Bones and feathers

Yesterday, PZ Myers responded to a review of Marilynne Robinson's Absence of the Mind. Evidently she's won several awards for her other books, though I've never heard of her before.

But I really want to read her book now. She's a heavily Christian writer who, as PZ puts it, is "going to give the godless a piece of her mind." She bewails the godless' tendency to be condescending toward religion, stating:

The characterization of religion by those who dismiss it tends to reduce it to a matter of bones and feathers and wishful thinking, a matter of rituals and social bonding and false etiologies and the fear of death, and this makes its persistence very annoying to them.

I love that assessment. I love how beautifully condescending, artful, and admirably accurate that quote is. I love the "bones and feathers" bit, especially. And I don't want to say anymore, lest I detract from the absolute beauty of this quote.

Mormons are a cult

A while back (March 19^th to be specific), a friend of mine on facebook posted this as her status:

(Name) finds it funny that i can be having a totally amazing conversation with someone and we'd be getting along great...until they find out that im mormon. they told me im scary because of my opinions. i ask what opinions. they say that they're drawing a blank and have to go. im liek o.0

She has this amusing habit of making statuses that spark controversy (especially when she makes "Obama's a socialist" posts that she doesn't understand), and since she's friends with a bunch of Mormons as well as a bunch of non-mormons, you can imagine how pretty the comments got.

I offered my explanation, that after working to ban gay marriage in California Mormons don't have the best reputation, and rightly so. Of course, my comment was lost in a sea of "Go, (name), Go! Fight the good fight! Don't listen to those misguided fools!" Or, actually:

don't worry about what others say. stand tall with your head held high and know that you stand for truth. we stand behind the greatest person with an opinion and that is the SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

The conversation really changed directions, however, when a friend of mine said this:

Actually, I think most people are leery of Mormonism because of the culty, secret society aspect. I think the cultural aversion to secret societies is good.

To which the "stand for truth" lady said:

show me where we are a cult and a secret society? prove before you write something that could slander an innocent people.

I'd love to!

I bring this up because Steven Novella, host of the podcast you should all be following, wrote an article which attempted to define the word "cult", and he came up with these five points:

1. Totalitarian control – Cults attempt to have total control over their members, which includes absolute dogmatic authority of their leader, who tends to be charismatic.


2. Secrecy – Cults tend not to be up front with their entire belief system. The core beliefs are revealed slowly, as members “progress” deeper into the folds of the cult.


3. Separation – Cults use many methods to separate their members from their former social network and society at large. These methods include instilling an “us vs them” or in-group vs out-group mentality, using jargon that identifies members but is unintelligible to non-members, and physical isolation. Cults also try to convince members that their family and friends are corrupt or impure and interaction with them is destructive. They also require large donations, encouraging financial dependence on the cult.


4. Mind Control – Cults are very manipulative. They use a variety of techniques to indoctrinate or “brainwash” their members. These include things like “love bombing” – overwhelming recruits with positive physical and social attention – using guilt, hypnosis, loss of privacy, deprivation, verbal abuse, and other techniques.


5. Self-contained Belief System – The cult belief system tends to be absolute – the leader has perfect authority and exclusive knowledge, they are never to be questioned, everyone who disagrees with the leader is evil and to be opposed, and members who leave the group are always wrong and degenerate. Meanwhile the doctrine tends to be confusing and only slowly revealed when members are “ready.”

Now, I feel like this list pretty much screams, "I'm describing Mormonism!", but I'll make my case anyway in the event a Mormon stumbles upon this post.

Regarding the first point, what would happen if you said, "I think the Prophet is wrong"?

