THE EMASCULATE CONCEPTION

The timing could’ve been better: but close only counts in horeshoes, hand-grenades, and love.

Oh, and in religion, apparently.

Hat tip to alexatheist at the NGB for alerting me to this.

'Virgin births' for giant lizards

“Scientists report of two cases where female Komodo dragons have produced offspring without male contact. Tests revealed their eggs had developed without being fertilised by sperm - a process called parthenogenesis, the team wrote in the journal Nature. One of the reptiles, Flora, a resident of Chester Zoo in the UK, is awaiting her clutch of eight eggs to hatch, with a due-date estimated around Christmas.
Kevin Buley, a curator at Chester Zoo and a co-author on the paper, said: "Flora laid her eggs at the end of May and, given the incubation period of between seven and nine months, it is possible they could hatch around Christmas - which for a 'virgin birth' would finish the story off nicely.
"We will be on the look-out for shepherds, wise men and an unusually bright star in the sky over Chester Zoo."
Flora, who has never been kept with a male Komodo dragon, produced 11 eggs earlier this year. Three died off, providing the material needed for genetic tests. These revealed the offspring were not exact genetic copies (clones) of their mother, but their genetic make-up was derived just from her. The team concluded they were a result of asexual reproduction, and are waiting for the remaining eight eggs to hatch.
Abnormal phenomenon?
Another captive-bred female called Sungai, at London Zoo in the UK, produced four offspring earlier this year - more than two years after her last contact with a male, the scientists reported in the same paper. Again, genetic tests revealed the Komodo dragon babies, which are healthy and growing normally, were produced through parthenogenesis.
“Sungai was also able to reproduce sexually, producing another baby offspring after mating with a male called Raja.
“Richard Gibson, an author on the paper and a curator at the Zoological Society of London, said: "Parthenogenesis has been described before in about 70 species of vertebrates, but it has always been regarded to be a very unusual, perhaps abnormal phenomenon."
“It has been shown in some snakes, fish, a monitor lizard and even a turkey, he said.
"But we have seen this in two separate, unrelated female Komodo dragons within a year, so this suggests maybe parthenogenesis is much more widespread and common than previously considered."

Time for a chorus of ‘Silent night, Sibilant Night’, ey?

Whiptale lizards are also known to be parthenogenetic.

No doubt the religious world will be all a-flutter: a dragon giving virgin birth? Wonder what old Benedictine’s got to say about this one? I can guess: “It’s SATAN’S doing!”
Especially since a lizard is a snake with legs.

I also wonder what the old Shrub-a-roo will do/say, when confronted with this obvious refutation of the 'natural paradigm'.

Oh, that's right: IT DON'T COUNT.

The Christian apologists will be 'apologizing' about this for years to come, is my prediction.

Till the next post, then.

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OH TANNENBAUM, OH TANNENBAUM

“O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum
Thy leaves are so unchanging
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum
Thy leaves are so unchanging
Not only green when summer's here
But also when 'tis cold and drear
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum
Thy leaves are so unchanging”

(For a list of ‘converted’ Xmas carols, check this site out)

It’s no small wonder that I like trees. I’m not a tree-hugger: it’s hell on wheels to get sap stains out of your clothes, and strange looks from your dry-cleaner should be avoided.

I grew up around this tradition: there are comforting associations. A feeling of family (albeit, in my circle, it’s not usually a peaceful one), community, and hey! Shiny objects! Tinsel! Blinking lights! Presents!

I don’t have a problem with Xmas trees. I rather enjoy them. I’d not go out of my way to chop one down – I’m lazy: if ever I own a tree, it’ll be one of those fake trees (everyone in my family has one. It’s more economical, anyways. You can re-use the bloody thing for just about forever).

Besides which, it’s not even a Christian symbol.

From here:

“The Christmas tree is often explained as a Christianization of the ancient pagan idea that the evergreen tree represents a celebration of the renewal of life. In Roman mosaics from what is today Tunisia, showing the mythic triumphant return from India of the Greek god of wine and male fertility, Dionysus (dubbed by some modern scholars as a life-death-rebirth deity), the god carries a tapering coniferous tree. Medieval legends, nevertheless, tended to concentrate more on the miraculous "flowering" of trees at Christmas time. A branch of flowering Glastonbury thorn is still sent annually for the Queen's Christmas table in the United Kingdom.

