Triumphant Return of The Ranting!

Hello, my small readership. I know it's been quite some time since I last ranted, but I have not forgotten about you all.

It's been a crazy year for me so far. I have a great new job that I love very much, and am in the process of finding myself a new place for the 3rd time this year. However, this isn't why you're here. You're here to read a venomous diatribe about something we all hate about something, so I will gladly oblige.

Homelessness, we all have to face it at some point in our lives. Whether it directly affects your ability to sleep in a nice bed every night, or someone you cross paths with, it reaches into everyone's life some way or other. It's a shifty part of living in any city, and is hard to feel good about it. I have had to stare the prospect of it down a couple of times this year, and have been fortunate enough to find someone gracious enough to give me a hand up each time.

However, it's a problem that is not properly addressed in many places at all. Sure, the US has a few programs to provide (very little) assistance to the unfortunate people who can't afford the astronomical rents in many cities, but there aren't enough benefits given to those seeking relief to actually get them out of the rut they are in and on the road to success. I know, having needed the help myself only to be rejected and left to fend for myself.

There's also this strange issue of housing also. In many cities there are more residences than people to occupy them, yet people are forced to live on the street if they can't find the exorbitant amount of money required to move in. The houses and apartments will literally sit empty while people who need them sleep in alleyways and parks.

Many of these people are trying to better themselves, only to be skipped over for jobs and dismissed by landlords because they don't have a stable income or the ability to maintain a hygienic appearance due to the lack of resources to do as such. This is bullshit, and not enough is done to rectify this growing problem.

To make matters worse, there aren't enough people in positions to make the changes necessary to really help the unfortunate victims of homelessness. I concede that a percentage of the homeless have chosen this lifestyle, but I feel that the majority are victims of circumstance trying their best to make a better life for themselves in the only way that is available to them. It's no way to live, and the people who have the ability to bring all humanity up choose instead to be selfish while their species suffers the folly of their greed.

The Holiday Ranting, First Winter Holiday Special

 Ahhhh... Winter has arrived in the north hemisphere, and you know what that means, right? Cold weather, longer nights, snow in the coldest places, and Fox News' War on Christmas is in full swing again. Christians are celebrating Mithras and Saturnalia, (I mean X-Mas,) pagans celebrate the Solstice/Yule, Chanukah menorahs are lit once more, and other winter celebrations from the many other cultures that I didn't mention.

The Traditional Festivus Pole

Families are coming together to (apparently) cause as much awkward family drama as possible in as short a time as possible, all while trying to maintain the illusion of the "ideal American family Christmas." It must be the sole purpose of the family gatherings that these holidays bring, because at no other time of year has the family forgotten where their dramas lie. This is the way I've perceived these "celebrations," from nearly every family that I've ever spent holidays with. I am sure that there are a few families that are truly the cheery iconographic Rockwellian families, but I doubt there are many.

It's the time that charity toward not yourself is slightly encouraged under the pretense of doing a good deed for some less fortunate individual through the hands of some religious organization that puts more into their employees' hands than into the total budget meant to help someone in need of it, all year long. I think of all the things that come with the holidays, the charitable demeanor that sweeps over the populace for that short, short time in December, should be an all the time sentiment, regardless of season.

The Roman version of Jesus/Osiris/etc.

I'm certainly not delving into the history of these many holidays that torment us all, heathen and misguided fool alike, though there is a great deal of commonality in the rituals/nuances of the holiday in each culture. Every year the torture is dealt and borne, leaving homes like battlefields in the aftermath, and conflict-inciting relatives leave for another year, peace slowly retakes the landscape. The dawn of the New Year winds down this great annual catastrophe with the false hope of things that may yet happen to change one's life for the best/better, emptily resolving to make this new year better than the one previous, driving an illusory air of confidence that just fades into disappointment as the year wears on and warms up.

So, in light of the wet blanket grumbles that come with this glorious season of darkness, have a safe and happy Corporate Welfare Day, or whatever you choose celebrate with your families.
Thanks for your time, and share the best part of your winter celebrations... (Pics will be greatly appreciated for the best sounding stories.)