Regarding the second point, I point towards the Temple, which non-members and members who don't have Temple Recommends can't enter. Having (thankfully) never been married and sealed in the Temple, I can't say whether there are specific points of doctrine you learn there, which you can't share with others. (except, of course, the infamous secret handshakes)

Regarding the third point, think back to every "stay away from the evils of the world," "don't watch R-rated movies," "be wary of non-Mormon friends," lesson you ever heard. Think back to every time you heard the phrase "we see great evil in the world today." Think back to every time you've been told that the LDS church is the "safe refuge" against the horrifying, despicable, evil world.

Then, think about whether you should read "anti-Mormon literature." Is it any more obvious that the LDS church is trying to prevent you from hearing other points of view?

Regarding the fourth point, I point to Primary. Regarding guilt, I point to masturbation, coffee, R-rated movies, etc. You NEED the church in order to be forgiven for these, and the church makes you feel like you need to be forgiven for them.

Regarding the fifth point, what would happen if you said, "I think the Prophet is wrong"? What would happen if you were caught reading "anti-Mormon literature"? Do you think ex-Mormon atheists, instead of being "servants of Satan," might have a legitimate viewpoint? If you had a strong negative reaction to any of these questions, you prove my point.

What I said then

In response to "stand for truth" lady's challenge back in March to prove Mormons were a cult, I said this:

I love facebook discussions, because they force me to be succinct in my explanations. Anyway, here's why the "Mormons are culty, secret societies" view has some validity:

Generally, when people say something is like a cult or secret society, they mean it has (1) strict rules, (2) certain customs or rituals that outsiders can't perform or view, (3) secret signs and things that outsiders can't know about, (4) brainwashes or indoctrinates its members, (5) controls information its members can see, etc., to name a few.

So, let's start with those:

(1). No going to the temple for you if you drink coffee, alcohol, or iced tea; masturbate, view pornography, or have sex outside of marriage; or openly and willingly admit to watching R-rated movies, smoking cigarettes, or anything else that is viewed as "evil".

(2). I point to the temple. You have to be a part of the group, follow all the rules, etc., in order to perform or view many rituals.

(3). The handshakes and the "magic underwear". If you're married, you know what I'm talking about.

(4). Primary. Little kids have an unwavering trust in what adults and their parents tell them, and before they have any capacity for skepticism, they're told all kinds of things -- "There is a god", "Follow the Prophet", "Jesus wants you for a sunbeam", etc. -- and just accept them as fact. Google "indoctrination".

(5) Ever heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre? the View of the Hebrews? the Adam-God theory? the many wives of Joseph Smith?

I was then accused of being "an extreme anti-Mormon" and of "having too much time on my hands," to which I explained what an ad hominem fallacy was. Then I was told that no one was arguing with me because it was a "stupid thing to argue about" and that, if they were to actually argue with me, they'd "pwn me straight up." They didn't want to prove it.

Anyway, in the end they all avoided the topic, ran away, or called me a bunch of names (which, by the way, only demonstrates Steven Novella's third point).

Conclusion?

The LDS church is a cult, their members can't argue, and you can't reason a person out of a belief they weren't reasoned into.

The Ventura Atheists

Every now and then, people call the Atheist Experience and ask something like, "Any advice for a person who wants to meet other atheists in his/her area?" and the response is always, "Hit up Google to see if there isn't already one, then place an ad in the newspaper or something." I'd only idly considered it; after all, there'd only be a bunch of angry old guys there, right?

Then I saw this talk that was posted over at Whore of All the Earth and suddenly realized something oddly profound: my dad, whose social life I've always admired and envied, got that way by sticking his neck out, not by passively accumulating friends over the years. So look at me, at the fringes of the massive human web of social connections, with only myself to blame! I didn't have to wait for a vast social life; I had to claim it.

So I googled "Atheists in Ventura" and found this. It turns out Atheists United has a little group out here in Ventura, just a little ways from my house.

... and it was awesome. We watched the interview with Richard Dawkins (for whom I'd definitely fake being gay) in The Atheism Tapes, followed by a discussion wherein I felt (figuratively) like God.

