Jesus Christ died for Original Sin

Wait a tick...


According to christian myth, Jesus is the human corporeal manifestation of the god Jehovah/Yahweh, (and several hundred years ago they also made a 3rd component, the Holy Spirit), but back to the myth - the 'christ', Jesus was a human male manifestation of the god, and was separate but one with the god. This human died for human sin, but - well, not all human sin, for original sin, to open the doors to the rest of humanity from limbo into heaven, since all were barred due to original sin.
However, Original Sin - was a made up sin (well, all sins are made up, but in general, sins are supposed to be 'bad things'), but original sin, was eating the secret fruit, it was the gotcha sin. Because - this god, Jehovah/Yahweh created humans - so when the god made humans, it made them human, that is to say, curious, trusting, credulous, ambitious, etc... so - this perfect god made these imperfect beings, set them up to fail, when they acted in exactly the way they were designed (remember, they didn't evolve in this myth, they were designed to be the way they are), then they were punished.

And Then, this very same immortal god made a temporary meat-sack avatar, let it get destroyed (doing him no long term harm of course, because he is a DEITY and immortal and omnipotent), to 'save' us from the punishment He/It dealt humanity in the first place.

Now - why is anyone supposed to be grateful for any of this? Isn't it incredibly circular and at best the metaphysical version of self gratifying auto-fellatio by this god?



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Liberal, Democrat, Progressive, Pro-choice

• Pro-choice on reproduction, check.


• On schools, yeah, progressive liberals support teachers, investment in education and better learning environments, and basically anything research and empirically based. Don't support the status quo when it's proven ineffective.


• Guns? Of course we are pro-choice. As pro-choice as we are about doctors and airline pilots. People who wield guns should be stable non-criminals who are capable and responsible enough to wield the gun, so they should have a license, should be certified, should have to undergo regular checks to ensure they remain qualified, and if so, and they want to own a firearm, that's fine. Is there anyone who thinks that a gun is less dangerous than an airplane? Than an automobile? Than a surgeon or other doctor? Heck, you need to be licensed and certified to scuba-dive


• Trade - we support trade that is fair and balanced. Not trade with countries that charge less for goods because of human rights violations, or harmful poisonous polluting practices


• Health care - pro-choice again - the ability to choose care and not die thanks to for-profit insurance companies, not choosing the super disgusting rich over the sick, yes we choose that. We also support the option to pay more for additional private insurance if you want that conscierge level of service and can afford it, I guess we don't choose to let people die in the richest country in the world just so a few really really rich fuckers can be even really really richer.


• Energy - we are pro-choice too - choose to use renewable energy (the 174 petawatts falling on the earth, since we only need 16 terawatts, so we have 11000 times more energy than we need without mercury, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, soot, and a host of other toxins and poisons in the air and water. We choose to have the facts and not let the shell game and smoke and mirrors lies being spewed by vested interests detract for decades of hard science and basic physics.


• We are pro-choice on smoking, as long as the smokers pay extra in taxes to pay for the disproportionate amount of health care they will require, not to mention lost productivity and wages that will impact any company they work for. And as long as the smokers don't smoke in areas where there liberty to smoke infringes on the rest of our ability to breath non-toxic air


• Pro choice on unions, hell yeah, we support unions, and the right for citizens to choose to be a part of unions, UNLIKE corporations that try to union bust


• Pro-choice on light bulbs, sure do - we choose the safest and most efficient, and if people want to use Flintstones era lightbulbs (that are really very efficient heaters that happen to give off some visible light) then let them, but they should be taxed accordingly, as is fair for taking a disproportionate amount of the nation's resources and services, causing more pollution, more wear and tear on the nation's infrastructure, and so on.


• Pro-choice on bags, again, yes, we choose to have the option of using our own reusable ones, never saw anyone forcing anyone else to be responsible


• Walmart - pro-choice, we want everyone to be able to choose when fully informed, when they know that they are not paying $1.00 for 10 pairs of sox, because they are bearing the cost of all the walmart employees who are on welfare and on high cost subsidies that all us tax-payers pay, b/c walmart is effectively lobbying congress to avoid paying them a fair wage.


