After seeing it, I felt so inclined to express my thoughts. What follows is the full conversation I had on this topic with one of my cousin’s (by marriage) and one of my sister’s coworkers. I have removed all of the names, except mine (because I’m all egotistical that way) since they did not consent to having their names put up here.

Michael Tice:

it is not so much a lack of belief in god, it is a lack of physical, quantifiable evidence to show the exist of a supreme being. if anyone were to ever find actually proof in the existence of a supreme being, and I mean something more than just “faith,” then I would have to change my belief system, that is how it works.

why don’t we switch it around, though?

Ganesha does not believe in christians, therefore christians do not exist.

What exactly makes your god better than any of the hindu gods?

or the norse gods?

you lack justifiable proof for the existence of them, therefore you do not believe in them.

what is the difference between that and going one god further?

Female Cousin:

Sister, I love this marque, I would think that after your mom almost dying and also myself, I truly believe in God and prayer, I hope Mike figures this out…..

Sister’s co-worker:

Better…worse…Just reading the sign doesn’t state any god is better than any other. In fact it doesn’t have a definition of which god it’s talking about.

As you stated I can find “proof” of atheists so I don’t have to believe in them. They are right in front of me. So while Ganesha may not believe in me he should at least go around my cart in the grocery store or he might bump himself on it by accident for not “believing” it’s there.

I’m not sure the sign was indicating that any god or panthon was “better” than another. As by definition Atheists by definition have no god or panthon.

As to faith…well it’s a little like being a being in love you know it when you got it. If you were looking for a concrect answer that’s not really what religion is about. Hence the term Atheist for people that aren’t interested.

Michael Tice:

a marquee at palm heights baptist church is definitely picking a specific religion.

as for faith, you compare it to being in love? when we are in love with someone, our bodies actually produce dopamine in response to being around and with that person, hence the euphoric feeling we receive from thinking about them and being in their presence. it is something based in science. this is also why love fades over time. we build up a resistance to the dopamine, and therefore our euphoric feeling leaves us over time.

now, let us look at the definition of the word faith: firm belief in something for which there is no proof

have you heard about the teapot? there is a teapot that orbits between the earth and mars, but we do not have instruments strong enough to detect the existence of the teapot. do you have faith in the teapot? what is the difference?

Female Cousin, as for your talk of prayer saving people, that belittles the medical professionals who save people’s lives every single day. if you are EVER going to thank anybody, you should always thank the person who does something for you, not a supreme being, and i don’t care if you are religious or not. thank god you are alive? no, you should start by thanking your parents and work your way up.

Sister’s co-worker:

Wups! I didn’t zoom in on the pic. I just saw the thumb-nail view that really shows off the back-lit part

Female Cousin:

Mike, I never said that prayer saves people, only God can do that, and I thank God for doctors but there are some things that doctors can’t even fix, as for myself, my doctors even said to me that “you should be dead” , we don’t know why you’re still alive. In this case Mike even my doctors acknowledged that something other than themselves “healed” me. In my prayers everyday I always do Thank God for everything he’s given me including my parents, doctors, life and mostly breath. Can you explain to me how you can breathe if you can’t see it, smell it, or feel it, you can maybe see, smell and feel the effects of it, then how does your body breathe in air that really doesn’t exist because if you don’t believe in something you can’t see (faith) then how in the world do we all exist.

Sister’s co-worker:

If one loves their god would it not have the same response?

I think your teapot argument may be flawed in that I COULD possibly go and find said teapot (if it exists in the first place). Most atheists would argue that you can’t ever “find” god as doesn’t exist. For the purposes of this discussion it does not matter as I don’t own a space ship (I wish).

Does this mean that you only believe in things you have seen and done yourself? With this in mind how did you learn anything in school. Almost by definition you would have to believe the things people taught you in the classroom. You would have had to believe someone about the existence of atoms. While I have never seen one I believe they exist. My understanding is that scientists can find evidence of atoms but can’t actually see one just yet. Lots of science is like this. It’s why they call them theories because they are subject to change as new evidence comes along. Different scientists have different theories and they get together and argue about them at conferences. Sounds a bit like religion to me.