You see, I discovered something about myself: I know my shit when it comes to Atheism. I know the arguments, I know the current events, I know the celebrities. Check out my blogroll and you'll see how connected I am.

I was sitting in a room admittedly full of old guys (though there were two other people who looked near my age) who not only listened to what I said, but were interested in what I said. People came up to me afterward and said they appreciated the comments I made. Five years of passionate study have made me the Atheist God!

I'll confess, I'm writing this not twenty minutes after leaving, so I'm still on a hardcore emotional high. I haven't felt so accepted since, well, since I was Mormon.

It also turns out that yesterday (Sunday, May 23^rd) there were meetings by both the Center for Inquiry and Atheists United, which two of the people there mentioned, and apparently Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author if Infidel, was speaking.

So, the moral of the story is this: I've got to get off my ass and enter the Athiest community in real life, instead of just through blogs and podcasts.

Oh, those cute little scientists and their hubris

I love blogs. I especially love blogs by Ph.D.'s in fields I'm interested in, and I love it even more when I hear about something interesting and then discover that they're all writing about it, too. Take, for example, our latest biological feat.

The short version goes something like this. The scientists, using a computer, made a copy of one bacterium's (Mycoplasma mycoides) DNA from scratch and stuck it into another bacterium (Mycoplasma capricolum). M. capricolum then sprung into action acting exactly like (and looking just like) M. mycoides. Behold! Life really is a startlingly beautiful and complex chemistry experiment!

These are two colonies of the synthetic M. mycoides, blurring the line between natural and unnatural life just like Dolly did:



Steven Novella blogged about this over at Neurologica, PZ Myers gave a rundown over at Pharyngula, and Jen McCreight (of Boobquake fame) wrote about it over at BlagHag. I had heard about it first on the forums on Nation States, and immediately posted it to facebook, thinking, "So cool! We're one step closer to creating bacteria that do what we want them to!"

Evidently the science-oriented blogosphere thought it was way more awesome than the facebookosphere did, which waved it off with cool indifference. The news wasn't welcomed exclusively by nerdgasms or indifference, however; the Catholic Church welcomed it with disdain, predictably counseling us against "playing God":

"Pretending to be God and parroting his power of creation is an enormous risk that can plunge men into a barbarity," Mogavero told newspaper La Stampa in an interview. Scientists "should never forget that there is only one creator: God."

And Bishop Domenico Mogavero should never forget that he's failed to demonstrate both of those claims. How does he know tinkering with life will plunge us into barbarity? How does he know there is only one creator: God? Pretty soon, it seems, he'll have to amend that statement to, "[scientists] should never forget there are only two creators: God and biologists."

And hey, we can prove biologists exist!

(EDIT: Here's the TED Talk about the whole thing

Smurfs in space

There are only a few films I actually see in theatres. Only a few of those films actually interest me enough that I want to see it again. And the number of films I've seen several times and still wanted to own are smaller still.

This may not be the only film I've seen in theatres twice, and this may not be the only film I've pulled off the shelf and watched of my own volition, but I know one thing for certain:

Avatar is the only film I've ever seen in theatres, wanted to and consequently saw in theatres a second time, and then got on DVD and watched seven more times (as of today). I can watch this movie over and over and over (and have been!) without finding internal inconsistencies, and still get pulled into the lush and imaginative world James Cameron created.



But why do I love this movie so?

I've never been content just saying "I like it because I like it," like my dad can do. I took three and a half years worth of music classes so I could say why I liked certain pieces of music, so why should my taste in movies be immune to that scrutiny?

So I'm going to list all my reasons for why I love this movie so much, but I'd like to say something right out of the gate: I don't care that Avatar is basically Dances With Wolves or Pocahontas in space. If you can't stand the idea of reusing plots, movies are definitely not for you. Plus, neither Dances With Wolves nor Pocahontas had tall, badass blue people.

