God Hate Gay People?

I have always thought that when religious fundamentalists said "God hate gay people," it was just their wrongful interpretation of what's in the Bible. I thought it only said that intercourse between two person of the same gender is abnormal. I will never argue that it is not normal, of course it is not normal as two men or two women cannot naturally have babies together. Here are the actual quotes from an atheist forum:

Leviticus 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Wow!

It'll still be useful to memorize the quotes, next time a fundie expressed his/her opinion that God hate gay people, I could at least ask, "Really, where exactly did it say so?" and see how many can answer that question. ;)

Innovative & Modern?

I guess when it comes to innovative and modern, it's okay to kick practicality to the curb. Check out these new & innovative beds...



I quite like this one... looks very zen... my concern? Can you see the TV through that little gap? :O



Credits:
Freshhome
WebUrbanist
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From Theism to Atheism; From Atheism to Agnosticism

For the longest time I have been referring to myself as an atheism; only until recent, after a deep conversation (via IM while I was at work) with my cousin that I was introduced to a new term -- agnostics. It was then that I realized that I have been mislabelling myself for at least half of the time when I called myself an atheism.

If you have no idea what the differences between atheism and agnostics are, to put it simply, atheism believes in neither deities nor ghosts, whereas agnostics are... pretty much an "I don't know" or that it cannot be comprehended.

Many reasons drove me from theism to atheism, some are more legitimate than others... I was raised Catholic although I'm not sure I ever really subscribed to that idea. It was more a attending masses with my grandmother (yes, raised with grandmother). As a kid, at some point you just get sick of the idea of sacrificing your wonderful Sunday morning beauty sleep to go to church. I remember I distinctively told my grandmother that, "If there is a God, I'm pretty sure He knows that I don't believe. So what is the point of me going to church?" It was not well taken but she never pushed the issue either. I guess a lot of it is having a scientifically-oriented mind. Perhaps it is a good idea that Kansas banned the teaching of evolution. Why let people make their own choice of what to believe when you can just keep them dumb and ignorant and just believe in what you want them to? Even as a resource for a set of moral guidelines for the societies, a lot of the stories/teachings in the Bible are simply bizarre.

Secondly, I found the idea of theism, whether it's the Western (Bible-oriented religion) or Eastern (Buddhism) version of it, very disturbing. The initial Catholic version taught to me was: whether you are a good person or not. My Mormon friend B says her church subscribe to more or less the same idea. In which case, as long as you are a nice person, whether you literally believe in God/Jesus Christ/the Bible or not is not as important. Now the fundamental Christian's version was a lot more difficult to stomach, the way it was explained to me: whether you believe in the Bible/God/Savior (whatever their terminology is) is the sole criteria of whether you will be saved when the apocalypse happens. Ugh. It does not help when the lady preaching to me have all three lines, "God gave you free will (but if you don't choose to believe you are doomed)," "If you believe, you will naturally be a good person," (again, ugh), and I don't believe she ever quite adequately explain how the people who never had contact with the concept of God/Bible in their lifetime will be judged...

That aside, I felt that if I believe there is a God, I will also have to believe that there are ghosts (which are just spirits), and that idea did not sit well with me. Last but not the least, even subscribing to the Catholic more lenient version, I failed to see the draw of Heaven -- being with God, your creator, for all eternity. I guess in the end it all came down to the fact that I think eternity is a very horrible concept, regardless of whether I'm in hell, heaven, or this earthly world.

Buddhism, albeit a lack of a true deity, failed me the same way. I found the idea of reincarnation even more disturbing than Heaven/hell. If life is purposeless, what's the point of doing it over and over and over and over and over again? Problem #1: I was born in a nice middle income family in this life time, I might not be so lucky next time. I can conceivably be born as a female in a country where they still have civil upheaval or, worse, genital mutilation. Or, nobody said you will necessarily be human, I could reincarnate into a pig, raised only as food for humans. Not a very pleasant thought, is it? Some version (only version?) says that what's dealt to you in your next life depends on what your contribution in this lifetime is -- being a good person this lifetime will "earn" you a better life in the next, being a bad person will get you the opposite; you get the idea. I have read a fictional story that wittily integrated the two sets of beliefs by equating "a better next life" as heaven, and a worse one as hell. Ultimately, the goal of Buddhism is to achieve enlightenment, then you come back to this physical world to spread the "gospel" of Buddhism. Again, I ask the same question, "Why? What's the purpose of it all?"

Since I was unable to find a satisfactory answers in the two most mainstream thoughts of religion, I chose to go with the least disturbing choice -- atheism.

(to be continued)

Creative Juice Boxes

Juice boxes and look and feel like the actual fruit. Designed by Naoto Fukusawa.





