January 2011 Blog Posts (178)

If man is made in the image of god, then god must have a penis. Question is, what the hell does he do with it???

I know the title of this entry seems like an oxymoronic statement, but intelligent creationist exist. I have a friend Rahat who graduated from University of Maryland with a bachelor in biology, later went to earn a masters in biotechnology from George Washington University, and was later accepted into medical school. He later dropped out of med school in favor of attending law school. This man has the same understanding of the laws of chemistry, physics and biology that I do as a graduate…

I have two more courses at NYU before I complete my masters, and until today I was uncertain about the future. I wasn't sure if I should try and work with my masters in bioinformatics, or if I would get into my evolutionary biology PhD program. Well today I was accepted into the program and will be conducting my research in avian systematics next fall.

A friend just sent me an e-mail with this inofficial "Darwin Award" list, which I thought would be funny to share with this community.

And here it is...

"Eighth Place 



In Detroit , a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.…

The cells in our cortex are essentially machines ready to be influenced by the world as we are born. A blank slate, if you will. While there is some genetically programmed organization there from embryological development, all areas in the cortex pretty much do the same thing as far as pattern recognition (see YT video of Jeff Hawkins’ (On Intelligence, Hierarchical Temporal Memory)). What makes certain areas of our cortex perform different functions has more to do with which sense organs…

Someone (I don't know who) in the office where I work likes to leave religious pamphlets in our break room. Currently it's something about "Marriage and God's Plan". Ack!

I have some nice Atheist pamphlets I could leave out "to balance things out". I'm contemplating this, but I'm concerned about repercussions. There are a few coworkers who know about my Atheism. Some are fine with it, others not so much. Given times the way they are, I am a bit fearful of stirring things up…

I am not an avid user of Facebook, but I do use it occasionally for events.  After people found out I had finally joined the Facebook hive I started getting friend invites from a whole lot of people.  At first I accepted them all with open arms thinking I'm was the coolest guy on the internet.  But then reality kicked in and I found out that I don't really give a fuck if someone is going to go work out today, or if someone just painted their toenails.  But then there is the worst of it…

I just recently moved back to the midwest after having spent about 10 years in major cities around the world.  I have enjoyed being single with the occasional girlfriend for most of that time.  But the reason I enjoyed it so much, was due to the city life in which I was accustomed.  There were always other single people that wanted to go out and shoot pool, or go bowling, and there were always the prospects of meeting single women the same age with a lot of the attributes I was looking for.…

Like many other religions, Islam proclaims that ritual fasting is a good thing in the eyes of God (in that case Allah). And of course there are some rules and regulations for it.

As with the prohibition of alcohol however the rules for fasting don't actually meet the standards one could expect of a God.

"O you who believe! Observing As-Sawm (the fasting) is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become Al-Muttaqoon (the pious)?…

Piotr Sionko, the spokesman for the John Paul II Centre, said the vial would be encased in crystal and built into the altar of a church in the southern city of Krakow that is opening in May.…

What do you live for? Why do you work? To what end? Is this life just a ride you get to experience for 80 years or so, if you're lucky? Is your reason to be alive to serve God or some other purpose? Is it to serve others? Your family? Or is it to serve yourself? To what end is the purpose of your life? Is it the attainment of virtues? The fulfillment of values? To what end?

I believe that no matter the explicitly articulated reason someone thinks they live, the real reason is personal…

(found on ThinkingAtheist's channel)Look at our world through the eyes of Suzie, a devoutly religious girl who sees divine love and intervention everywhere. This cocoon of comfort keeps her ignorant of science and safely away from critical thought, but it sure makes her happy. If you've interacted with the deeply religious, you've probably met someone in your own life that is just like…

This is just a very short and simple version of what I have argued as the proper way to understand choice. I believe there is no such thing as freewill. Choice, in my opinion is a causally determined mental calculation that we are all relatively free to make. Freedom and control are relative terms describing a relatioship between entities. Neither can be absolute, ever. Of course we have relative freedom to choose, it is just that that choice is not completely free from anything and not at…

In February 2007, former Taliban and Mujahideen groups managed to stage a rather uneventful rally in support of a legal amnesty for war crimes and human rights abuses for all the warlords as well as many ex-communist power brokers. It was quite a spectacle to see how groups who only years earlier distrusted one another like a pack of hungry wolves were now eager to go on the public record in the defense the atrocities they collectively committed. While they chanted "Death to…