, and the preponderacne of unscientific (Gluten-Caesin free diets, homeopathy, cranial-sacral massage) and sometimes dangerous (cheataltion, not-vaccinating) ideas purporting to cure or prevent it (which we talk about a lot, as it seems like we're the only parents of autistics that we know who insist that something be scientifically vetted before exposing our children to it!) when she mentions "Oh and did you hear that the dubunked the 'Mozart effect'?"  And YES, I had, because I had read about it on Skepdic.com!  Which inspired the following cartoon, which Professor Carroll decided not to run, citing fear of legal acation on the part of Pixar.

Loved the cartoon...wish I could post it, but Pixar would probably sue me

But I'll post it anyway becuase... shit, if Pixar notices what I'M doing, then I guess that means I've hit the big time. LOL.  So screw 'em.  Alex Ross hasn't asked me to take the Kindom Come banner down yet, so I don't think I'll be getting a call from John Lasseter anytime soon...

(click to enlarge)

AND IT DOES!!!

BTW... If you don't remember, in the movie The Incredibles, Kari the babysitter brought Mozart to play while he sleeps...(and so on.)

There is another reason that I'm posting this now.  I promised Steeve (twice now) that I'm going to re-visit some of the comments he'd made in some past Religion/Atheism posts.  And I'd like the topic to stick to the fairly narrow points being discussed.  And as I anticiapte some questions inevitably arising about the nature and logic (or illogic, from some people's POV) of atheism.  Well, rather than re-create what has already been done better than I could hope to, I will refer any questions of this nature to Atheism section of Skepdic. (And) (And)  IMHO, Professor Carrol does a fantastic job laying out the case for Religious Skepicism, in that post and in many others, and in dealing with the varous misunderstandings that people have who try to "disprove" it, or claim that it's "just like religion."  And not only does he answer the questios solidly, but the path from organized religion to disorganized realion to atheism/agosticism that he describes going through in his life is close enough to my own journey, that the arguments ends up ~99% the same and for all intents and purposes what he has written on the topic is entirely adequate for describing my own positions and beliefs. (Or lack there of.)  So in the interests of staying on topic, and avoiding a lot of duplicate typing, I will let what he has written speak for my own position and beliefs as well.

And hopefully this is enough links and refernces for Okiepoli, even if they are all to basically one source! LOL

The Right are a bunch of phonies, and Rush Limbaugh is beyond redemption.

First off, I just want to repeat here a comment I left on Media Matters earlier today:

Limbaugh is now beyond all redemption in my book. He's called for a memorial for Koresh and he's rationalized, even sympathized with McVeigh. He's now apologizing for psychoaths and terrorists and traitors. These men are not Patriorts and niether is he. If you cannot unequivocably condemn either Koresh or McVeigh, then clearly NOTHING will qualify as "too far" or "too extreme" in your warped view. The man is traitorous, sociopathic scum.

Now, that may sound strange coming on the heals of three posts about censorship, but don't get me wrong.  I wouldn't, for a minute, think of having the Government pull him from the air, or punish him in any way that wouldn't pass full Constitutional muster.  But I can't for the life of me figure out why people continue to listen to this scumbag.  Are there really THAT MANY people who sympathize THAT MUCH with Koresh and McVeigh?

In the words of Gorobei Katayama, "Are you kidding me?"

Now... Aside from Limbaugh it's been just over a year since the Right Wing completely lost their fucking minds.  And as much as I'd love to elaborate on that, I just don't think I could come close to doing as good a job as one of my favorite bloggers, philosophers and authors, Professor Bob Carroll.

Please check that out.  All I can do for this beautiful piece of work is to pay it the highest compliment I can and say "I wish I'd written it!"

More on those Koch suckers...

(Somehow, I think I can do better than THAT as well. Oh well...)

I'm going to get to that energy post I promised ClassicLib in repsonse ot his comment.  I'm still pissed that this piece of shit lost it.  (And it WAS an offical "google error" with a secret code number and everything.  NOT a 'user error' or an I-D-10-T problem!)  In any case, I'm still not in the mood to tackle that just yet.

In the mean, one of my few heros, Professor Bob Carroll, has written anoth piece on the Koch brothers.  I usrge everyone to check it out, though I suspect he's preaching to the choir here.

And I missed Maddow last night, but here's her blog. 

