Here you'll find my thoughts on fitness, humanity, nature, nutrition, politics, reason, science and critical thinking.

“Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.” -Albert Einstein

Monday, April 5, 2010

The least religious countries have the highest standards of living.

This is my favorite argument to stump anyone who argues that religion is needed for morality or proper social justice. The countries that offer the best education, health, equality between richest & poorest and overall social equality are the least religious in the world while countries that are highly religious are at the bottom.

Every time I’ve brought up this argument not a single person has been able to come up with a constructive retort, that’s obvious since surveys and studies clearly show there is NO possible counter point that would have concrete validity.



USA, the states that offer the most social equalities are the least religious…


So remember to always bring up this subject, you’ll be amused ;-) .

Links:
Phil Zuckerman studies
Gallup Poll 2009
USA Today article 2009
Religion in Europe 2007-2008

Friday, April 2, 2010

The most fascinating human being in recorded history

It blows my mind what Democritus (460-370 BCE) knew 2400 years ago.

I would love to have a chat with this fellow to have him explain me how he came up with such answers as listed bellow such a long time ago. 

46  There is an infinite number of worlds of different sizes: some are larger than ours, some have no sun or moon, others have suns or moons that are bigger than ours. Some have many suns and moons. Worlds are spaced at differing distances from each other; in some parts of the universe there are more worlds, in other parts fewer. In some areas they are growing, in other parts, decreasing. They are destroyed by collision with one another. There are some worlds with no living creatures, plants, or moisture.
    
47  The material cause of all things that exist is the coming together of atoms and void. Atoms are too small to be perceived by the senses. They are eternal and have many different shapes, and they can cluster together to create things that are perceivable. Differences in shape, arrangement, and position of atoms produce different things. By aggregation they provide bulky objects that we can perceive with our sight and other senses.

Many people where he lived had inquisitive minds just as he and their scientific knowledge was amazing as well as their teachings on life & morality. Had they been able to continue their teachings one can only imagine how advanced our sciences & evolved our societies would be. Unfortunately close minded religions took over and proceeded to destroy all of this knowledge and kill anyone who dared speak such foul worlds......

You can read more of his writings:

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Is there a meaning to life? ... Of course not ;-)

One of the most profound questions ever asked and heavily discussed to this day, yet I've come to find it very easy to answer and explain.

Is there a meaning of life? My answer is "no" and my explanation is as simple.

There is no more of a reason for life then there is for the sun, asteroids, planets, gravity or anything else in this universe. Life is just a simple progression in one way no more significant than any other cosmic occurrence. Sounds pretty depressing right? Not really.

So what if there is no meaning of life? It has not kept humanity from"giving" itself a meaning. What is that meaning? History shows we are gradually evolving to create a society where everyone is treated equally and given the same opportunities. It's pretty obvious our meaning is to get to that. Utopia is a word often used to describe this ultimate goal. 

Obviously we're very far from achieving this goal but we are progressing in the right direction, the following are 3 examples:

  • At no other time in human history have so many people been given access to education, health services & freedom of speech. 
  • Violence is at an all time low, impossible you say? The reason people are under the opinion violence is at an all time high is due to massive access to information from around the globe and what we read, hear and see is violence on a weekly basis. Historical studies show the last 50 years have been the less violent. 
  • Approximately 10% of the population owns 80% of the worlds wealth. At no other time in history has this number been higher (and growing), in the mid 1900s 5% owned 80+% while 100+ years ago it was as ridiculous as 1% owning over 90% of the worlds wealth.
We're on the right path... it's just too damn slow for my taste!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

The choice of not having any kids.

I've blogged before that I've lived the perfect childhood, so I don't have any bad experiences that pulled me in the direction of not desiring children, it's been like that since my teen age years.

A good 20 years later I can elaborate why I have remained without the desire to have children.

I want to focus my time and energy on my couple in terms of personal or common interests, needs, goals and dreams. I never felt the interest to take on the job of parenting, nothing about it really appeals to me and since a child is the single biggest responsibility anyone will ever undertake, I was never going to just "try it".