Most preachers claim to have evidence of God. They haven’t actually seen him either (at least most claim they haven’t). At what point would you have to be convinced that HE exists. I could make an argument that perhaps preachers/religion shouldn’t be quite so certain that they have the whole God picture yet either.

The point to that long discussion is that one has to make those decisions about what to believe for themselves. I evaluate what I’ve seen, heard and learned from others and make a decision. You speak as if all people that believe in God only have what I would term “blind faith”. That is faith without critical though and adequate reflection.

In the past science and religion weren’t that far apart. It is only in modern times that they are seen as at odds with each other. Gregor Mendel, father of genetics, was an Augustinian priest. Sir Francis Bacon, inventor of the scientific method, Isaac Newton, uh…gravity are all reported to be people that have a believe in a god. Einstein expressed it as: “God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists.” While I didn’t meet those people personally I have some faith in the reports that were recorded about their lives and beliefs.

Be nice to other and try not to shove something that you believe on others. Female Cousin can thank whomever she wishes (parents included). You were the person that started this discussion about faith. Try not to hurt others that aren’t hurting you. While you may not have their beliefs it seems like an adult thing to do to respect that others may not have your beliefs. Isn’t that what some of your first post was about?

Female Cousin:

Thanks Sister’s co-worker

Sister:

Well put, I’ve used the things you learn in school with my kid, she turned around and used this against my brother one day, sorry bro. I think the discussion of why do apes still exist “if” we evolved from them came up too…

I have to interject for a moment here, I had a brief conversation with my sister on google talk about this part, she told me she was just stirring up shit, Thanks.

Michael Tice:

learn evolution before you start saying we evolved from apes. we did not evolve from them, we share a common ancestor.

lets look at evolution this way. you have a sibling, your sibling has children and you have children. when your siblings child has kids of their own, they are not going to produce a child like the one that your children will. but, despite all of this, you and your siblings, and all of your children share a common ancestor in your parents. that is how we are related to apes, not because we evolved from them but because we share a common ancestor. now, this common ancestor may have looked more ape like, it may have looked more human like, but more than likely it did not look anything like either modern day humans or apes.

you want proof of evolution in an extremely short period of time? read about this experiment:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

how did i learn anything in school? well, when you take a science class in school you do experiments. through this you learn about the scientific method. from the scientific method we show how our hypothesis become a theory and is therefore proven as true.

i am using the proper scientific definition of a theory, not the one that most christians like to bandy about. that is actually a hypothesis.

as for what we learned in school but did not experiment on, you can still get the research that other scientists have performed, and if you feel so inclined repeat their experiments for yourself.

the concept of the teapot is a thought experiment to show that you cannot say something exists just because you have faith in it.

now, you are probably going to start throwing history out, right? if we didnt experience any of the parts of history, how do we know they are true? Well, it is very true that history is a lie agreed upon by fools. We cannot say for certain that a lot of the specifics of what we call history are true, simply because we have to go by what others have written, BUT, we do know that the world as we know it today would not exist if certain things in history had not happend. if gaius julius had not crossed the rubicon and crowned himself caesar. if william the conqueror had not crossed the english channel and started the norman conquest of england. these had to happen.

jesus, on the other hand, is not a historical necessity. there is no need for a person like that to have existed for the world as we know it to exist.

in fact, lets look at where this whole jesus concpet comes from. the story of jesus was first told by saul of tarsus, who later became the apostle paul. the thing about the stories saul told, they did not include the virgin birth, asking questions of the teachers in the temple during passover as a boy, riding into bethelem on an ass, the betrayal, and most of what christians believe to be the story of jesus. in fact, saul’s stories were about a man who said he was the son of god, died, and was resurrected in 3 days, but was NEVER alive and in the “earthly” realm. saul’s stories all took place in the realm of the gods! why don’t they teach that in church?

what it all boils down to is this: i do not believe in any supreme being because there is no evidence to support the existence of one. you are free to believe all you want, but you have no right to try and push your beliefs on me, in much the same way i have no right to push my lack of belief on you. the above, posted by me, is not my attempt to push my lack of beliefs on you, but my attempt to show you why i do not believe, and nothing more. i do not consider the people who follow religion to be idiots, i consider the existence of religion itself to be utter idiocy.