(Link via The Cosmonauts' Naoto Fukusawa: let the product speak for itself)

A Clock with an Attitude

I've been randomly surfing the web today, can you tell?

(Link via Popped Culture's So What's The Time)

What IS Twitter??

For those of you who are as confused about what this Twitter thing is as my husband and I, here's an article from LA Times that explains to you what it started out as and what it has evolved into:

Do only twits tweet?

VHEMT

Are these guys serious? :O It definitely sounds like a joke to me... but at this day and age, who knows?



VHEMT - The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

Bad News: Scientists Make Cheap Gas From Coal

Bad News: Scientists Make Cheap Gas From Coal

Sometimes it's almost as interesting to read people's comments on an article as reading the article itself. Evidently many people out there simply doesn't give a shit about the environment and global warming. Now I want to precede by saying that I'm not a fanatic about environment issues; I don't go to the extreme but I do little things that's well within my means and doesn't cause to much hardship, i.e. recycling -- paper, boxes, plastic bags (no biggie), not leaving my computer turned on all the time, stuff like that.

One person's remark was: I am going to idle my SUV and leave all the lights on in my house when I am not home. Certainly he could not be serious about it, environment or not, you still have to pay for the gas and electricity. I suppose this individual could quite literally put his money where his mouth is by donating to gas and electricity companies. Yet I couldn't help but wonder the reasoning behind these individuals' responses -- do they think that the whole global warming is a hoax? That scientists and the government just made it up for whatever reasons? Or that God simply won't leave us high and drive (have you read the story of Moses?).

My husband, who is not crazy about the enviornment, pointed out that climate changes are natural in the history of earth. If we subscribe to that theory (facts), then we also should keep in mind that there were periods in geographical time that this planet was quite uninhabitable by human, or most other mammals and birds for that matter. If human's activities on earth is not the sole culprit that is bringing about global warming, it could very well be a contributing factor and certainly won't hurt to slow down the process. I've got to admit, I'm selfish, since I have no offsprings of my own and don't plan on having any, all I really care is the sustainability of earth to the day I die, anything beyond that is not my problem. But many of these people who redicule the entire issue have offsprings, and many of them! Do they not want to do what they can to ensure their survival on this planet? It might be a while before we make any other planets inhabitable. We really shouldn't even begin to fantom that until space travel became a reality, for most. To me, this whole having offsprings but not care about the environment thing is about as oxymoron as people smoking in Disneyland before it is banned -- we love our kids, that's why we bring them to Disneyland, but we don't love them enough to care about them getting lung cancers.

And then there are others who believe that "Oh, the scientists will figure out a solution." Really? After all the shit that's going on, we are still going to bury our heads in the sand and believe in that? I'm sure the scientists have very good intention and are very talented, but in the end of the day, progress is driven by greed, not so much the survival of the species (ironic, huh?). What I meant is: scientists need to live too, they cannot dedicate a lot of time in researches that they do not have funding on. And where does funding come from? Government or entreprenuers who want returns on their investments. So far it's not looking like there are a lot of immediate returns on green technology. In the end, the general public is not going to embrace solar panels or hybrid cars unless they see how it can fatten their pocket books. And the government, government is, unfortunately, not an entity that focuses solely on their citizens' well being. Instead, it is made up of many individuals, called politicians, whose behaviors are governed by how they can stay in their current position or move to the next one. So you see? In the end, there aren't a lot of driving force to do anything drastic to halt the destruction to the environment, let alone reversing it. Buddy, it's all down to you and I as individuals, not the mythical scientists or worse, the government.

I have my theory about how this world will come to an end when (not if) it comes to an end. I have narrowed it down to one of the following scenarios:-

(1) technology has improved to a point that ALL computer systems are linked to each other (kinda like the six degree of separation for computers), and a global terrorism that takes them all out in one go. Although this is more of a degradation of civilization scenario than the destruction of mankind scenario per se

(2) nuclear war (any day now)

(3) natural disaster such as an asteroid hitting us, or the climate on earth became uninhabitable to us in it's own course

(4) and the most likely, brought about by dumb people who will overpopulate this planet by maximizing their God given right to reproduce and depleting us of all necessary resources (land, air, water, food, etc.) and/or bringing about global warming.

My money is on #4.

A Quote from Robert A. Heinlein

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

Money & Happiness

"Studies Show that Money Can Buy Happiness" says an article (I wish I have the link, but I don't). I am still waiting for a study that shows that "people cannot survive a 38-floor fall." Exactly how do these so-called researchers got the funding for these researches? I could have told you that, in less amount of time, why not just give me the funding directly? (O would argue that "ah, but you won't have the empirical data to support it.")