• Pro choice on what foods you can eat? Again, hell YES, we want our foods labeled. If you WANT to eat poison and toxin, go for it - put the label on the box and let people choose with information, not lie to them and use their ignorance to sell them poison and toxins in the form of colorful vittles.

Yes, this is absolutely correct, except for the "except".

What I don't get about libertarians is that they often argue strongly in favor of large corporations that are intentionally hiding information from average citizens. I'd be all for libertarianism if most citizens were not so ignorant of the facts at hand. And I don't blame the ignorant citizens - 7 times out of 10 at least, it's because of powerful, well monied organizations intentionally misinforming large groups of citizens, or using fear tactics, or other psychological warfare tactics to manipulate the masses.

If you are a libertarianism and you think that being lied to and manipulated and misinformed is ok and that it is fair and that everyone should be able to sift thru the morass of misdirection and then make an informed intelligent choice against all those odds, then I don't know how to counter that. If you don't think that the basis for good decision making is having the facts - having the truth - not being lied to. Then, there really is no hope. I'm aware that there are a lot of religious people.. and obviously people who swallow those lies despite all the evidence to the contrary are very good at lying to themselves and each other and seeking solace in ignorance instead of embracing reality, not to go on a tangent against religion, I'm just saying that there's a lot of people who provide clear empirical evidence that facts and truth are not always the most important things in their life. HOWEVER with that said, for not supernatural mumbo-jumbo issues - for mundane real world issues - like how we ALL pay for the 'low-low-low' cost of Walmart goods, how the nation prospered when unions were empowered and the middle class flourished, how much more expensive a smoker is to society than a non-smoker, how much worse the plastic food we are fed today is for us, how much more it costs in health care, etc - for those mundane issues - shouldn't everyone AT LEAST have access to the facts first, and then let them decide to delude themselves? Rather than hiding it from them by suppressing laws to list ingredients on labels, by banning videos of how food is made, by hiding the cost of wal-mart goods in the public entitlement programs, by denying affordable health care to citizens so they cost us tax-payers 3 times as much, by incarcerating 25% of the nation in private for-profit prisons, etc..

Please...


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Gun Ban = Book Ban? No, logical fallacy.

I just saw this tweet (pictured below) from one Tom Gresham, and read the embedded link, which was to a blog post from a website titled, "Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership". It had a certain appeal, and at first blush seemed to make an odd kind of sense. For a moment I considered reposting it with an endorsement that it was worth deeper consideration.



But as I gave it the consideration it was due, I realized I was falling for a classic logical fallacy blunder - the most popular of all logical fallacies, the "Strawman".

The Strawman argument logical fallacy is where one draws an equivalency with something that seems similar, then forms an argument based on that similar thing, and presents it as a valid argument for the primary thing. Similar to a valid logical argument of communicative or transitive properties. However, the Strawman is a logical fallacy because the equivalency is inherently invalid. The 2 things being compared may be similar in certain aspects, but the minor differences may be central to the nature of the argument for(or against) the one or the other.

In this article, the author argues that Books are like Guns in that books sometimes contain ideas that cause people who read them to do things that bring harm to others. Therefore Books are dangerous too. Then extends the argument to say, "maybe we should register all books and who owns them, and maybe ban the more dangerous ones". Then, banking on that fact that most people would find the idea of book banning or tracking to be abhorrent, says, "Well, Guns are the same thing."

First and Foremost - while I'm not a fan of it - society DOES in fact deem certain pieces of information to be too dangerous for public dissemination. If you ever watch "Mythbusters" there are several episodes where they work with explosives where they specifically say that they can't show/explain something b/c the information is classified. Beyond that, the entire concept of "classified information" shows that some information is deemed inappropriate for public dissemination. So - the author's argument already breaks down right there.