“Patron trees (for example, the Irminsul, Thor's Oak and the figurative Yggdrasil) held special significance for the ancient Germanic tribes, appearing throughout historic accounts as sacred symbols and objects. Among early Germanic tribes the Yule tradition was celebrated by sacrificing male animals and slaves by suspending them on the branches of trees. According to Adam of Bremen, in Scandinavia the pagan kings sacrificed nine males of each species at the sacred groves every ninth year. According to one legend, Saint Boniface attempted to introduce the idea of trinity to the pagan tribes using the cone-shaped evergreen trees because of their triangular appearance.”

This is by no means conclusive, though:

”The modern custom, however, although likely related, cannot be proven to be directly descended from pagan tradition. It can be traced to 16th century Germany; Ingeborg Weber-Keller (Marburg professor of European ethnology) identified as the earliest reference a Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 which reports how a small fir was decorated with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers, and erected in the guild-house, for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas day.”

And of course, the obligatory anti-scriptural basis for the tradition:

“For the customs of the people [are] vain: for [one] cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers that it moves not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.”

To be fair, though:

”In other English translations of the Bible the verses more explicitly refer to the practice of making idols to be worshipped:

“For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with a hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good. (emphasis added)

“A full study of the passage shows that the people would cut down a tree and work it with a chisel to engrave an image in it. They would also carry it from place to place as an object to be feared and worshipped. The only consistencies with Christmas tree customs seem to be that both are made of wood and both are decorated.”

I’m relatively sure that it is a YACC (Yet Another Co-opted Custom, in case you Unix geeks get all lathered up, hehehehe).

Nutshelling it: the tradition in the USA dates back to 1837. It’s a minor affectation, hardly worth the lather some folks get worked up over.

Here is my re-working of Oh, Tannenbaum, submitted for your approval:

“Oh Yggdrasil, oh Yggdrasil,

Odin was crucified upon thee

Oh Yggdrasil, oh Yggdrasil,

Thy roots pierce the worlds three

The nornir keep thee green

The four stags feed upon thee

Oh Yggdrasil, oh Yggdrasil,

It really sucks to be thee.”

In the meantime, have a wicked Winterval on me.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

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RED, WHITE AND SCREWED – DEFINITELY A MUST-SEE

I personally think that Lewis Black beats out Larry the Cable Guy (who, according to 60 Minutes, is the King of Comedy) by a country mile (I do find the Cable Guy funny, but for side-splitting laughter and exhausted smile muscles, my money’s on Black).

In his ‘Red, White and Screwed’ HBO special, he does a few great rants, one of which was on my favorite topic, evolution.

I’ve transcribed it here, for the benefit of any readers who are still using a dial-up connection.

“I should’ve known earlier, about President Bush, but I gave him some rope. A lotta rope, & then he hung all of us with it. I should have known, when I heard him say ‘When it comes to evolution, the jury’s still out.’
What jury, where? The Scopes trial is over. I never thought, during the course of my life, that a president who didn’t believe in evolution would be elected, or at least in the ball park, thought, ummmmm, MAYBE IT’S GOT SOME MERIT. But NO! He believes the earth was created, in seven days. Hoo! Takes my breath away.
And why does he believe that? Because he read it in the Old Testament, which is the book, of my people. The Jewish people. And that book…wasn’t good enough…for you Christians. Was it? No, we’ve got a BETTER book, with ANOTHER character, you’re gonna LOVE HIM! And you called your book NEW, and said OUR book was OLD!
And yet, every Sunday, I turn on the television set. And there’s a priest, or a pastor, reading from mah book. And interpreting it. And, their interpretations, I have to tell you, are usually wrong. It’s not their fault, because it’s not their book.
You never see a rabbi on TV interpreting the New Testament, dooo yew?
If you want, to truly understand, the Old Testament, if there is something you don’t quite get, there are Jooos who walk among yew. And THEY, I promise you this, will take time out their VERY jewy, JEWY day, and interpret for you anything you have trouble understanding, and we will do that, of course, if the price is right.
Was…the earth created in seven days? No. For those of you who believe it was, for you Christians, let me tell you, then you do not understand the Jewish people. We Jews understand that it did not take place in seven days, and that’s because we know what we’re good at, and what we’re really good at, is bullshit.
This is a wonderful story, that was told to the people in the desert, in order to distract them from the fact that they did not have air conditioning.
I would LOVE to have the FAITH, to believe that it took place in seven days, but I have thoughts. And that can really fuck up the faith thing. Just ask any catholic priest. And then, there are fossils. Whenever anyone tries to tell me, that they believe it took place in seven days, I reach for a fossil, and go, ‘Fossil’. And if they keep talking, I throw it just over their head.
There are people, who believe, that dinosaurs and men, lived together. That they roamed the earth at the same time. There are museums that children go to, in which they build dioramas, to show them this. And what this is, purely and simply, is a clinical, psychotic reaction. They are crazy. They are stone, cold, fuck, nuts. I can’t be kind about this. Because these people are watching the Flintstones as if it were a documentary.
The first time, uh, that I ever talked about this was in Georgia. That’s, that’s what we call a comic faux pas. Gentleman came up to me, wanted to talk about it, umm, it was at this point in time that I realized that this is where we have our problem. This is a big problem in this country. He had his set of beliefs, and I had mine. It makes it tough, because evolution is a major thread in the larger tapestry that I like to call (yells) REALITY!!!
He said, “Louis, fossils are the handiwork of the devil.” (Looks at camera cross-eyed)
I had to remind myself to breathe. I’d been tasered by the concept of the DEVIL! Something I did not quite understand, apparently the devil is like Wily Coyote, only he is evil, and he has a factory, where he makes…fossils. And he sends his minions to scatter them across the earth every day in order to confuse my tiny, Joooish brain.”

