HAIRSHIRT
Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery
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HAIRSHIRT Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery |
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Tuesday, April 19, 2011Logical (Y'know, Like Spock) I've long said that one of the reasons I'm an atheist (I have upgraded from agnostic, I guess, over the last few years) is that I can't stomach the hypocrisy of an religion that says, "Hey! You know all those thousands of other religions that have popped up over the course of human history? Well they got it wrong. Only now, now that we have come along, has someone finally figured this whole God thing out." To me, it's a matter of simple logic. You weigh the odds and you have to reach the conclusion that none of these folks have it right. I've always used a similar train of thought to back up my belief that there's life on other planets. Okay, hear me out: There are an infinite number of planets. Infinite. Scientists are all the time discovering planets that are about the same distance from their sun as we are from ours. Does it truly make sense that, of all the planets out there that are in a position to support life, ours is the only one that did? To me, that's akin to our former belief that the entire universe revolved around our world. It's terracentric bullshit. So I was gratified to hear Marc Kaufman back up my thoughts in a recent Fresh Air interview. Kaufman, a science writer for the Washington Post and author of the book First Contact, was talking about how we've found all these various types of life in places on our world that we had always thought utterly incapable of supporting any life. He said that scientists have found that, wherever life could, theoretically, exist, it does exist. He spoke about Mars and about evidence of microbial life that's been found in recent years. He talked, further, about all these other infinite, potentially life-bearing planets I referred to before. Life is out there. It's just logic. He talked, as well, about scientists--including Stephen Hawking--who are of the opinion that efforts to contact these aliens might be a really bad idea, as they could be genocidal douchebags with big guns, but that's a whole other scary thing that I won't dwell on now. I'm not saying, to be clear, that I think every yokel who claims he was anally probed by the Predator is speaking the truth. I'm not saying I buy into every half-baked Area 51 theory going. But I just can't believe that, given the vastness of the universe and the, again, infinite number of planets out there, there aren't other places where life--whether microbial or bipedal; friendly or malevolent; primitive or space-faring--exists.
Comments:
I assume you have seen the the videos of batshit girl. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPd-SY6OhLY
One of her postings I love is where she says to atheists "if God doesn't exist who wrote the bible". Got you there didn't she, Joe?
I was going to write a comment about how I like the post, but now I just want to commend PapaJohn for using "batshit girl" in a sentence. Awesome word, batshit.
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