However that's not the Strawman, that's giving the argument too much credence on its face than it deserves because this is a classic Strawman. The reason this is a Strawman logical fallacy is that a Book is simply an information storage medium. That some books contain information that is dangerous is similar to saying that a crate can store guns but not all crates store guns. So - you can't say a CRATE is dangerous. (you can use truck or locker or whatever, any container will do). The argument presented, to be valid would have to be asserting that since Books can store dangerous information all books need to be tracked, therefore that's why it would be absurd to say Crates can store guns so all crates need to be tracked. And of course, this is not what modern gun control is all about.


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U.S. Gun Control Regulations - a modest 5 point proposal

The Meaning of Gun Control
-
(what should be regulated)

As a preface, I have read the Second Amendment and do not think it means what the NRA and a lot of others seem to think it means. Even if one doesn't read it in context of the time period and cultural/technological level, it seems to be speaking about an entirely different thing than this notion of a gun in every house, defend oneself from one's own government. When one DOES read it within the contextual framework of when it was written the meaning becomes even less indicative of this current fantasy that it means our Founding Fathers wished everyone to be able to carry a deadly weapon to defend themselves from the Federal Government or that it was some kind of inalienable right to own a firearm. However, THIS ESSAY is written with the assumption that regardless of it's initial TRUE intent, the current paranoid, violent, and let's face it, historically/culturally ignorant society we live in *believes* it means "everyone should be able to own a gun".

This ESSAY is therefore a proposal to suggest that "everyone" be tempered with the reality that some elements of our free society are not responsible or skilled or qualified to possess a deadly long range weapon.

I have developed the following platform which I believe is a moderate, even conciliatory method of appeasing the (I think of them as ignorant/paranoid/intollerant/deluded, but not actually immediately threatening) people who so sorely want to own a lot of guns.



Gun Control should represent and encompass the following 5 point platform.

• 1: a National Database. Publicly available, accessible via the internet and with real time data updates, containing information such as who owns what firearms, when they were purchased, where they are registered. Also, building on the insane paranoia of the inappropriately named "Patriot Act" link all Federal, State, and Municipal criminal records, synchronized by Social Security Number, Driver's License, and with Photo Identification, plus, a mental health database which does not display the diagnosed disease but does flag persons who have been diagnosed or are being treated for any mental/psychological conditions. Person's who have criminal records, or any history of mental illness are not qualified to own a fire arm.


• 2: For qualified individuals, they must still have a mandatory 10 day waiting period for each purchase.


• 3: A complete ban on all extended clips- no sport or hunting or self defense reason can justify more than 6 or 8 shots. Perhaps active military duty and active law enforcement personnel can get an exemption. Maybe even non-law-enforcement but security industry professionals can have an exemption to this too


• 4: Like a car or boat or pilot or medical license, the aforementioned qualified gun owner should maintain a valid Firearm ownership permit license. License qualification must include regular mental health/emotional stability examination resulting in a clean bill of mental/emotional health.
  Similar to how not just anyone can fly a plane, perform surgery, build a bridge, prescribe drugs or operate a power plant.. Could anyone argue with the assertion that one should be highly qualified, capable and stable enough to own a gun.


• 5: I think this is really the key to successful implementation: If a gun is used in a violent crime the owner it's registered to should be held fully accountable for any crimes committed using that firearm. There would need to be some exceptions and special circumstances, for example, if a gun owner is attacked and their gun is stolen or if they are robbed and the gun is stolen (after investigation to confirm the firearm was properly secured according to then current regulations governing such storage), they may be exempted from the penalty described here. But if they are shown to be negligent in any way, from improper storage to irresponsible inattentiveness, they should suffer the same penalty as if they had committed the crime themselves.

With those caveats, gun ownership, like any dangerous regulated machinery or tool, could (some may argue 'should') be allowed.

This is a reasonable set of safeguards for a tool who's only job is to kill animals.

