"Respect" Your Culture?

I watched through a 10 minute collection of clips from the "Innocence of Muslims" film that has been sparking riots, threats of additional attacks on the U.S., as well as supposedly driving the attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Cairo and Libya.  It was painful to watch.  I don't mean that in the sense of it was morally troubling -- it was really just very poorly done.  Painfully poor green-screening, and agonizingly awful sound quality, and it was extremely obvious that nearly every line that the actors spoke was dubbed over with something entirely different from what they're actually saying.  Mainly, I just wanted to see what the fuss was about.

It was almost as painful as watching the first 20 minutes of the The Secret, though that at least had higher production values.  That was painful because of the intensely burning stupidity.  This 10 minute collection of clips I saw was just plain weird and made no sense, and was pretty much laying out on the table the message without a hint of subtlety.  Nonetheless, as poorly made as it was, the immediate reaction to it (that too, from seeing only the 1-minute trailer) was to take it as an egregious insult to all Muslims that necessitates violent reaction.

It is funny when people who do this sort of thing say that there is an imperative on the part of others to respect their beliefs and culture.  This is funny because these are the same people who wouldn't dare extend the same courtesy to others.

Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Californian

I'm going to go a bit off the rails here for once.  Normally, when I take on creationists, alt-med hipsters, general stupidity, there is a smoldering grumpiness that is both fueled and tempered by the dogmatic adherence to reason.  This time, however, while reason exists, there will be an overflowing rage with which I write this.  As such, I will preface this posting with a note that what I say here will be dripping with disdain and anger and should be taken with more grains of salt than the usual fare.

That said, it bears being uttered with all the road rage I have at my disposal.

I can't say that I've lived everywhere in this country, and whatever I have to say about the drivers here in the U.S. is in an entirely different league to the abject lawlessness of India.  But currently, I live in California, and I find a rather egregious incompetence to the drivers here.  I mean, I've seen people in Texas go the wrong way on an exit and actually U-turn onto a highway (feeling as well that they have the freedom to do so because they're in a Hummer), and yet somehow, this state does it worse.

Never say "Spiritual"

I get a whole lot of garbage laid before me by loads of people out there.  Unsurprisingly, religious nutcases dominate.  Most all of them are certain that everybody else is just following some false religion and that their particular belief is really The Truth^tm.  And then there are those who feign a position above all that, and say they have all the "strengths" of religious belief and none of the weaknesses.  I'm talking about those who refer to themselves as "Spiritual."  These people act as if they've found some sort of all-encompassing uber-nebulous philosophy which envelopes the body of comfort-inducing religious tomfoolery and still maintains the open-mindedness that is a categorical requirement of rationalists.

I find these people to be just another brand of fatuous nonsense breeders.

The problem isn't just that "spiritualism" deals in spirits, souls, dualism, karma, and other such nonsense.  It's that the condition that we call being "spiritual" is little more than a ham-handed mechanism by which to insert any sort of metaphysical claim you could possibly imagine and treat as equal to any other idea regardless of whether it falls under the categories of the rigorously supported or the moronic claptrap of the first degree.  Spirituality is one of the many manifestations of the price of open-mindedness that Mark Twain once quipped about.

... The kind where your mind is so open that your brain falls out.

The Defiling Touch of a Samosa

The U.S. has a history of truly bizarre laws and incredible examples of frivolous lawsuits.  This is a country where laws exist to prohibit raping a dog underwater...  or firing a shotgun from a moving vehicle when hunting whales.  Wonder how it works when we're on dry land or when we're hunting baby seals instead of whales.  I'm sure there are a few people out there who remember the tale of the couple who sued a manufacturer of ceiling fans for failing to provide a warning label which said "Caution : Do not toss your child up and down beneath a ceiling fan while it is operating."  Apparently, we have a court system which says that people are not at fault for being incomprehensibly stupid.  We also have a weird legal system that tries to weigh feelings and emotions in terms of dollars and cents by having things like "pain and suffering" as factors in lawsuits.

An Indian restaurant in New Jersey named Mughal Express committed what I would honestly consider a rather egregious criminal act.  That crime was to charge $35.00 for a plate of vegetable samosas.  Seriously??!??  $35 is the price for a platter of veggie samosas?!  What are you putting in there that is worth $35?  I'm aware that it's for a large tray suitable for a large party, but still, I can't comprehend it being worth more than $10.  Do they deep-fry in truffle oil or something?

Oh wait...  that's not what they were charged with.  They were charged with the crime of making a mistake and sending the wrong type of samosas to the customer.   The group of 16 that placed the order specifically ordered veggie samosas (they were vegetarians) and got a plate of meat-filled samosas (most likely lamb-filled, but I don't have a source which clarifies this) instead.  This sort of thing happens all the time all over the place.  I, being a vegetarian as well, have frequently ordered something to find that -- oh, wait, this has chicken, or it has bacon, or it has ham, or whatever...  The restaurants always take it back and replaces it without incident, and once in a while, they also tell me my meal is gratis, or at the very least offer some other addition like a dessert or drink for free.  I'm perfectly fine with that.

But then, I'm a filthy unbeliever, so what do I know?

"Why [am I] so Angry at God?"

I have gotten this question so many times, I don't think I can overstate it.  "Why are you so angry with 'God'?"  "What do you have against 'The Lord,' your god?"  "What is your problem with 'God'?"  If I had a problem with someone who doesn't even exist, I don't think I'd be in my right mind anyway.  Though if you want to define "God" as the idea of a supreme being rather than the being itself, then that is something I have a problem with.

Well, far more than just a problem...  The very idea of a supreme being is entirely misguided on every foundational aspect of it.  It is not enough to say that creationists have provided me with no reason to believe it, but that they've even provided quite an abundance of reasons not to believe it.  Not only have they shown without exception that everything on which they base their belief is shallow at best and most often fundamentally untrue or unprovable, but that the very same belief leads down paths which are demonstrably harmful, and without merit.

I know a great number of people would like to point to all the wars and killing caused by religious conflicts (something that all religious people will try to argue back against by associating any murderous act performed by atheists to be specifically caused by atheism without demonstrating this chain of causality)...  but to me, this is not the most serious issue.  Partly because, even in an all-atheist world, we'll still have wars over resources and people who want power by illicit means.  Sure, we can also point out that ALL statistics of ALL developed nations show that a higher relative percentage of atheists within a reasonably large population is accompanied by lower rates of crime, lower rates of drug abuse, lower suicide rates, lower murder rates, lower teen pregnancy, lower divorce rates, lower obesity, lower school dropout rates, higher literacy rates, higher longevity, and probably a whole bunch of others I can't entirely recall off the top of my head.  Still, that's not really what I consider the most serious issue of all because they're effects rather than causes.

No...  to me, the biggest problem with the idea of God is that it allows just about anything to be a virtue or a vice.  It is completely without morality because it redefines good and evil in terms of obedient and disobedient.  It is entirely without thought and without remorse in anything.  The common virtue to all religions (parody religions like Pastafarianism notwithstanding) that has no place being considered a virtue is gullibility.