The Lenski experiment I linked to up there? That thing is awesome. I just learned about it while reading The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. Go get it and read it, it is worth every penny.

Sister’s co-worker:

Why didn’t you just post you last paragraph first and save us a lot of time (and space)?

Michael Tice:

Female Cousin, i missed your post, i never said that i dont believe in anything that i cannot see. i said that i need quantifiable proof that something exists. i can use that air that i cannot see to blow up a balloon, therefore that shows that air has mass and takes up space.

if you try to go by the “what you can see” analogy, then i technically shouldn’t believe in my feet right now. oh, i can feel that they are there, but i can’t see them because of my shoes and desk! science doesn’t work that way, and nor do i.

Michael Tice:

Sister’s co-worker, where is the fun in that?

Sister’s co-worker:

I just had lunch with your sister and she said that you always had to have the last word. Is that true?

Female Cousin:

Mike, If you fill a balloon with air then you see the effects the air produces by filling the balloon, not the air but whatever, feel free to believe or not believe whatever you’d like.

I just don’t understand, and I don’t think I ever will. Maybe I just need to stop trying to make heads or tails (tales?) out of what the christians say and just got on with my life.

BERT IS EVIL!!

Tattoo gone wrong: Stars and gripes forever?

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A Belgian teenager has told police how she emerged from a tattoo parlor with 56 stars over one side of her face, rather than the three she had asked for, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

“I said this part, the top, is ok, but not the rest,” Kimberley Vlaeminck from the city of Kortrijk, 90 km (56 miles) northwest of Brussels, told Belgian broadcaster VRT. The 18-year-old said she fell asleep during the procedure, and woke up in pain when her nose was being tattooed.

Tattoos are a hell of a lot of fun. I have two of them, but they are certainly not somewhere stupid, like on my face.

My first tattoo is on my right calf. It was done in June of 2002. I debated for a year before I actually had it done.

My second tattoo was done in May of 2007. I saw some artwork in the tattoo shop, fell in love with it, told Al how much I wanted to have it done, he said how much he wanted to do it, and a few weeks later I had another tattoo. (This picture really does not do the amount of detail in this piece any justice at all)

Both of these were done by Al Sully at Wee Bee Lost Tribe on Dudley Ave in Parkersburg, WV. I wouldn’t feel right posting pics of them without saying that. He does amazing work and I will NEVER go to anyone else for a tattoo. Even if I were to leave the area, I would come back and only have him do the work. Since they don’t have a web page, Yahoo is about the only place I could find a link to them: Wee Bee Lost Tribe, Parkersburg, WV : Reviews and maps – Yahoo! Local.

Now, the thing about both of my tattoos is, if I want to show them off, I can. If I want to hide them, I can do so very easily. I have never understood why anyone in their right mind would want to get a tattoo on their face, especially not across their forehead. That is just plain ludicrous.

Despite what everyone says about appearances not mattering when first meeting someone, the fact is, 55% of your first impression of another human being is based entirely on appearance. What does having only 3 stars tattooed across your forehead say to anyone you meet for the first time? I do realize that she is not American, and we, for some reason, tend to be a bunch of prudes, but there are still plenty members of older generations that you have never met and will meet for the first time at some point life, including (most importantly), people who hire you for jobs. The girl is 18, and therefore an adult by most standards across the world, but really she should have definitely sat down and thought through this before even considering a face tattoo.