The Ranting's 1st Annual Thanksgiving Special

How the British Taught Us the Meaning of Gratitude

It's that time of year where the folks in the good old USA gather their families together and remember our arrival to the North American continent by a group of religious refugees fleeing persecution in Britain and other parts of northern Europe.  These brave pioneers landed in Massachusetts and established one of the earliest British colonies that wasn't immediately destroyed by cannibalism, plague, famine or reclamation parties sent by the displaced incumbent residents which places like Roanoke Island and a couple of the other colonies were seemingly cursed with. Don't get me wrong, this colony was no strong success in the beginning either, as not a single one of this group of settlers decided to take any levels in farming before embarking on the grueling voyage across the northern Atlantic to finally be able to live in such a way that their little sect of Protestantism could at least die out of its own folly instead of at the hands of the Anglicans and Catholics that were thinning their numbers in the Old World.

The legend states that a noble and peaceful tribe of Natives showed this group of nearly invalid zealots compassion, taking the time to teach them how to work the alien soil of this New World.  The famines that plagued the colony during the early years of the northern Massachusetts colony was finally getting reined in and the people weren't starving to death. The harvest time was looked on with a new found air of hope and accomplishment, leading to what we call the legendary "First Thanksgiving Feast."  There was an air of cooperation between the Natives and the settlers for a short time afterwards, until the interlopers had grown beyond the capacity of their small settlement's limited resources.  So they did what any burgeoning group of resource consuming invaders would do, they started stealing from the very tribe that only a short time before had shown them compassion and brought them from the brink of utter annihilation.  Thus the centuries old conflict between Natives and Brits had started in the north.

What a wonderful way to thank the people who saved an entire colony from becoming Roanoke II, the Disappearingening.  This was to become the model for standard operating procedure amongst successive colonies all over the eastern seaboard, though typically the make friends with the locals step was skipped in the future incarnations of colony establishment.  The gun was mightier that the tomahawk, and so the gun took what it could, leaving pillaged forests and smoldering villages in the wake of colonial expansion.  This isn't even the worst of the damage that was caused by white people, I have not addressed the biological terrorism that was unleashed upon the unsuspecting and extremely susceptible Natives. European diseases like smallpox, and others, devastated far more people in the Native populaces than all the other means of eradication (guns, swords, farm implements, arson, alcohol, etc).  The Natives had never developed any antibodies the fend off these European borne pathogens because they were never exposed to them until large numbers of foreigners started appearing in their ancestral lands.

The gruesome treatment of these "savages" was rewarded in a similar manner to other dangerous wildlife at the time. Wolves, bears, mountain lions and Natives all had bounties placed upon them, so the colonies could maintain the semblance of safety that any frontier settlement deludes itself into believing exists around it.  The colonist's were surely thankful to the to the major landholders for this false safety, thankful enough to accept the idea of killing another man to protect the resources they felt they were entitled to simply because they were there.  Gratitude which would have been better placed in the first tribes that saved the oldest colonies from their own ineptitude, I'm sure.

If there had been any effort to actually attempt diplomatic measures of cooperation and understanding, who know what the early colonies would have been like. Instead, because people are plagued with this sense of exclusivism regarding differentiation throughout a populace, the colonists (or usses) and the Native (or thems) were inextricably drawn into a centuries long conflict that nearly extincted the northeastern tribes to make way for the exploding population of colonists from every English colony, leading through the long series of battles and even longer wars to establish dominance over the precious resources that came with the land which the victors claimed as spoils.

The colonists and soldiers became ever more grateful to the vacating Natives, that were diminished by illness and open combat, for giving up their ancestral homes so progress could be made in the name of civilizing the wilds so that way civilized men could erase the bounty of natural resources and replace them with livestock and low yielding crops.  The continued on and on, and we all know that the American Revolution did nothing to decelerate the genocide of the Natives in the grand scheme of history...

That's how our ancestors gave thanks to the people who helped them survive the failings of their own ineptitude in a strange new environment.  That's seriously 200+ years of gratitude that the interlopers expressed to the incumbents, almost wiping the Native tribes completely out in the expansionistic fervor that eventually became known as "Manifest Destiny," though the name was coined nearer the end of this period of thanking the Natives that helped us on occasion by taking everything away from them a swathe at a time, for nearly two and a half centuries.

