Friday, May 27, 2005

The Truth about Ghosts I

As a scientist, I feel it is my responsibility to set the record straight on ghosts and science.

  1. They are real.
    • Proven to exist in 50's by team investigated role of Thor in Philadelphia Experiment.
    • Existence further explored by Lockheed-Martin and Grummond (prior to dissolution) for possible use as light ordinance (extremely light, since they are spirits). The ghost's capacity for weapons application was limited, however, to chain rattling and moaning.

  2. They are the cause of the boom in delivery companies (Fed-Ex, UPS, etc) because of their teleportation capabilities. They could actually have the package there for you in the literal wink of an equally literal eye, but that would violate trade sanctions set against ghosts by the U.S. governement (see Federal Trade Commision .v. Denizens of Afterlife, 1971).
  3. They take your socks.
  4. Angels are not ghosts, but are directly responsible for the incident at roswell.

There is so much more to tell, but the CIA listening devices are telling me to wait. More later.


Thursday, April 28, 2005

Jesus and Spiderman: An exercise.

One of the biggest problems facing religious discourse is the emotion inherent in the positions taken. An interesting method of separating the passion from the logical structure of the arguments beings hurled across the coffee shop gift table or bus station urinal is a simple substitution. Instead of Jesus/God/Saviour/messiah, etc. simply say Spiderman. Instead of The Bible, say Amazing Spiderman, issue 323. Stripped of its irrational religious power, most statements are seen to be ludicrous. This also applies, by the way, to poorly structured arguments in general. Improper appeals to authority and blind devotion to a specific scientist's work can also contribute to the ambient level of stupidity in the universe.
For example,
  • How do you know the bible is true? Because it's the word of god.
  • How do you know that? It says so in the bible.

Religious arguments are lousy with this kind of circular reasoning. The problem with the statements becomes obvious to almost everyone if you spiderize them:
  • How do you know Amazing Spiderman, issue 323 is true? Because it's the word of Spiderman.
  • How do you know that? It says so in Amazing Spiderman, issue 323.

Give it a shot. More examples to come (The bible is full of them. So is Amazing Spiderman, issue 323, for that matter).


Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Vatican Attacks Fictional Work

I am consistently amazed by the odd things religious organizations choose to attack. The vatican devoted time and manpower to check into the DaVinci Code and construct not only arguments against it, but formulate an official response to it. How much of the Vatican's underground treasury was looted to garner funds for this research? "

"Bishop Valencia...melt down the ruby chalice of St. Andrew. Yes, the whole thing. It turns out we need to hire some temp help to find out exactly how to address the DOAT issue."

"Right....I remember. Dragons of Autumn Twilight. It's a foul tome whose only purpose on this earth is to further the causes of darkness. Dragons! And twilight. Darkness and all that. Can you imagine such horrid work existing in the same world as the holy father?"

"Let's see what Cardinal Ecco thinks. He was the guy who brought me as a contract hire during the late 90's when all those sinful programming language tutorials came out."

"Good idea."

Madness...sheer unabashed madness. By madness I mean mental instability and not the band Madness, whose liner notes for The Rise and Fall were denounced by the Vatican for

...failing to explicitly address the divine nature of the son of man in a work whose very existence is due to the fall (crucifixion) and subsequent rise (resurrection and eventual ascendence into heaven) of the holy savior.