For those that might think of replying "But your heritage?"... All I can say is "REALLY?" People really have kids these days so their lineage can continue? What the hell does it matter if it stops? Who's going to care in a 1000 years? On a universal scale A whole lifetime is nothing but less than HALF a second. I say to these people, enjoy your moment it's likely all there is and it is VERY VERY VERY short.

As for those that say it's selfish, having kids is selfish as well, people want them for the pleasure it will bring them, not because they feel it is a duty they must do. But in their selfishness people will likely nurture and care for this child, but let's be clear they wanted it for THEM, and that's OK.

In short, I want to live my dream of being with a women I love, cherish her deeply, discover the world with her, grow as a person because of her and see life through her eyes. I never felt the need for a child to accomplish that.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

You CANNOT believe in science the way you can in fairy tales or religions

Today I just had 2 very nice young ladies from the Jehovah's witness knock on my door. Not wanting to waste their time I immediately told them I was not interested. They asked me if it was due to a bad experience or that "I believed in science instead, like evolution".

The last part did it for me, I just had to explain to them how wrong that last statement was, so I invited them inside for a little chat.

You see you can't believe in science the way you believe in anything else, science is not about belief, revelation, authority or tradition it's about evidence and ONLY evidence! As my example I'll use evolution since it is the flavor of the day in the general public. So basically Darwin came up with the scientific theory of evolution. He then published his evidence and his work was reviewed by other scientists who pretty much tried to disprove his scientific theory because in doing so was the only way to "prove" it.

After the scientific theory of evolution went through numerous reviews by other scientists who could not disprove his evidence it became valid. This is how all scientific theory's function.

The greatest thing about a valid scientific theory? It is reviewed every time scientists find new discoveries or new methods of study that are found to offer more accuracy that could apply to a theory. Take DNA for example, when it was discovered scientists reviewed over and over how this applied OR not to the scientific theory of evolution and once again it actually applied, only re-enforcing the validity of evolution and so like hundreds of previous new discoveries long after Darwin's death his scientific theory keeps standing up.

Even the concept of the earth going around the sun gets reviewed whenever some new discovery in astronomy is made that has a relation to how the earth rotates in space.

When a theory as old as Darwin's evolution has been through constant reviews over the past 180 years and every time it comes out as being even MORE valid by the scientific community it makes no sense to say "I don't agree with that" unless you can scientifically disprove the theory, which not a single human has been able to do, anyone who claims to have done so and has had his work peer reviewed has been flatly rejected, not because the scientific community believes in evolution, it's simply because the evidence shows this person's work is wrong.

THAT! Is how science works, a constant study and re-evaluation of a scientific theory.

Now these two young ladies said something along the lines "but it is a theory". I had to explain that a scientific theory and theory are totally different, they should invent another word for scientific theory because it just confuses people.

The only similarity between a scientific theory and a theory is ONE thing... the word: Theory



A simple theory is pretty much just an opinion or a belief, I can say I have a theory that unicorns once existed but were hunted to extinction because humans wanted the ivory, it's almost believable because we see it today with so many species close to extinction because they are hunted for their ivory.

Now if I were to make a statement that this is a scientific theory then I would need evidence, publish it and this documentation would have to be sent to scientists, probably archeologists in this case and they would review my work and of course in no time flat would disprove my scientific theory and it would simply fall back to being an opinion... or a belief.

This is what is so scary about religious people who are fervent believers in ONE book or doctrine and will not believe common scientific sense whenever it goes against their beliefs which is funny because they have no problems using science to try and spread their message (computers, tv, radio, papers, cars, phones, etc...). They try and remove the parts of science they don't agree with and if they can impose their views on others they do so... imposing values on others is one of the main causes of violence as people rebel when freedom is taken away.

If they don't believe in hard peer reviewed science like evolution, they simply cannot believe in ANY science, because ALL science came from a scientific theory. Which means they should throw out their religious book(s) because they only exist due to science (the invention of paper).... heck even all their synthetic clothes! ;-) .