Rent it, buy it, or, if you overhear this dialogue, knock on your neighbors door and ask if you can watch it with them.

Seriously.

Enjoy.

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THE TROUBLE WITH TRILEMMAS…

…IS that they’re usually a three-pronged pitchfork.

A trilemma is defined as “a choice between three options, each of which is unacceptable or undesirable. Two of the most commonly referenced trilemmas are those relating to Christian apologetics and international economic policy.
There are two logically equivalent ways in which to express a trilemma: it can be expressed as a choice between three undesirable options, one of which must be chosen, or as a choice between three desirable options, only two of which are possible at the same time.
The term derives from the much older term dilemma, a choice between two unacceptable options.”

This is about as close as we’ll ever get to a multiple-choice answer in the question of religious belief.

“The most famous trilemma – often referred to simply as "the trilemma" – is a form of apologetics meant to prove that Jesus is God, or at least to prove that he couldn't have been simply a "good teacher." Often summarized either as "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord", or as "Mad, Bad, or God", it assumes that Jesus claimed to be the God, and as a result one of three things must be true:
Lunatic: Jesus was not God, but he mistakenly believed that he was.
Liar: Jesus was not God, and he knew it, but he said so anyway.
Lord: Jesus is God.
Christian apologist C. S. Lewis originally proposed the argument in his book Mere Christianity. He contends that there are three probable alternatives, all or any of which, or some variant, may logically be chosen over the choice of calling Jesus a "great human teacher". Lewis's trilemma is therefore a straightforward question on the basis of the Biblical view of Jesus: it compels a choice of any option except the logically excluded alternative that Jesus was "a great human teacher" (and from among the remaining alternatives, he argues that Jesus is God). Lewis does not propose the argument as a proof of the deity of Christ, but attempts to portray as foolish those who dismiss Jesus as merely a moral teacher. However, he was ultimately persuaded that the choice of Jesus as Lord is no less probable than the alternatives, and far more preferable.
C.S. Lewis dwells more on Jesus's claim to forgive sins, behaving as if he really was "the person chiefly offended in all offences." (Mere Christianity, Simon & Schuster. p. 55.)”

And, as par for the course, the debate rages on…

“Over a hundred contemporary secular scholars contributing to the Jesus Seminar concluded that Jesus never claimed to be God [1], thus rejecting the premise on which the trilemma is based. There also exist counter-arguments[2] disputing the possibility that Jesus' reported claim to divinity was either fabricated or misinterpreted by early Christians. Skeptics have offered numerous alternatives to the trilemma. For example, Jesus may have been a fictional character (either wholly, as someone invented to portray moral principles, or partly, based on a real person but exaggerated); his words may have been misquoted or misinterpreted; he may have been honestly mistaken about his nature; or he may have suffered some mild delusions without being completely insane. In his book "The Case For Christ", former investigative journalist Lee Strobel offers answers to several of these objections. Apologists argue that there is reliable evidence that Jesus really existed and made claims to forgive sins and send prophets, which in the Jewish monotheistic culture would be taken as claims of Godhood.”

Didja get that? Reliable evidence? Temporal lobe epilepsy, is more like it. We have far more proof that Tiberius, Cicero, Augustus, and hell, even Apollonius of Tyana existed, than the crucified lamb ever did.

In economics, the phrase is used of the ‘impossible trinity’ – we should co-opt that, I think.