I believe that, in the same way one is to be trained and licensed to drive a car (which is a tool whose primary purpose is NOT to kill), and unlike knives and poison which are slow acting and inefficient, easily defended against agents of death, there needs to be reasonable measures taken that tools of death are prevented from being used irresponsibly.

As to those second amendment rights, one could make the following converse argument, should the above platform prove too unpalatable: The state of the art technology at the time of the amendment was a single shot musket. So yeah, anyone should be able to own and carry single shot, black powder and flint fire arm rifles.. I have no problem with that. But I simply think that a hand gun with 27 bullets that fits in a large pocket needs a little bit more regulation.

I agree that knee-jerk reactions are rarely good or measured. But every time there is a mass shooting or assassination attempt... (Which I just read that since Newtown (about 4 months ago) in the US, another 2400 people were shot and killed) I have sketched out and refined the above 5 point platform and sent it to my elected officials, the White House, and tried to socialize it around the interwebs. I generally only ADVERTISE this approach after lots of innocents are murdered because people are like goldfish and forget tragedy a scant second after it happens, but it is by no means a knee-jerk reaction.

As an example of how easy it would be to implement this 5 point platform, consider this: A company like Fieldprint can do a 10 year criminal background check in all 50 states plus the Federal records for around $60 a person, and get the results in about 24 hours. For under $100, one can also get educational, employment and civil case info too. It's not 100% complete, but its part of the FINRA rules that Financial companies need to do that for bankers and traders. This already exists and could be used as part of that qualification to own a firearm. Isn't it odd that we MANDTE that a person who could possibly take your financial health away from you has to have this done before they can touch your money yet we can't seem to legislate similar protections for anyone who wants a tool that takes your ACTUAL life away?


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Are you Xenophobic? (let kids get an affordable education)

Fox News reports legislation in Colorado to let illegal immigrant kids attend college for in-state resident rates.

I just read this article (that a Facebook friend posted on Facebook). Assuming that I would need to research the bill further, since it's well documented how many 'accidental' innacuracies Fox News incorporates into its reporting, I figured I'd read the Fox News article then try to cross reference it to see what the real skinny was on the legislation. However, I didn't need to read any further, even within this article it says that kids who are residents of the state but who have illegal immigrant status are going to get the in-state resident rate. The same rate as the kids that live in state that have legal status get.

What's wrong with this exactly? This makes perfect sense. These kids, students, live in the state. Sure - there are issues with their immigrant status, and I agree we as a nation need to do something rational and non-descriminatory, which protects our economy and our citizenry.. and our security. However, that's an entirely separate discussion on border control, border permeability, etc. Fact is, everyone who bothers to do more than drink the kool-aid on Fox knows that even when unemployed US Citizens are given the option of performing the type of labor illegal immigrants perform they flat out refuse to do that work... so until we can build robots willing to do the necessary work that illegal immigrants do, we need them because American US Citizens are - well let's not call them lazy, let's just say they are so drunk on the lies of the so-called 'american dream', they feel so entitled to having a middle class existence, that they won't do those jobs they consider 'beneath them'. Every state that has tried to enforce some kind of practice of giving unemployed people a chance to do the jobs illegals have traditionally performed have empirically documented resounding and utter failure. They are unable to find US citizens willing to do the work.

Again - that's a side comment that is unrelated to the education of kids in this country.

Back to this legislation in Colorado. If a kid lives in a state, regardless of immigrant status, it makes perfect, logical, economic sense to give them the in-state tuition rate. Either way everyone benefits, the state, the kid, our economy. The kid is not 'self-deporting'. The kid will be in the state, right? So - we give him or her an affordable education, he/she becomes a contributing part of society and improves the state's net worth/productivity, or we create a 'money-gate' to make it harder (or impossible) for this illegal alien child to get an education and he/she becomes a drain on the state's economy, maybe, worst case, turning towards some kind of chaotic path, like crime.