Now, I was taught that gratitude was expressed in a congenial manner toward outside assistance given to help positively rectify an internal issue (like the British colonists starving for a couple years before the tribe of Natives intercede and the colony survives, or a person drops a small object and loses it until another person assists in locating and recovering said lost object). The gratitude should be a humble gesture that doesn't demean either the helper or the helped. That's what I've always thought the act  of thanking someone should be.  The early colonists apparently never received that small portion of grace that their god had bestowed upon the pinnacle of his Creation all those centuries before civilized cultures came to the west. Obviously that whole god and grace thing is a load of crap by any reckoning, but people still buy into the same crock today, in the age of explanations and evidence that point toward the absence of any deity that may resemble the one(s) described in any religious texts that humanity has found throughout the ages.

From the French and Indian War*

In the same vein as the majority of this piece, I am thankful for: 

1. Rich people not paying their fair share of taxes and buying politicians.
2. Our elected officials bickering over petty things while major decisions loom toward disaster.
3. Christians preventing equality in marriage and interfering with pro-choice establishments.
4. Corporations controlling the lion's share of legislators in every level of government.
5. US Government agencies monitoring private communiques of everyone, citizen or not.
6. Climate change and science deniers establishing science class curricula that include magic.
7. Hostilities all around the world to "protect"our interests abroad, namely opium and oil.
8. Having to pay ever higher tuition to get a decent education, and the lifelong debt that accrues from it.



DISCLAIMER!!!  The gratitude expressed in this piece is purely sardonic and is not actually the position I hold on these topics. If there is any question on my position, just apply some old-fashioned logic and common sense to your confusion, and you'll see my true stance on these issues. If you still think I support any of the aforementioned list, then you probably need to dismiss your imaginary friend and think for yourself for a change. Thank you for taking the time out of your holiday to read this piece.

What does Equality Mean to Me?

The dream of everyone who is discriminated against, the hopes of the socially oppressed and the nightmares of the opressors in places of power, the chance to be on equal footing with our fellow man, to be viewed as no less than those around you. Equality is a struggle that humanity has not yet overcome in its (relatively) short history, though leaps and bounds have been made throughout the millenia. The dream of many people is to have the right to choose their leaders (specifically in democratic scenarios), the right to join the person they love in a lawful joining (marriage or civil union or whatever) with all the benefits that come with it, the right to be able to be gainfully employed without fear of being rejected because of unchangeable variables like skin tone or sexual orientation.

People all over the world are struggling for a great many rights that many first-world nations take for granted. Slavery is a concern that was outlawed by most of the west by the 1900's, but remains a global plague that goes mostly unnoticed by the general population because it doesn't directly affect most of these people. Owning people in any sense is wrong, regardless of the reason that one uses to explain their perceived superiority over any other individual. The same is true of anyone who thinks a skin color causes one to be inferior/superior to any other, it should be plain that all people are people regardless of what pigments are dominant on their epidermis. There are racists the world over, and they deserve to be placed in the position that they wish upon those they are biased against, forced to see what their hatred and bigotry cause in their victims.

Religious persecution registers as another problem, though true genocides have become less and less common throughout the years. In the early days of our society's history, one tribe would believe in a group of one or more deities that were diferent from the next tribe over, and this would cause them to dislike each other. Truthfully, it wasn't the thing that would drive them into open conflict so much as the need to expand and obtain more resources from the same pool as the neighboring tribes, but it did play a factor in convincing tribe members to take these resources because the god(s) demanded it. This was a very simple way to manipulate a group into believing that their deity/ies had superiority over any rival pantheon, and zealous fervor drove these tribes to wipe many of the tribes from history altogether. This still plagues our species to this day, and there is no really viable solution aside from abandoning that whole part of our culture and replacing it with something contructive.