But here’s a trilemma I’m going to start using: the Munchhausen-Trilemma (AKA ‘Agrippa’s Trilemma’).

“It is the name of a logical proof in the theory of knowledge going back to the German philosopher Hans Albert. The term is ironically named after Baron Munchhausen, who allegedly pulled himself out of the quagmire by seizing himself at the shock of his hair. This proof runs as follows: All of the only three ("tri"-lemma) possible attempts to get a certain justification must fail:

1. All justifications in pursuit of certain knowledge have also to justify the means of their justification and doing so they have to justify anew the means of their justification. Therefore there can be no end. We are faced with the hopeless situation of 'infinite regression'.


2. One can stop at self-evidence or common sense or fundamental principles or speaking 'ex cathedra' or at any other evidence, but in doing so the intention to install certain justification is abandoned.


3. The third horn of the trilemma is the application of a circular and therefore invalid argument.”

This should be fun. Put this one in your back pocket, and drop a reference to it in any blogversation with a theist. Especially when the old negative proof fallacy rears its malformed head (you know the sophistry I’m talking about: that “You can’t prove gawd DOESN’T exist”). Then watch the little dears run around in circles like beheaded poultry, getting terribly, terribly confused.

And to top it off:

“In Albert's view the impossibility to prove any certain truth is not in itself a certain truth. After all, you need to assume some basic rules of logical inference in order to derive his result, and in doing so must either abandon the pursuit of "certain" justification, as above, or attempt to justify these rules, etc. He suggests that it has to be taken as true as long as nobody has come forward with a truth, which is scrupulously justified as a certain truth. Several philosophers defied Albert's challenge. Until now he refuted them all in his long addendum to his Treatise on Critical Reason (see below) and later articles (see publication list).”

Yippee skippy, more fun with theists.

Till the next post, then.

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SHOULDN’T THESE PEOPLE BE OFF FEEDING THE POOR?

Got another email from the American Family Association. Guess what they’re pissing, bitching and moaning about this time?

“CBS and actor Charlie Sheen have used the Christmas season to ridicule and mock Christ, Christmas and Christians. CBS approved actor Charlie Sheen’s vulgar adaptation of a favorite Christian Christmas carol. On the December 11 program, the network included in their Two and a Half Men an episode featuring Sheen singing about his sexual activity to the tune of the traditional Christmas hymn "Joy to the World."
CBS and Sheen knew that the lyrics would greatly offend Christians, but did not hesitate to air them. Click here to see the episode on CBS.



The episode opens with series star Charlie (Sheen) singing:
“Joy to the world, I’m getting laid; I’m getting laid tonight. We’ll light the yule log, deck the halls, and then we’ll play some jingle balls. It’s been a real long wait – this is our second date! It’s Christmas Eve and I’m getting laid.”
His housekeeper/cook comes in and asks:
“Hey, I’m mixing up the egg nog. You want this broad lit up or just slightly glowing?” “Well,” Charlie says, “let’s see, we’re celebrating peace on earth and good will towards all mankind, so let’s get ‘er plowed!” “Hallelujah!” says the cook.
Charlie returns to singing, “Glo-oh-oh-oh-oh-ria, tonight I’m boinking Gloria!” CBS punctuates every single line with a laugh track.

Take Action
Such actions send a signal from CBS and Hollywood: “It’s ok to bash Christians, their religion and their God.” If you are tired of this bigotry from CBS and Hollywood, please take action and then forward this to your friends and family.”

Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity! Oh, the blasphemy! (/sarcasm off)

I live in sunny N. California, and I watched this episode already (yeah, yeah, it’s lowbrow, non-intellectual humor: I like it. Gotta problem with that? Complaint department’s down the street) – don’t these people have better things to do? Yikes, get a freakin’ hobby already!

I don’t recall any atheists getting up in arms over this little ditty:



Why? Because we don’t take ourselves that bloody seriously. Lest we forget, there’s that little thing called freedom of speech, which leaves all forums (religious or no) open to criticism.

Don’t like it?

Then move somewhere where you CAN regulate criticism. Otherwise, welcome to the U.S. of A.

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MY FAVORITE FAMILY GUY CLIP

I saw this clip in Stewie: The Untold Story, and found it utterly uproarious. It finally showed up at Youtube.



I got a special kick out of the shocked looks on the spectators' faces.

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I AM THIS HISTORICAL LUNATIC

Hat tip to Pharyngula for this amusing test:


Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

And here you all thought I was humble. Fooled Ya!

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