Me, I am not a people person. That doesn't mean I dislike people, just don't have any favorites, which means I don't have any I dislike more than anyone else. I'm totally neutral. I don't favor white people, I don't favor males, I don't favor anyone. I am concerned with the human race as a species, because I think they are all dangerous, yet necessary for my survival. I want every human to prosper, I want to minimize suffering. I want to reduce crime and boost my nation's productivity and to boost the world's productivity.

I guess if I had strong feelings of xenophobia like Faux News employees and viewers, maybe I would want to harm my own well being and my nation's well being, just so I could take out my impotent xenophobic paranoid fear against brown people or whatever. But I don't have those impulses. I don't actually have a whole heck of a lot of emotions in general. I just see cost/risk/reward, and my goal is a stable global society of humans that have the resources to start to make the changes necessary to preserve our human technological civilization. My reason is simple, I need that to survive as long as possible with as little suffering as possible. My only goal in life is to live as long as possible with as little suffering as possible. To do that, every other human has to be able to live as long as possible and suffer as little as possible.

Anything anyone does to increase the entropy of the system is basically acting against their own best interest and by my definition is a threat to my own well being, which - I don't like to use strong language, but I define anyone who is harming my well being a potential enemy. The interesting thing is that the only way to combat the enemy is to create confluence. If I can show all humans that they are all part of a single tribe and if I could make them see how this planet (not even the whole solar system but only this one little planet) as more resources than 10 times the current population requires, if we could just start utilizing the available energy properly, and that everyone on the planet, if they worked together, could live long, healthy, stable lives free of suffering, then, I could eliminate the threat.

Allowing hatreds and prejudices to form against one set of humans in favor of another does neither set of humans any good, and it definitely doesn't do ME any good, since my goal is to live as long as possible with as little pain as possible.

The urge that most humans feel is a throwback to a past that no longer exists, when each human animal fought independently to advance it's genome over it's competitors in an environment of limited resources. Evolution programs us to have short term myopic problem solving targets. But our human sentience and theory of mind allows us, if we try hard enough to expand our view to a farther horizon. It is that expanded view and farther horizon that will save humanity, and if we as a species fails to do this, then we deserve the extinction we will get.

Me, I see that far horizon, (so I feel I don't deserve the extinction)... so if I end up suffering and dying painfully due to the myopic vision of other humans, then I will justly spew my rancor at them with my final breaths.

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Need a god to have good relationships?

I just came across the following picture and caption on facebook:

A personal relationship with god is the most important relationship you will ever have and it is what will make all other relationships work.

It made me think. Well, moreso it seemed so bizarre and condescending. So I started to think of, and decided to craft, the following essay to catalog my thoughts on the topic.

I can't speak for tomorrow but so far I've been in a relationship with the same woman for 10 years, 4 months, and a handful of days. I have a strained relationship with my mom because she was mentally unstable and abusive to me my entire life, however, I have nonetheless provided care and succor for her for the past 15+ years, for which she's grateful, in her more lucid less unstable moments. My 3 oldest (and possibly closest) friends are friends whom I met in 6th grade, 12th grade, and when I was 21 (so about 20 years ago) respectively.

I have been at the same job for 15+years and have worked with many of my current co-workers for 6 years or more.

I am itemizing this because I am as hard core a flaming atheist as they come, I have no relationship with any of the several thousand different gods humans have chosen to worship.

I know a lot of atheists, both in real life and via social networking, plus the people I have met at rallies, conventions, and events. Many of them are in long term relationships - in fact, we just moved to a suburb and have made friends with a couple who've been married for a while (who not only are married, they also work together), who are atheists, and rekindled a friendship with a friend from 10 years ago who happens to live near by and her, her hubby and her kid are atheists.

There's a lot of atheists who make a lot of relationships work.

Even if I lost my girl, my job and all my friends tomorrow.. (which I can't speak for tomorrow for who can say with certainty, what tomorrow may bring?) I can say that I have had long duration, mutually reciprocal, healthy, supportive, and warm relationships - romantic, platonic, and professional All without any supernatural support and far from being alone, I am part of a huge, happy, well adjusted, optimistic, hopeful, politically, socially, and community-ly(?) active fellow atheists who also have long term, warm, supportive, reciprocal, healthy relationships.