Atheists are victimized by nearly every religion ever, since always, becauze they do not have the guidance of some deity/ies showing them how to "play nice" with other people on the individual level on through to on a societal level. This is even more heinous than any faith-on-faith atrocities that have been recorded, because these religious groups all agree that they are superior because of they all at least have faith in some kind of greater entity that endows them with the ability to dispense righteous justice on the heathen non-believer. This type of inequality prevents people in some parts of the U.S. from running for elected office, and many other nations as well; that doesn't include the other nations that imprison or execute atheists or apostates, which is also a significant portion of the cradle of civilization's modern political powers.

Homosexuals want the right to legally join the person they love in many nations worldwide, and are starting to gain headway in several nations in the last few years. There are states in the U.S. that refuse to acknowledge such equality due to the overall religious disposition of their elected officials, and I imagine that the nations outside the U.S. that also deny these rights are similarly biased by their theologically misguided law making bodies. I personally think that it's a beautiful thing when two people love each other enough to want to merge their assets and legally incorporate themselves as one legal entity, regardless of what gender(s) the couple is. The gay community faces probably equally fierce bigotry as the atheist community, in some cases more, I'm sure. It's also mostly from the religious communities and their belief that their deity/ies want the abomination of non-reproductive relationships should abstain from any sexual contact or die. In case that is unclear, being a man with male friends is ok, but you can't cross swords and touch tips with said male friends because it's against the will of the divine and worthy of being put to death, the exception being David and Jonathon in the Old Testament (1 Samuel) and that relationship ends poorly anyway.

Equality should stand for being on the same terms in the eyes of your peers in every aspect, any right that one person has should never be greater or less than those of another. Everyone should be allowed the freedom to choose what they believe (within reason), the ability to have the leadership they collectively choose, the option join whomever in legal union/marriage regardless of gender or culture, have the same opportunity to succeed in life that anyone else has, and the list could go on forever so I'll stop here. This is my interpretation of equality, and I hope that I'm not alone. Help crate a better world for everyone, erase bigotry, hatred and dogmatic hypocrisy, and replace it with tolerance, education and empathy for others.

Surprise amidst espionage that should have been expected.

What's with the amount of surprise generated by the news that the NSA was gathering intel on suspected enemies the world over, like our ally Germany's Chancellor and other countries we are supposed to be on good terms with. This seems to bear a message of distrust to any non-US entity, from entire nations down to the individual person, regardless of political standing.

If you were surprised by this news, you don't pay attention to global politics or history. It's standard operating procedure for any number of groups beyond 1. There is the us vs. them perception that was originally for evading predators or for demonstrating alpha status superiority to the competition. It's a standard feature of nearly every herding or territorial animal from the time the first complex organisms were evolving.

This should be something that is as obvious to postulate as the gravity's effect on falling or dropped object on the moon. The world is built on the fact that competition creates rivalry, especially among those who are lulled into believing that allies can exist with integrity during the social media age. There is no truly safe place to be now, if you want to maintain complete anonymity or privacy and benefit from any of the advances communication technology grant. Items like telephones, radios, computers, cell phones of all types, etc. are easy to monitor with a budget the size of the NSA's. It pays to have good help with useful skills.

The Russians were also put on blast for bugging gift bag for other visiting state officials, as if to say they were not to be out-outed over the indiscretion of their operating protocols. This is quite expected, though, if you remember the animal brain tangent earlier this very article. It seems as though both sides want to bully each other indirectly by also bullying everyone else with apparently poorly (or well) placed indicators that led to the discovery of "covert" surveillance was being conducted.

It's hard to say how this type of global surveillance presents itself as good politics, but it's perceived as something that will help humanity in the long term, at the expense of liberties that should be unalienated without inarguably hopeless circumstances.

If we as a whole stopped trying to be kings of the castle, we could evolve beyond the petty differences of our individual -isms. Get rid of the authority given to any church leaders and imparting taxes equivalent to a business of similar income per individual church building, not as only 1 organization. Then make information of literally any kind available to anyone that asks for it, within reason. Trust among people and the drive to improve life for all of humanity would very likely drive a new golden age, the likes of which would be beyond any we have been around to record, ever. It's only a complete series of choices that every single person alive would have to make, but the inevitable extinction event will not be caused by our own creations, possibly extending the species survival another day or several millennia (based on a whole slew of other events happening or not). There would be time to tackle the biggest problems and mysteries that wait for us to be able to find them.