The other thing, how on earth do you fall asleep while getting a tattoo on your face? If you have a tattoo anywhere on your body, then you know that it does a wee bit more than tickle a little bit. I am not saying that the pain is anything outrageous, but you have to seriously be out of it if you can fall asleep while a needle is ramming into your skin a few thousand times a minute.

In short, think before you act. There is only one person responsible for your actions, and that is you. This silly girl’s stupid idea of suing the tattoo artist for her own idiocy is nothing short of outrageous.

How do the two of these go together?  Why is there a picture of an Ohio State University Medical Center cup at the top of this page?  Good questions, all of these.

At work, in order to save money, I mainly drink instant tea.  Buying a large jar of Lipton granules and making 32oz. of tea at a time is a lot cheaper than daily trips to the soda machine, or even bringing in my own soda, but where does the numerology come into play with this?

If you have ever made instant tea, I am sure that you thought, in the beginning, that it tasted like total crap.  I was definitely in that mindset as well until I finally managed to perfect my recipe:

• 3 spoonfuls (just a plastic spoon) of instant tea
• 9 packets of artificial sweetener (Splenda or Altern)
• 32 ounces of cold water (preferably from the water cooler)

Ok, great, that is all well and good, but where do the numbers come in?  It is all about the number three, even with that pesky 32 thrown in there.

3 spoonfuls of tea, pretty self explanatory, 9 packets of sweetener put into the cup in three groups of three.  32 ounces of water, well 32 is 4 x 8, and 4 in binary is 100, which has three numbers.  8 is 2^3 which gives us yet another 3.  9 + 3 = 12 and 8 + 4 = 12.  Also, 3 x 2 = 6 (from the 32) and 6 x 2 = 12 (2 being the total number of digits in 32) or 6 / 2 = 3.  8 looks like a snowman, and as those of us in the northern hemisphere and temperate climates know, you are not going to start trying to build a snowman until December, the 12th month.  3 + 9 + 32 = 45, 4 + 5 = 9, and nine is 3^3.  The Star of David has 6 points, 6 = 3 x 2, which is 32, so now I think my tea might be a Jewish conspiracy.  Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake on 3/18/1314, 3 + 1 + 8 + 1 + 3 + 1 + 4 = 21, and 2 + 1 = 3, so now I am starting to feel as if Freemasonry might have something to do with this as well, or at the very least the Knights Templar.

Wait, where was I going with all this?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/20/internet.records.bill/index.html

Bill proposes ISPs, Wi-Fi keep logs for police

(CNET) — Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, supporter of a bill that would require Internet user records to be saved for police.

The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates.

“While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference on Thursday.

“Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level.”

Read More…

Since when has it become the job of mommy and daddy government to watch out for our children?  We have law makers who do not fully understand how anonymity on the internet works, and therefore want to pass horrible legislation such as this that does nothing but hurt every single internet user in the U.S.A. today.  Of course, when you have people who say such wonderful things as the internet is a bunch of tubes, you end up with ignorant legislation that does nothing to help anyone.

It seems like their overall thought is good though, right?  Protecting our kids from all those horrible child predators out there.  They are so bad and we need to keep our kids safe.  The real question is, how many child predators on the internet are there?  We see this garbage on the news all the time, are inundated with it from programs like Law and Order: SVU and To Catch a Predator, it seems like they are just EVERYWHERE, but are they?  Doubtful.

Let’s take at look at this bill for just a moment, though, and see what they plan on logging.

Senate Bill:  S.436

House Resolution:  H.R. 1076

“all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user.”

Well, what records do they plan on maintaining then?  The ip address is, like it says in the bill, only temporary.  MAC address?  Spoof it. Sure, the real MAC address is permanently imprinted on the network card, but using your OS to spoof works just fine.

So what does that leave?  Tracking the user ids and passwords that you have on any website you log into?  If the person is a savvy user, then they will go for complete and total anonymity and none of the information they use will be true to begin with.  If you really want to remain totally anonymous, those “netbooks” are getting cheaper all the time, almost to the point where they could be like prepaid cell phones.  Use them, then throw them away.  As long as you paid cash for it, they could never track the sale back to you.

