Sometime today (Dec 9) my Bell connection will be severed. Sometime on monday the 14th, a new connection will be established via cable.

I'll be back.

I recall a couple years back I stopped posting at the Gamespot forums due to moderator(s) who decided it was fine for a christian to go off on a rant about my atheism, and deleted my polite refutation. I'll never go back there.
Over the last week or so, another theist has decided to harass me with inflammatory comments on the official PlayStation forums. On his first post, I responded in kind. 10 minutes or less later, both our posts were gone. I have since ignored him, and chuckled as his posts disappear one by one, with mine remaining.
It's a wonderful thing.

Before reading this, know that I am aware of most if not all faults found within. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but as I'm already aware of the problems in this case I likely won't respond to it as it has already been accepted. I always post the original and uneditted forms of my works, so that they are particularly easy for me to trace back to myself should someone decide they wanted to claim my work as their own.

I had actually thought I'd already posted this here, but found to my surprise that I hadn't when I went to link to it. Basically, I took my previous post regarding marijuana, and gave it some much needed adrenaline. Enjoy.

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In 1923, without parliamentary debate, marijuana became illegal in Canada(2). It took more than 10 years before someone was convicted related to marijuana, but it’s all gone downhill from there(2). Today, close to 60,000 people a year are thrown in jail per year for marijuana related offences(3). A drug that has less affect on a smoker than alcohol has on a drinker puts about that many people in front of the court system every year. Especially when there is a much better alternative than continuing to fight such a losing battle.

Religion has been a factor for humans to deal with throughout history. The oldest written records contain evidence of religious belief. Genetic studies have recently been done that even suggest that religion evolved with humanity. Through all this time, religion has had its uses. It has a binding factor that allows subjugated people to band together against their oppressors (or against the forces of nature), and can be useful in distributing help to those who need it most. However, it currently hinders humanity more than it helps. Governments have replaced religious charity with social welfare, and democracy has eliminated the majority of the need to band together against an oppressor or nature. What is left for religion to do? The answer is a sad one: interfere with the progress of humanity, to the point where it endangers the future of humanity. Throughout history, religion has been the leading cause of slavery, subjugation, prejudice, war, and a negatively impactful force against the progress of education. For humanity to continue to survive, religion must be mitigated to have no control over vast swaths of people who simply don’t know any better.

The deck shuddered as an impact shook the floor. A siren blared and all lights save the emergency lighting had failed. The man awoke with a start to find himself alone on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and a sticky liquid. Slowly picking himself up, he looked around the small room. In the centre was what seemed to be the remains of a broken glass cylinder connected to pipes and wires. It looked like he might have been in it when it shattered. The perpetrator of the damage appeared to be a large block of deck plating for which there was a corresponding hole in the roof. There was a door on one of the pure white walls and some cabinets and shelving seemed to make up the rest of the room. As he gained his feet, he heard a voice sounding rather desperate and mechanical from above: "All hands abandon ship!" The man realized with a start that he didn’t know where he was, or who he was. Let alone how to get off of the vessel. He took stock of his situation, and wasn’t pleased with his options. No clothes, no equipment, and no idea what was going on.

I have gone back to school. This would be a good portion of the reason I'm still missing in action.

Lovely thing, the school I last went to apparently closed a few years ago, and the system subsequently lost the last couple years of my records. So I had to start back at grade 9, though I'd been in 11.

On the bright side, I skipped through 9 and 10 in a single day, and have gone through about 3/4's of English 11 in the last couple weeks. Once I figure out exactly what I need for grad, it shouldn't take me too long.

Oh, did I mention the school has blocked RRS? So unfortunately I can't even come here when I'm there.

Ah well. Anyway, I'll still pop by whenever I can, and at some point will be back the way I used to be. The bonus is that having graduated will make my arguments that much more effective.

I must apologize for my abrupt disappearance from the internet back in early July, and to any and all persons I was in mid debate with at the time. I quit my job due to multiple head bumpings with the idiots who suck enough balls to call themselves management. As the majority of my posting was done at work, with no net at home, I thereafter vanished across the board. I do not have much time right now, but a computer with net was available and I have enough time to inform people of the scenario. I am not certain when I will be able to return to normal operating procedures on the net, but hope it will be soon. At any rate, if anyone was concerned, there is nothing to be concerned about. I will endeavour to return to active debate as soon as possible, but it could very easily be October or later due to some software problems with my home PC not liking dialup all of a sudden.

In no particular order:

1: Education. When you learn how evolution works, and how we know it works, you are no longer able to honestly deny it's facts. When you learn the earth is round, and how we know it is round, you can not honestly deny it is round. An education may not stop a liar from denying reality, but there aren't that many people who actually enjoy lying once it's been pointed out that they are lying. A theif's worst enemy is recognition.

2: Diversification. I have little to nothing in the way of hard evidence of this position, merely personal experience. I'm unaware if large and/or long term studies have been done on the issue, though would recommend that they be done by those capable of doing them. But in my experience, irrational viewpoints become harder to sustain when not surrounded by those who share them. Racism in a small town full of caucasian people(merely an example) is, in my experience, far more common than in a large city with multiple ethnic groups. Religious beliefs in a small town of one ethnic group are far more centralized than in a large city of dozens of them. I don't think everyone needs to be living in cities, but I do think that minorities need to spend more time getting into small communities; and that majorities need to spread out more so as not to be such a majority. How much harder is it to recruit extremists when you're surrounded by people who believe something other than what you believe?

I originally wrote this back in March of 2005, in response to a letter to the editor written to a local newspaper. A recent post regarding the war on drugs and religion by another forumite reminded me of it, and it's importance. So I went and dug it up. Here it is.
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Most Americans and those of nations other than Canada may not be aware of the incident. But earlier this month, 4 RCMP(Royal Canadian Mounted Police) officers were gunned down by James Roszko, before he took his own life. Roszko was a known cop hater, and convicted child molestor. He also happened to be growing marijuana. And in a day where my country is polarized on one or the other side of the argument, some moron wrote the following to a local paper:

I came up with this thought while buzzing one night in August 2005 and posted it on a forum. Noone came up with anything relevant to add to it though most thought it an interesting idea. Admittedly, I'm no physicist. There are some here with a greater understanding of the sciences than anyone at the previous forum(including myself), so I figured I'd expand on input by reposting it here.