Sorry to get all idealistic on you, dear reader, I should probably allow you to return to the chaotic flow of life, and thanks for donating some of your precious time entertaining my point of view. Until I rant again.

Beyond Time and Space?

What exists outside of space and time? I started pondering this idea recently, having talked with a theist about it not long ago. Now, I know that there's no definitive answer to this question from a scientific standpoint. Some scientists believe that nothing exists beyond our universe, whether it's infinite or just unimaginably vast; others believe that other universes are beyond ours in a multiverse, containing possibly an infinite number of these other universes, which also may or may not be infinite in size and may or may not be similar to our own. These are the predominant theories according to the most brilliant minds that humanity has to offer, and I accept that we as a species may never know the actual answer to this particular debate, but these are both plausible compared to the third alternative that I have stumbled across. Theists have provided this third alternative, which states that God is beyond time and space.

So, in the thinking about this third alternative, I have to reject it. The idea that a single entity that is infinite and timeless could not be feasible if it exists outside the universe it is credited with interacting within. If God is outside the universe, how could it possibly be everywhere within the universe? If God is outside time, how could it be every when in our universe? Logically, it couldn't exist outside space/time and be omnipresent within the boundaries of it, right? I believe so.

Nothing that we have observed within our universe has come from without, so far as I know. I'll admit that I'm not a cosmologist or astronomer, so I haven't made very many observations into the deepest regions of space. However, according to every study I've read and every scientist I've heard speak via video, this is true. There are only objects from our universe in our universe, from the moment time started until now and likely on into the future.

So where does that leave God? Nowhere in the observable universe, not in any spectrum of detectable energy from radio waves to gamma waves. Considering we also see the universe as it was relative to it's distance away from us, God is also not in any period of time that we can observe. I posit then that there is no God in this universe, at the very least, especially not one that is described by most theists. 

I know that these points are not new by any means, and I'm sure that you have probably heard/read this a plethora of times before. I just felt that I needed to share my take on the subject. Now I want to leave you with a couple of questions, because I want to see what you all have to say. 

First, what do God and nothing share in common?
Second, what do you think exists beyond the time and space that we exist in?
Finally, what is nothing capable of that God is not?

Can Apologists Create a New Argument for God, Please?

I've seen a lot of apologists recently, as I enjoy hearing the arguments they come up with for proving their deity's existence. There aren't any that really bring a good argument to the table, though not for lack of trying. It seems that no one is even trying to come up with new ones, because I only seem to find the same ones over and over. The points in the argument vary from person to person, but the structuring of the arguments are really all the same. The "Prime Cause" seems to be the primary go to, but it leads to infinite regression; the "Ontological Argument" and "Cosmological Argument" both often lead back to the "Prime Cause" after any/all of the points made are refuted; the "Morality Argument" fails time and again, having poor examples of immorality associated (often inaccurately) with atheism. These are the arguments I see the most, in many different styles, and sometimes even combined with each other in an attempt to create a super-argument.

Are theist apologists really so uncreative that they cannot conceive of a completely new argument to provide evidence for their stance on the existence of their imaginary friends? I would say yes, having spent hundreds of hours listening to debates, apologist videos, and reading apologist literature, recently. All of the evidence that is provided is anecdotal, at best, or the Bible, at least. William Lane Craig tries to use a single study in his argument, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin study (linked as a pdf here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0110012v2.pdf ), but he removes any context from the factoids he uses that he might as well have made them up himself. Cherry-picking information is intellectually dishonest, we all know this, but is it really the best tactic to formulate a "well thought out" (more like faulty) argument to prove any point?

Until a completely new argument comes from the apologists, they've lost. Sorry, even if they come up with a fresh, untested argument for their proof, they've still lost.

Show me some of the best arguments you have encountered, I'd like to see them. By best, I don't necessarily mean the most reasonably presented. I like the funny ones as well as the serious, show them all to me. The best ones will get acknowledgement in a future posting.