Of course, the real problem with this is that almost everyone uses DHCP to assign temporary ip addresses.  This includes your home wireless router.  So if some creep parks his van outside your house, accesses your wide open wi-fi because you didn’t know how to set up your security properly, you should be logging that persons information.  How on earth is that even possible?

What this really comes down to, though, is personal responsibility.  You, as a parent, should know what your children are doing on the internet, and should be tech savvy enough to know how to prevent them from getting around the blocks you should definitely put in place.  Does that mean you may have to learn something new?  Of course, but welcome to the XXIst century.

Recently, as in on Christmas Eve, my wife’s 19 year old step-sister told her mother that she was, “later than she had ever been.”  This prompted a Christmas day trip to Walgreens, the purchase of a pregnancy test, a positive result from that, trip to the doctor, blood test, and another positive result.  Yay!  Another pregnant teen.

What to do about all of this?  Well, I have not voiced my opinion, because I know how it will go over, but in my opinion?  Get rid of it.  She is still early in the pregnancy, due August 20th, she works at a grocery store working less than 20 hours a week, when I asked her mother what the father thought she said, “Well, he doesn’t take care of the two he has,” and the living area of the house they all (being father-in-law, his wife, her daughter) live in is no bigger than the conference room where I work.  Not a single room of the house, mind you, but the entire living area of the house: 2 bedrooms, living room, and kitchen.  The girl needs to go get some of this:

or go visit Mr. Doctor with the “rusty coat hanger,” as it were.

Of course, when my step-mother-in-law was talking to my mother-in-law, she commented that this is all god’s will, or some sort of crazy crap like that.  Personally?  I blame it on abject stupidity, but we will get to that in a minute.  Ok, so, I am an atheist.  I make no bones about it.  God (gods) does (do) not exist, is (are) a man made construct, and in my opinion is (are) an antiquated idea that is no longer needed in today’s society and promotes poor ideas of morality while not allowing people to think freely.  I could say more, but we will save that for later.  So, with this whole idea that it is god’s will, does that mean that her daughter did not have the ability to not have sex with worthless loser boy with no job because it was pre-ordained by god?  Does that mean that, even though they did have sex, because of god’s will they would not use any form of protection?  If, like she seems to think, god willed her daughter to not think about the consequences of her actions and maybe try to prevent it, then couldn’t it also be seen that god willed man to create methods of abortion and therefore it is god’s will that we perform them?  Yeah, I know, a crazy thought.  It’s a test, right?  The devil created abortion and god is punishing you when you don’t listen to what he has to say about abstinence only and therefore you must totally fuck up your life in every way possible.

Of course, one of the big problems we have in this country are the abstinence only sex education policies in a lot of the schools, which is the result of the religious people trying to run the country (don’t think we are moving towards an oligarchy?  Faith Based Initiatives).  When we have policies like abstinence only, we end up with people like the kids in Florida who think that a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy. What kind of insanity is that, exactly?  Yes, I will admit that the only sure fire way to prevent pregnancy is to not have sex (or just do anal).  But you know what?  People are going to do it, so you should at least practice safer sex.  Sometimes, even when you take all possible precaution, it can still happen, like with my wife’s cousin.  She is on the pill, they use condoms, that leaves a .1% chance of getting pregnant.  Guess what?  That girl needs to go buy some Powerball tickets, because she is pregnant.  Luckily, though, she is with a great guy who is going to be a wonderful dad, they both have decent jobs, so all is well for her.  Still, though, if you are going to have sex, and teens are going to have sex – it is a fact of life, then please, practice it the safest way you can with condoms and other contraceptives.  We don’t need more children becoming burdens on me.  I don’t want to support their screw ups.

Personally, I see this as my wife’s step-sister’s mulligan.  A do over, if you will.  A chance to correct what she did wrong for awhile, get her head on straight, and start leading a more productive life, instead of a way for her to ruin it completely with a child she is both too immature to raise and unable to financially support.