Reason 1: Space Physics



In the beginning, we see Jake floating around in zero gravity, two beads of water bonding together and spinning, and, most importantly, the shuttle leaving the ISV Venture Star strongly resembling the spacewalk shows I'd watch over and over again as a kid.

While X-wings pulling fast turns like jet fighters in space look really cool, they just don't capture the same majestic beauty that spaceflight documentaries do.




Reason 2: There's a shit-ton of green and blue

I love the cool, tranquil effect that green and blue have as colors. They aren't as frenetic or garish as red or yellow, nor sterile or ominous as white and black.



The entire movie is filled with lush, green forests and blue people. It's nothing but green and blue, with a healthy mix of the grays and military-greens that characterize the sci-fi genre. It's an absolute feast for the eyes.

Reason 3: The Na'vi are hot

... and my eyes aren't just feasting on the colors. Let's face it. Blue people have always been hot, and the Na'vi are no exception. They also typically aren't wearing much, which only adds to the awesomeness.



Reason 4: There aren't any inconsistencies

James Cameron is an obnoxious perfectionist. When they say the Tree of Souls interferes with the ships systems, you can see their HUDs being messed up in every scene. There are no instances where, for a brief second, you can see some instruments working normally in the background under someone's arm or something.

Rather than list every inconsistency I've thought to check for, I'll just issue a challenge: I dare you to find one.

Reason 5: All the little details



Na'vi have four fingers and four toes. Humans' avatars have five of each. Grace Augustine's avatar, which is much older than Jake's, has a human-looking nose, while the newer avatars have the squarish Na'vi noses.

But take a look at that picture of Neytiri's warpaint. See that white hand-print? It has five fingers. Isn't that cute?

Aaaanyway

The space physics, all the green and blue, and the Na'vi's hotness tickle my inner twelve-year-old, while the last two prevent my outer twenty-two-year-old from spoiling it. Avatar is a movie that both my little kid self and my intellectual badass self can enjoy at the same time.

People think I'm exaggerating when I say it's the best movie ever. Maybe I'm just in the heat of the moment, they think, and I'll get over it after a while. And maybe they're right.

... just let me watch it a few dozen more times first.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

As much as I whine about our shortcomings here in America, I'll happily join Evelyn Beatrice Hall in saying, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

As a nihilistic Atheist living in a Mormon household, I'm very accustomed to hearing things and putting up with things that are infuriating to me, but the most ethical approach to disagreements is discussion and argument, not censorship. Censorship stifles this beautiful (and inevitable) thing called "progress"; bad ideas can only be naturally selected from the meme pool if all ideas are given voice.

As a nihilistic Atheist, I'm also very accustomed to being on the other side of the "offending remarks" line. I certainly say things that people disapprove of, and I'm pretty damned thankful that I haven't yet been executed.

And this is why I wholeheartedly support Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

Muslim extremists have been assaulting cartoonists ever since the infamous Denmark incident four and a half years ago, and even threatened Matt Stone and Trey Parker for planning to show Mohammed in an episode of South Park (which I lamentably still haven't been able to see), and it's important that we do our part to stand up to petty, 12^th century terrorism.

So I humbly add my drawing of Mohammed to the tens of thousands that are now on the intartubez:



Also, for your reading pleasure, Pharyngula, Atheist Propaganda, and The Atheist Experience blog have excellent posts about today as well.

Free speech isn't just an important American concept; it's an important human concept &mdash just like racial, sexual-orientational, and gender equality &mdash and I'll gladly blaspheme to make that point.

God, Man, and the Universe

I just got back from, as my dad referred to it, a "Physics devotional" in Newbury Park titled "God, Man, and the Universe." I might have mentioned it before.

It was tamer and worse than I'd feared it would be, at the same time. The guy had a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, and his lecture seemed like a hurried, rushed, highly-condensed summary of a basic Astronomy class with the occasional "worlds without number" verse tossed in.

