Super Awesome Blog

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos got me looking around for some interesting Sagan interviews on the Youtube.  I found some interesting ones, including the one below.  As you can tell from the title of this article, this clip shows quite the line-up for a television program:  Arthur C. Clark, Carl Sagan, and Steven Hawking discussing some of the biggest ideas of our time!  Enjoy!

The Shroud of Turin is one of those ancient artifacts that Christians really, really want to be true. Why? Because it would provide physical evidence that Jesus was real.

Although this evidence, if true, would not confirm that Jesus was the messiah, or even supernatural.  For a faith built on such shaky ground, any solid rocks are desperately clung to.

So it’s not a big surprise that anytime someone has anything good to say about the Shroud that Christians flock to it.  So it was this morning when The Daily Beast posted a headline story purporting to include 10 reasons  that the Resurrection really took place.  Seriously.

The Daily Beast, usually a good alternative to Drudge, normally has firmer stuff than this. The author, Jeffery Hart, includes this enlightening quote from the bible in his story:

“If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”
1 Corinthians 15

The 10 claims are themselves all lifted by the author from a book entitled Shroud of Turn: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ written in 1979.   Hart has broken up a few “proofs”, basically “the Shroud existed,” “it’s old,” and “there’s a picture on it”  into 10 scattered pieces of highly circumstantial, fluffy “evidence.”

Several scientific tests have been done on the Shroud. They have shown it to be from the medieval era.  Regardless, even if you could show conclusively that that shroud is from the era when Jesus could have lived you would still be left with evidence that simply showed the shroud contained a human that died.

The Shroud has never provided evidence beyond the highly circumstantial that Jesus existed or that he was supernatural in any way.  Articles like the one posted in The Daily Beast do us all a disservice by spreading baseless claims by people desperate to legitamize their somewhat wonky belief structure.

In general I enjoy it when religious holidays get usurped by commercial interests.  As an atheist I find the glossed up, gaudy, Santa heavy Christmas to be a delightful time to get together with loved ones and exchange awful gifts as a token of our friendship.

Valentines Day is an exception.  Christmas can be enjoyed by everybody, while many people see Valentines as a “Single Persons Awareness Day.”  It’s also a “Heterosexuals Only” day.  My boyfriend and I have eschewed it for the last 3 years with no harm done (and some extra cash in our pockets.)

At times I feel sorry for my heterosexual male brethren, forced to get their wives/girlfriends/whatevers red and pink fuzzy crap, jewelry, and chocolate.  What’s worse, if they don’t provide these bribes their significant whatevers are pretty much expected to deny them conversation and generally sex.

I can’t think of a less egalitarian celebration of two people’s love.  I can only imagine the stress and anxiety many a straight guy feel.  The heteronormative happy couples advertised everywhere make me feel marginalized and probably makes single people everywhere feel like shit.  The holiday also introduces an unfair expectation on straight men to shower their loved ones in stupid gifts that say “I Love You” better than they can themselves.

I find Valentines Day offensive, and I feel liberated and happier every year when I skip this ugly, ugly “holiday”.  Maybe you should give it a try?

When you hear about religious persecution in the modern day, you usually think about places in the Middle East, ruled by theocracies and extremists. Texas might not be the next usual suspect, but Democracy For America reports that a Texas teacher was suspended for being liberal and an atheist.

As an atheist myself I’m continually shocked by the hypocritical bloviating of Christians, from  their complaints about the fictional “War on Christmas” to demanding that a misguided  To-Do list be posted in courthouses.  It seems their complaints never end, yet when people of other faiths or no religious inclination express their views Christians usually rush to judge and remove any opposition, often using lies such as “America is a Christian Nation,” or even more offensively, that the founders were devout Christians.   Worse still, when actual unconstitutional acts are carried out against atheists they look the other way.   Sigh.  Let’s hope enough reasonable Texans sound the alarms and fight for Richard Mullens to get his job back.

Keith Olberman reported today that (responding to Glenn Beck’s reporting) that Barack Obama’s redo oath of office did not include a copy of the bible.  Looks like they got a few things right this time around.  Doesn’t it seem more appropriate to have an incoming president swear on the Constitution he’s swearing to protect than on a work of fiction?

Looks like they re-did it.  Still wrong however, as Roberts prompted him to swear to God.  Sigh.  I’m sure that had they not done a re-do, conspiracy theorists would have claimed he wasn’t the actual President.  I’m sure that some will claim that anything he did between the point of his first swearing in and his second was technically illegal too… at least he was properly elected!

The media has been making a big buzz about Chief Justice Roberts’ flub of the Oath of Office.  The Actual Oath as written in Article II of the Constitution reads:

“I Name Here do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The Oath Administered by Cheif Justice Roberts was:

“I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully, (waits) the off… faithfully the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.   So Help you God?”

Most media sources have been covering Robert’s delivery of the oath as a light fluff peice to get a quick laugh.  I don’t care too much about the misspoken line, but more about the unconstitutional additon of “So Help You God?” to the end.  “So Help Me God” is a tradition, started by George Washington.  It is thought that most, if not every president since Washington has said it at the end of their oath.  That doesn’t mean the Supreme Court Justice should add it to the oath himself, the President Elect should add it to the end if they prefer.  Bad Chief Justice. Bad.