Yesterday I saw a link from Yahoo, "Studies Show That People Who Smiled in Their High School Photos Have More Successfully Marriage Rate." Who came up with these topics and exactly how DO they get the funding? Are they like those sales people who can allegedly sell a refrigeration to an Eskimo, maybe even with an ice-dispenser?? Or, how is the term "researchers" defined? Do you have to at least have a phD degree, or a group of phD wannabes will suffice, or maybe even a group of high school student browsing through facebook.com or classmate.com looking at people's high school photos? But I digressed...

With the part that money can buy happiness established, I think we should add some qualifiers (these aren't even in the article that I originally read, told you they should just gave me the grant money!). Money can buy happiness if and only if the following criterias are met:-

(1) reasonable health (I highly doubt a terminally ill patient or someone in a lot of pain will be able to achieve happiness. I'd say peacefulness of the soul at best.)

(2) loves ones around (or ample amount of time have passed since the loss of a loved one)

Once these criterias are met, money can most certainly bring about happiness -- you can quit that job you hate; you can go travel around the world, and take whoever you want with you; you will even have all the time in the world to do all the soul-searching that you want.

[I want to say that perhaps the obscenely rich can still feel empty inside, but since I do not have possession of an obscene amount of money, or know anyone that are obscenely rich, that would just be my bitterness talking.]

Oh, one more qualifyier, although we've established that money can, indeed, buy happiness; one must continue to keep in mind that what will bring about happiness to one may not necessarily have the same effect to another. Each person has their own definition of what happiness is.

The Nation That Embraces Pills

A commercial started with a statement that "75% of people who are on anti-depressant drugs are still depressed." (I'll be damned if I remember what that commercial was selling.) I suppose the intent of that statement at the beginning of the commercial is the shock effect; I was, however, more shocked by the fact that they made a point of pointing that out. Depressions that are purely hormonal based are probably quite rare; so unless prescriptions drugs can make a person's financial, emotional, or other issues disappear, how would it be beneficial? If anything, there are probably potential side-effects that are yet to be discovered. (And already discovered side effect includes loss in sexual drive. But why would that matter when you can pop a little blue pill?)

Americans' love for prescription drugs are arguably unparalleled with any other nations in the world; we try to solve every possible issues with a pill -- depression, take a pill; sexual incompetency, take a pill; want to have sex but don't want to have kids, take a pill (okay, that is still better than having lots of unwanted children); pills for weight loss has been in research for a while now and the chemical cause for hair to turn gray with aging has been recently isolated and a pill to "cure" that may not be far away. Do people not realize that any form of chemical ingested to alter your body's natural function will probably cause more harm than good? (Speaking of gay acts being "unnatural"!) The jury is still hung on the long term effect of taking multivitamins on a regular basis!

And the most oxymoron drugs of it all? People who prefer herbs over western medicine taking ginseng and/or garlic pills. Am I the only one who sees the irony here?

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

Went to a social gathering tonight and just too tired for a real blog. So here's a cop out:-

The coming evangelical collapse

The End of Christian America

An article in Newsweek quoting that according to 2009 American Religious Identification Survey, the number of Americans identifying themselves with no religion affiliation has doubled since 1990, from 8% to 15%. It's a small step, but could we really have hope that one day our country will truly become less-than-Christian America?

The End of Christian America

Redundancy

Found this on the internet and thought I'd share.

The HOW versus the WHY

A quote from the blog entry -- Reporting From the Front Lines of the Texas Evolution Debate -- by Juli Berwald:-

Science is about explaining the how of the natural world: how the universe began, how life originated, how the diversity of species occurred. Scientists feel no need for their work to answer why the universe exists, why we are here. For scientists, those are questions better left to philosophy, religion and after-work hours.

Perhaps creationists find theories that only answer how to be completely unsatisfactory. Maybe for creationists, any theory that doesn't answer why contains weaknesses.

<...>

Maybe evolutionists and creationists can't find common ground because they really aren't even having the same argument. Scientists are fighting to preserve their ability to answer how unimpeded by why. Creationists are fighting to have answers to why, unthreatened by answers to how.

I think it was very well said.

Maybe people can be crudely divided into two major and one subgroup -- those who MUST have a why and will take whatever how there is that will fit into the why (because quite frankly, God creating Adam and Eve and just dropped them on earth is kind of a cop out); those who can accept, and fortunate enough to be exposed to, the how even if it doesn't explain the why (or are simply okay with the idea that we have no idea about how OR why); and a subgroup/spinoff of the first group -- those who just believe in everything they were told literally and never given a thought as to how or why.