Me, them, none of us worship, or have a relationship with, any of the several thousand different gods that humans have worshiped thru history... not even the 3 or 4 that are the most popular fads of the past few centuries.

I'm just Not Sure if you need a relationship with the idea of a god to have healthy relationships with real people who actually exist in the real world.


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Improved Elevator

Improved High Capacity/ High Efficiency Elevator

This elevator design can be incorporated into new construction OR retrofit into any existing Elevator Building provided the following criteria are met.
1: Existing building must have at least 2 elevator ascent shafts
2: The design only works on even numbers of shafts, if there is an odd #, then the odd #'d shaft will not be capable of receiving the retrofit.
3: There must be sufficient space below the last floor with elevator service, and above the last floor with elevator service, OR there must be room laterally on the upper and lower most floor to accommodate the additional mechanicals.

The elevator makes use of existing vertical ascent shafts and elevator cars, but would require additional superstructure, mechanicals and software.

Connect 2 adjacent shafts at the top and bottom most levels, creating a loop. If there is no space lower the the lowest service floor or higher than the highest service floor, consolidate the elevator into a single entrance/egress at the apex of the loop. On one side of a thusly created loop, created a spur channel capable of holding at least one but preferably multiple elevator cars.

Install more than 2 elevator cars within the loop and engineer it so that the elevators can travel along the entire loop circuit (elevators raised and lowered via cables would need to be engineered to rise and lower vial guide rails and brushless electric drive traction motors). All elevator cars will travel in the same direction in the loop, when a call button is depressed the next elevator on the loop preceding the call button will stop and accept the new passenger(s).
The configuration can be side by side where the passengers face the loop head on, or across a corridor where the passengers are waiting in the lobby created by the loop. However the across the corridor configuration would require space above the top most serviced and bottom most serviced floor as the loop would have its bottom and top apex points in the center of the elevator lobby.

Additional software would need to be developed to ensure anti-collision measures are employed, and the spur line would be to take elevators out of service for maintenance, repair or replacement. In extreme cases, one entire shaft can be taken out of service and the elevator will travel up and down the single shaft at reduced efficiency.

The benefit of this design is that wait times will be significantly cut and capacity will be dramatically improved. Since the elevator cars all travel in the same direction, (one shaft being up-only and the other being down-only), more than 2 elevator cars can be housed in any 2 shafts, allowing for configurations such as 5 cars in 2 shafts (or a greater or lesser #), even at 2 cars per 2 shafts, which would afford the same number of cars per shaft as in a traditional elevator configuration, as there would never be the need to back track empty in the event of more passengers traveling in a particular direction, such as during the start and end of a work shift, there would still be efficiencies realized. The greater efficiency would be to have multiple cars in the transit loop.

Responsible safety protocols should likely require each elevator's emergency support brake/clamps to be able to withstand greater than 1 full cars. Perhaps as many as all full cars. A possible more cost effective alternative is to construct a mechanical clamp engagement system which is triggered by a car physically encountering another car, the primary physical contact point could be a lever that severs power to the ascent/descent drive motors and mechanically engages the clamping brakes of both cars. In such a configuration, even a cascade failure of all cars, would result in nothing more than a string of cars all locked into place by emergency clamps. This configuration would eliminate the need for clamps on any one car being required to support more than one full car in weight.




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2013-03-02 D blogging from ipad

testing some markup and graphics





a hyperlink to google (test)
modified text font and color
bold text
italic text
underline

here is a block quote

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2013-03-02 C blogging from ipad

trying to use the local save feature, will save locally, then edit again, then post.


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2013-03-02 -B Bogging from iPad

Trying to find an app to write blog posts.
Having trouble. Looks like I got one published.


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2013-03-02 A

TEST


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