It was tamer than I'd feared because he did it wrong. His talk showed us the Earth, the Moon, Mars, etc., gradually bringing us out into the Milky Way galaxy, outside it, and out into the vastness of the universe, much like I did here. He ended with the Hubble Deep Field photo, explaining that every dot of light was a galaxy, which got a few people in the audience to (rightly) say, "I feel so small."

His talk aspired to make us feel so small and insignificant. His talk aspired to thrust its audience into the cold, indifferent face of nihilism. His talk aspired to do quite a bit, but he riled his audience up so poorly that even I, the Nephite apostate, wanted more.

So, as we stared at the Hubble Deep Field photo, with its profound significance flying of the heads of many in the audience, the point of his talk materialized above it: "God knows your name..."

It would've been a damn awesome talk, if he'd done it right. I wanted to go up there and redo it for him. "Look, sir," I'd have said, "you need to really work them up, so they respect the message you're trying to convey." Even as a nihilistic atheist, I recognize that the idea of a Creator whose handiwork includes the totality of the universe, yet still knows and loves each person individually, even knowing them by name, is pretty powerful.

Powerful, yes. Accurate? No.

It was like he took my favorite Monet painting and slapped a McDonald's logo on it, but slightly askew. If you're going to tack your God-product on something which elicits that much wonder, at least DO IT RIGHT!

It was worse than I'd feared for a few reasons. First, it turned out to actually be an Institute graduation, so I had to sit through that whole procession, along with a thoroughly uninteresting "Institute is good" talk. Second, I had to listen to John Bytheway the whole way there.

There was a time, long ago, when I'd listen to John Bytheway and find him uplifting and thought-provoking. But now, as I heard him say that "Lamanite isn't as much about lineage as it is about belief" and "the biggest enemy the Nephites had was apostate Nephites" while sitting in a car with three other people all nodding their heads in agreement, there was only one thought running through my mind:

"Holy SHIT! These guys really are a cult!"

I used to adore this guy. I used to respect him for being wise and insightful. But no! He's an absolute monster, making people all over the country feel guilty for being attracted to people, and encouraging them to lock themselves under a rock and hide from all that evil "knowledge" out there. Hide from the world! The world is evil! Only listen to church leaders and no one else!

CULT, CULT, CULT!!

... and I was part of it. Words can not describe how grateful I am to be free.

God is math, apparently

I'm pretty sure I'm my Geometry teacher's favorite student. Lately he's been coming to class with special little problems just for me and asking how I've been faring with the previous ones he's given me. I've been goading him on, admittedly, since his little logic puzzles distract me from how far away from the University I am.

If you hate math, feel free to skip to the next red text.

For example, his most recent one goes like this: If you were to wrap a wire around a stress ball, and then add one meter of extra wire to it, the distance between the stress ball and the wire would be, say, X.

Lets say you did the same with the Earth. There's a wire running all the way around it and you add 1 meter more to it. There will now be an infinitesimal height between the wire and the Earth, called Y.



Now, the circumference of the stress ball's wire will be the stress ball's circumference + 1 meter, which should equal 2π("stress ball radius" + X), or:

2π("stress ball radius" + X) = 2π("stress ball radius") + 1 meter

If we distribute the equation and divide both sides by 2(pi)("stress ball radius"), we get:

2πX = 1 meter

which comes out to:

X = 1/(2π) meters, or roughly 16 centimeters

Let's do it for the Earth, shall we? The method to figure out Y is very similar:

2π("Earth's radius" + Y) = 2π("Earth's radius") + 1 meter

If we distribute the equation and divide both sides by 2π("Earth's radius"), we get:

2πY = 1 meter

which comes out to:

Y = 1/(2π) meters, or roughly 16 centimeters

Therefore, X = Y and my mind has been sufficiently blown.

Okay, you mathophobes can come back now.

My teacher then waxes on and on about "the beauty and power of math," calling it the "language of God" and even suggesting that math supposedly proves Him. God is math.