Somehow I don't think Glenn Beck is going to get to the bottom of, and expose this shadowy conspiracy to the light of truth anytime soon.

Have you heard of Koch Industries?

Was surprised to see the following referenced in the past couple days on both of my two favorite websites: Skepdic AND MMFA (twice, atcually).

Greenpeace article on Koch Industries, secretly fundging the Climatre Deniers

and

MORE on Koch Indutsries, secretly funding the Climate Deniers

"The biggest company ytou never heard of," huh?  Well... You SURE aren't going to learn about them on Fox News or even the Fox Business Channel, I can guarentee you that!

Now... I've said before that I'm no fan of Greenpeace, but they are truly doing some great work here.  Let's see if that "mainstream liberal media" picks this up.

(I'm not holding my breath.  The mainstream liberal media picking this up is about as likely as a Goblin doing so, and for the same reason.)

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EDIT NOTE: I promise that my mis-spelling of "Koch" with a 2nd "k" in the first link was an error and not some lame attempt on my part to try and be clever.  I'm a lot better than that! ;)

Open call to all you religious moderates out there: 'Splane dis to me...

I had planned to do something on the budget, but I came across a couple of items in Skepdic that I just HAD to deal with.

Please take a moment to read THIS and THIS.  Now, lest you think these are anomolies, let me assure you that there are TONS of examples of this kind of gut-wrenching outrage throughout Skepdic's "What's the harm? Archive"

Now I've made no secret here about my disdain for organized religion.  And I already know what your very first answer to me will be; and this will be the same wether you are perfectly moderate and reasonable or standing in middle of a field with your underpants on your head, waiting for the mothership:  But we're not LIKE them!  They're CRAZY!

OK... Here's the thing... It occurs to me that there is basically a 1:1 (perhaps greater) correlation between how religious you are and how crazy you are.  Very Religious = Very crazy. (See above) Not an extremist = Not very crazy.  And of course, crazy people never KNOW their crazy,  but if you ever consider someone MORE RELIGIOUS than you are, do you ever notice how they usually also seem a little bit crazy, at least compared to you, from your own POV?

So here's my question...

Knowing that the degree of one religiosity is directly proportional to their insanity, why should anyone want to have this force in their life at all?

Please tell me why this is any different from saying, "Oh, I only use a little Cocaine.  Just to make me feel a little better.  I'm not going to be like those crazy Coke-heads, screwing up their whole life."

Tell me how that statement is any different!

Tell me why any good that comes from religion, can't come independently of the insane baggage they ask you to carry!  And yes, some churches ask you to carry very little, but why should I carry ANY AT ALL?! 

I have never noticed a positive correlation between how religious one is and how good a person they are.  Biggoted, hateful, judgemental and downright batshit crazy? Yeah, all those things seem to increase with one's religious zeal.  But charity?  A non-judmental, unconditional love of your fellow man?  Nope.  NEVER seen that. Even though Christ seemed to embody it, his loudest followers seem to be allergic to it. 

And don't think I'm just bashing Christianity here!  Islam has all the social and philosophical problems of Christianity, and then some.  And they have just as many more crazies as you'd expect, given their greater overall zeal!  How about Hinduism?  I'll say this for them: They don't take converts.  You have to be BORN a Hindu.  (I guess the whole reincarnation thing gets messed up otherwise.)  So I respect that they don't go around prostelytising and trying to force everyone else to covert to their way.  That takes a lot of the disfunction out of it.  OTOTH, the amount of absolutely absurd stuff you'd have to belileve in order to REALLY believe is as many times greater than it is Christianity and Islam as their number of Gods is!

(And BTW... if you pick and choose what parts of any religion you will accept and which parts you'll ignore: WHY BOTHER?  You're not following that faith, you're just MAKING IT UP AS YOU GO ALONG!  And you can do THAT without the damned Church! In fact, from the POV of most churches, YOU ALREADY ARE!)

So in closing, I'll say it again: I truly don't judge anyone for believing whatever they want, as long as it's kept out of the science room, out of our laws and out of my face.  And I'm putting this out there in all seriousness.  This is NOT a rhetorical question! I would really like for some moderate, liberal defender of religion to try and convince me of it's inherent goodness. Because the way I see it, if the Amount of Crazy you are is "X" times the amount of Religious you are, why would I want "X" to be anything but ZERO?