Annual Anti-Atheism Rant

All of creation is nothing but random collisions of particles according to atheism. It can be nothing else without a mind at the bottom of the well. Life itself, animation, consciousness, the facade of intelligence, good and evil--all nothing but random collisions. There's a reason why nearly 65% of all scientists believe in a god or at least a higher power. They've actually bothered to think things through to the logical conclusion. Most atheists don't appear to have even begun to think about the ramifications of such a belief system as atheism. Do they not see how ridiculous it sounds saying that they don't believe in god and yet they think people can be "good?" There can be no goodness in the deterministic worldview. Atheists have no business ever calling anything good or bad, ugly or beautiful, right or wrong. If you're an atheist, you should never call the police if someone robs you or beats you or harms you in any way, because those things are just fine in the world of atheism where things just "are" and nothing has any meaning, let alone that of good and evil. Atheism is an ideology for people who do not wish to think. Rather than read Attenborough, you might try reading a more heady paper on the subject such as Chris Langon's Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe which carries out David Bohm's work in quantum potential and merges it with consciousness as the binding agent that unifies the forces of the universe.

Surely you all know the universe is still expanding, right? That same rapid expansion that caused the explosive force (particles banging into particles) at the beginning of the universe is still happening and will go on happening forever. Billions of photons alone pass through your body every second. And every time you take a step across the room, you take on an entirely new body, replacing every particle in it. Actually, you don't need to take any steps. The Earth turning on its axis will take the steps for you. So, not only are you taking on new particles constantly and losing the old ones, the new ones somehow know your age and will keep degrading instead of keeping you looking and feeling new. Wouldn't you expect a brand new set of particles to be fresh and young? How is it they take on the characteristics of older degraded particles when they begin to make up your body? How do they keep such exact shapes? Why does your nose always look like a nose (and the exact same nose) if your particles are always changing? Atoms are made up of mostly empty space. Your body is mostly made up of empty space. Electronic force fields keep all matter together, but how do those forces know to keep such an exact shape as every single person's nose and ears or every blade of grass? If the particles in your brain keep changing and being replaced from second to second, how are you able to reason and retain memories and trains of thought?

Science has never been able to answer the tough questions. It doesn't even try. It just gives names to various phenomena and moves on. Giving something a name does not explain it. Saying animals have instincts does not explain them. How can a Monarch butterfly fly to Mexico every winter to the exact same tree it's grandfather was born in when the young butterfly had never been there before and had never even known its grandfather? Calling such phenomena an "instinct" is an extreme oversimplification, but this is more often than not what science does. Many people like to think the world is somehow this amazing self made machine that just does all this incredible stuff by mere chance from those random collisions of particles when the fact is that it runs much more like a staggeringly elaborate program with very little left to chance. At the same time, there are things that do seem to go wrong from time to time that make little sense to any of us. Why do dumb animals feel pain? It doesn't seem fair. Why do major asteroids hit the Earth every 50 to 100 million years and wipe out most of the life forms? Yes, it's baffling. But that doesn't somehow nullify the fact that the majority of the time, this elaborate program of sorts works amazingly well and not at all like something left to chance. It works so well that the ancient Jews referred to it as the Book of Life, as though life itself were a written script. I don't think they were correct, but I can certainly understand the logic behind the analogy.

No one can say for sure that any person or religion has exactly the right notion of God. I think some, particularly Christianity and Hinduism, are closest to the facts of the matter. But whatever God is happens to be just as beyond our understanding as the mechanisms behind the forces of the universe. That's my opinion anyway. But as Socrates said, "I know nothing."

Flash Computer Art

I haven't drawn in a long time, but I used to dabble in drawing on computer inside Flash. With Flash you're restricted to figures that are sort of cartoonish in nature, so there's no shading, but the neat thing about vector art is that it's completely scalable. You can zoom in as much as you like without losing any detail at all. (You won't be able to zoom in on these images without losing detail because I saved them as jpgs for uploading to Blogger.)

These were all drawn with a mouse by the way. I've tried using those Waco drawing tablet-pen devices and find them more frustrating than anything.

Steve Martin - Atheists Don't Have No Songs

This is hilarious. This is Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. They've been together for quite a few years now. If you haven't seen them before, you should search through YouTube for some of their songs. They're not only funny but are very good musicians too.

Here they are doing Orange Blossom Special with a bit of King Tut at the end.

And here there are with another tune featuring their amazing fiddle player, Nicky Sanders, playing Auden's Train.

"The Sorrowing Tree" is Now a Video!

My little instrumental tune is now a story and a movie. Happy Easter to all.

The Best 60s Surf Band You Never Heard

The Jokers were a great Belgium instrumental group that played a lot of surf music but much more. They were on a par with The Ventures, and truth be known, they were probably a little bit better. The band formed in 1959, but it was when the great 15 year old guitarist, Ronny Sigo, joined the band in 1962 that things really took off. All of these guys were really young actually, but Ronny Sigo simply had no peer when it came to the 60s surf guitar sound. It's a shame that he's almost completely unknown outside of Belgium (and Japan) where he still performs as Ronny Sigo and The Jokers. (He's the only original member left.)

Something very original that Ronny Sigo did was his use of a volume pedal to do swells with. He was doing this extensively as far back as 1964 long before any other guitarist was using one or manipulating the knob on their guitar. What's more, he used it very melodically. (You can hear him using one in the video of Tabou listed below, but you never see it in the video since they're just faking it, playing along with a recording.)

They're playing Sabre Dance here circa 1964:



Here they are performing Hully Gully.



Here they play Tabou.

Berlin 1900 In Stunning Color Film

Hard to believe there was color footage this nice in 1900. It really makes you feel less removed from such long ago periods. You feel like you could have been there yourself walking down the street.

Affordable Dentistry?

Just got back from getting a filling at a place called Affordable Dentistry. They charged me $326 for a filling! Is this actually affordable dentistry? I know prices on everything keep going up every year, but this seems like plain old thievery to me for less than an hour’s work. My last dentist didn't charge half this, and he was able to retire at 45! I guess this new breed have set their sites on retiring at 30.

I’m fairly conservative, but health care is one area where I feel a certain affinity with democrats. Heath care agencies, insurance agencies, and personal injury lawyers have got the health care system so screwed up that it wouldn't bother me at all if the government stepped in and took it over. I’m tired of making boat payments for every crook in town.

Just hadda say it.