"Take a look at the Pythagorean theorem!" says my teacher. "It's just a² + b² = c²! Not, like, 1/[(6ab - 2c)(a^-1.83 - log₁₄26)] = c²! What beautiful simplicity in math!"

My rebuttals to the "God is math" idea are fairly simple. Simple, pretty numbers only prove that humans like simple, pretty numbers. After all, when we get ugly numbers like π or e, we just invent a simple letter as a substitute. The area of a sphere, (4/3)(πr³), only looks pretty because we substituted the freakishly not-pretty 3.14159265 for π.

The Pythagorean theorem may be a² + b² = c², but it only looks pretty because Pythagoras simplified the more gruesome (and more accurate) version:

√ (a+b)² - 2ab  = c

I would love to dramatically end this post with "Therefore, God is not math!", but that wouldn't quite be accurate; all I've demonstrated is that the beauty and simplicity of mathematical formulas are due to us, not God.

(Also, I'm using basic geometry which we all learned in high school, which warrants about as much grandeur as having ten fingers)

... but just wait 'til I'm in calculus next semester!

According to my calculation...

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"Some clinics are paying over $700 per vile of American sperm. So, according to my calculation, an average high school student would be pulling down an extra $80K a week." ~Stephen Colbert

Let's see just how accurate that calculation is, shall we?

21 to 23 months after puberty (read: "by the time guys are in high school"), their ejaculate is just like a normal adult's, which averages about 3.2 ml per ejaculation. Since sperm banks keep semen in ampules which hold about 0.4 to 1.0 ml at a time, the average high school student could fill about 3.2 to 8 ampules in one go, which, at $700 an ampule, is $2,240 to $5,600.

I could rub one off ten times and, at the very least, pay for a year at UC Berkeley.

So! Our buddy Stephen has already told us that these high school students will make $80,000 a week, which means that:

80,000 = (2,240 to 5,600)(number of times you take matters into your own hands)

Divide both sides by (2,240 to 5,600), and we get:

(number of times) = 80,000 / (2,240 to 5,600) = about 14 to 36

Assuming the average high school student is awake from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., he would have about 15 hours every day to commit to this endeavor, for a grand total of 105 hours a week. Which means, depending on whether the ampule holds 0.4 or 1.0 ml, the average high school student would have to masturbate anywhere from twice to five times a day, or every 3 to 7.5 hours.

If I hadn't been raised in an anti-sex environment, I easily could've managed once every 3 hours, though that might be a little much.

But damn, I thought Stephen was just pulling that number out of thin air. And if ampules hold 0.4 ml, his estimation of $80,000 a week is actually an understatement!

Don't touch it! It's beautiful the way it is!

This Sunday, my sister and I are going to an LDS talk/lecture thing over in Newbury Park, by a Mormon physicist (I know, I didn't think it was possible, either) about "The universe and Man's place in it."

As an astronomy/physics/chemistry/whatever major, I imagine this talk will be quite painful to listen to. The immensity of the universe inspires such wonder and emotion in me, and it's no doubt going to rub me the same way "mild barley drinks" rubs Mormons. It's like walking through an art exhibition of original Monet paintings and seeing this:



GTFO my favorite Monet painting, McDonald's!!!

Why do religions feel the need to do this? "Oh, here's something that inspires great emotion," they say. "Let's unceremoniously tack our name on it!"

Music is moving and engaging, therefore God did it. Art is affecting and thought-provoking, therefore God did it. Talented athletes are inspiring, therefore God made them who they are. Nature is profound and amazing, therefore God made it. The universe is beautiful and awe-inspiring, therefore God did it. The realization that all natural phenomena stem from four fundamental laws and the knowledge that we have evolved brains complex enough to comprehend them is enough to grant life and our existence incredible and profound meaning... therefore God did it.

GTFO my beautiful cosmos, God!!!