Christmas Plans

-xkcd

Beautiful & Complex Things That God Didn’t Make.

There are a couple things I’d like to point out in this picture. First is the mountain. The mountain in the foreground is called Mauna Kea and is located on the big island of Hawaii. It, and four others that make up the big island, were all formed by a hotspot. A hotspot is basically a very large magma chamber underneath the Earth’s crust and with a lot of heat and pressure, pushes the land up from below to create (in this case) islands as the plate of land travels over the hotspot. By human standards, this is a very long process. Mauna Kea alone is about a million years old! The rest of the islands in chain are even older. So just by aging the mountain alone, we now this we not created by supernatural forces, since this predates the Bible, Jesus Christ, etc., by magnitudes!

Also I’d like to point out the very obvious trails in the picture, which are of course star trails. I mostly want to call attention to the star themselves, not the effects of them when leaving the camera shutter open for very long periods of time. You thought Mauna Kea was old? Ha! Stars last much longer than anything on Earth ever will.
Stars are formed by the condensing of (largely hydrogen) gas into more and more compact volumes. When the gas condenses, at the same time, it gets hotter. And when the gas has reached a critical temperature, the hydrogen starts fusing into the next heaviest element, helium. This is known as nuclear fusion and is what the star does for the bulk of its life time, which is anywhere from a few million to easily billions of years. So here again, just by age alone, we know stars were not created by some omnipotent being.

Things are looking up for atheism!

Thankfully!!!
And here are a few different snippets I’ve found on the blogosphere backing me up.

I’d first like to draw your attention to this video on Proud Atheists. It’s a clip from Rachel Maddow’s show. The clip mostly concentrates on the discrimination of atheists, but that sprouts from the fact that when being sworn into a public office, a person can now say it is their “solemn affirmation” as opposed to “so help me god” if they so choose.
Here’s the clip.

Apparently, 7 different states have provisions in their constitutions banning atheists from public office. Those states are Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carolina. And in N. Carolina, this may very soon come to test as atheist Cecil Bothwell took the atheist version of swearing in, and many of his critics are now enraged and going to try to get him out of public office. How truly sad that they decide to waste their time with such menial tasks.

Moving on.

An evangelical church has opened its doors to gays and lesbians! “Queer or straight here, there’s no hate here” Reverend Mark Tidd is heard saying during his weekly welcome. The common refrain heard in evangelical churches is “love the sinner, hate the sin”. But younger evangelicals are showing greater acceptance to this typically outcast group of people as a greater understanding is growing amongst the church. Read the full article here.

The last blog entry I’d like to share with you comes from StephanieBeiss.com. The title of the entry is “Why Atheists have higher morals than ‘believers’”. The part of the article I’d like to point out is the penultimate paragraph.

Actually, people born without a prevailing conscience are medically and psychologically deemed to be psychopaths. According to Proud Atheists, the countries with the lowest crime rates in the world are those with the highest percentages of Atheists. Also, Atheism is more prevalent among those of higher education and/or intelligence, and Atheists are much less likely to become criminals or to divorce than religious people. Less than a quarter of one percent of prison inmates are Atheists… while an overwhelming 75% are Christians.

Those are definitely some telling stats. When was the last time you saw some atheists waging war over whose belief system was better? How many religious people are there in scientific fields as opposed to the general population? Well, you get the point. Atheists are generally happier people than their religious counterparts.

It’s good to see stories and articles in this vein, particularly in the overly religious United States. Let’s hope that these trends continue.

Where the hell have I been?

Sorry for the hiatus folks. I’ve been without a laptop for about the last two and a half weeks, so I haven’t been able to do any new updates. But I did just finally get my laptop back, and now I can get back to the important things in life…like blogging. So let’s get this show back on the road shall we?

Before we get onto a more formal post, I’d like to introduce a couple new (well, new to me) blogs that I’ve stumbled upon.
Firstly, The Red Headed Skeptic. This has proved to be a rather interesting blog from what I’ve read of it so far. I’m still reading the “My Story” page as it includes the author’s back story. The author grew up with a fundamentalist Christian upbringing and has now left that belief system behind in the light of atheism. Conversion (deconversion?) stories are always interesting to me.

Anywho, read on. Hopefully you’ll find it as interesting as I have.

Next, I’d like to introduce Proud Atheists. The author doesn’t write lengthy posts, but those he does write are often thought provoking and inquisitive. Pick a random post, and see if you identify with it.

Now, without further ado, let’s get back to our regularly scheduled program.

Beautiful & complex things that God didn’t make.

Silversword

 

 

 

The Silversword is endemic to the state of Hawaii. Once brought to near extinction by sheep herders in the 1920s and 1930s, the plant is now being brought back by various conservation efforts throughout the state.

The distinct color of the “silver” leaves is an adaptation that is a direct response to their natural high altitude habitats. At the altitudes that this plant resides at, the plants are subject to much more sunlight than plants at sea level. But the color of the leaves help reflect much of the more harmful light (read UV) that is emitted from the sun. In addition, the color (as well as the overall circular shape of the the base of the plant) helps focus the warmth of the sun down to the central parts of the plant. The leaves are also strong enough to resist the wind and freezing temperatures that are common at these higher altitudes.

A little Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Quote & quotables

“It was, of course, a lie…I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.”

-Albert Einstein

Ask an Atheist.

Some good new from the college front. It appears atheist student groups are growing on college campuses. Once a week at Iowa State University a member of the Atheist and Agnostic Society will sit at a booth with a sign saying “Ask an Atheist” trying to reverse the negative attitude towards atheism. At Harvard as well as two other universities, there are humanist chaplains meeting the needs of atheist groups on campus.

The widening acceptance of atheism on college campuses is definitely a good sign since the college years are definitely where a lot of life philosophies are formed and solidified. This is showing that more of the university population is able to think for themselves and not regurgitate the religious dogmas that have been passed down through the centuries. When we get more and more people that start asking why and how, we start seeing a renaissance of sorts that potentially leads to a higher form of reasoning.

In the Iowa State group, of the 30 or so members, most of them are “former” somethings, mostly Christians. And their reversal of philosophies was not guided by anti-religiousness, but rather belief in science, logic, and reason.
And their aim is not so much to change the beliefs of their religious brethren, but rather “live and let live”. This is basically an attempt to put a peaceful face on atheism instead of one of contempt and disgust.

You can read the full article here.

Reading this leads me to think how a similar attempt would go over at the university here in little Hilo, Hawaii.
This town has proved to be very religious indeed. There are many churches here in this town, indeed one right down the street from me, a rather large one at that. The Hawaiian people in general are a rather religious group, some having taken on western religion, others keeping to their own polytheistic religious roots. But the school does support a growing number of scientists seeing as how some of the largest programs here are geology, marine science, and astronomy. And particularly with geology and astronomy does one begin to see the physical principles which contradict age-old ideologies of the bible. The earth is how old after all?

I do indeed hope to see this trend continue amongst college campuses throughout the nation. For a long time the US of A has been a leader in the sciences and technology, but ironically it has also been one of the most religious nations the world over. And if we can leave these millennia-old dogmas behind, we can then see a new resurgence in our push for the sciences.

Beautiful & Complex Things God Didn’t Make.

Kauai sunrise

This is a gorgeous sunrise taken from the coast of Kauai. And yes, it does not take a supernatural being to make something this beautiful.

A little Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.