This is a blog-article I posted today on my blog: http://christianrr.blogspot.com there you can also find the sketch I refer to.

I found this gem of an article while perusing Psychology Today, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite magazines. I won't reprint the entire thing here, since it is long, but here's the link.

Glory hallelujah! Finally, somebody is willing to tell truth even if it hurts somebody's feelings.

Popular blogger and biologist, PZ Myers, one of the scientists misrepresented in Ben Stein's Expelled film, will be speaking in the Tivoli Turnhall on the Auraria campus Friday, September 12, from noon until 2pm. Attendance if free of charge. His topic; "Science education: caught in the middle in the war between science and religion"

Myers has been gracious enough make time in his busy schedule to fly from Minneapolis, where he teaches at the University of Minnesota, to give this presentation.  He is a prominent critic of creationism and intelligent design.

The Auraria Campus is located at 900 Auraria Parkway, 80217.


(blog) http://scienceblogs. com/pharyngula/
(wiki article) http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/PZ_Myers

We hope to see everyone there.

I've often regarded the prayers and rituals of the religious with a comparison to a secular practice of meditation. While I think the comparison is valid, I'd done so glibly; for I didn't really care to wonder what was happening to the person physiologically as they practiced their stuff. So I have to wonder: does what they do find an equivalent in something I do? It would be difficult for me to indulge the mythologies, however metaphoric they may or may not be, and I would be resistant to the idea. But I have to wonder if, in spite of what the silliness of of the symbolism does to impede my utilization of it, they are able to use it to some actual effect. Being how I am, I view abstract concepts simply as abstractions; facts and ideas, dynamics and functions, and not things in their own right. But what would happen if I did give them a character and presence in my mind? What if I allowed them to have weight and dimension, personality; would doing this alter the way I think?

I have to wonder if there could be some potential in embracing ideas in a more concrete way; if this would skip some translative step in the thought process. An analogy that springs to mind is driving. At first you're preoccupied with the mechanics of the car, the radius the angle of the steering wheel produces; the curve to the drop in speed as the brake pedal is pressed. Eventually, much of that becomes transparent, and the functions of the car disappear beneath the desires of the driver.

Being a programmer of sorts, I am an exceptionally lazy person. In a way. I can spend two hours researching a script that'll do work that would have taken a half hour manually. So whenever something can be done without breaking a sweat, and preferably without jostling my beer, all the better. Here comes the tangent.

We've got these asshole cyclists here in L.A.: a couple self-righteous bike groups that routinely mob busy city streets, slowing traffic to a crawl, drinking, howling, kicking cars, and patting themselves on their hipster backs for not driving that night. Technically speaking, cyclists have the same right to the paved surface streets that cars and motorcycles do; and the ostensible purpose of these groups is to spread awareness of this fact. But, the flip side to this is that those same cyclists are obliged to obey the same traffic laws as their fuel-burning counterparts; which would exclude their regular habits of running stop lights, going against traffic, weaving between parked cars, and all that. My impression of these people first is that they're idiots, second that they're the new jocks, and third that their "awareness" campaign of inconveniencing motorists is equivalent to throwing red paint on old ladies in furs.

each of us has principles, and justification of them

these concepts are valuations and prescriptions combined indiscriminately

sets of these concepts form a moral theory

to regard a valuation or justification is to regard the prescription

to question the former is to question the latter

justifications can be reified and made into myths

to regard the reified justification is to regard the valuation and prescription

to question the former is to question the latter

prescriptions can exist without justification, simply assumed

to regard justification and valuation is not to regard prescription

I was testing whether I had correctly figured out how to embed YouTube videos and it looks like I was successful. Now that it is here I think I will leave it for a while.

Here are some of the reviews I have received from some of the 40 or so wonderful people who attended my lecture in New York City yesterday afternoon. 

From LorMarie (a Christian):

From Harry at the NYCA Meetup Site:

From Jane Everhart:

From Serge Ledan at the NYCA Meetup Site:

Some of you people might know that I have a blog called "Christian Radio Review" (http://christianrr.blogspot.com) which has of course an e-mail adress for any comments or ideas about this blog.

Today I found an interesting e-mail in the SPAM folder of this e-mail adress which is very enlightening about what Christian Radio seems to be really about. (It gave me a good laughter)

So I get out of work today and as always I walk across the busy intersection to get to my car.  As I pass by several cars and come up close to one truck, I note there is something oddly familiar about the step to get into the truck's bed.  I recognized it upon closer inspect - a Darwin fish placed, upside down, lazily on the back of the truck.   Gah, damnit!  I knew exactly what happened when I got back to the car and saw the glue residue from the fish.  Some Christian, probably in a fit of that good Christian lovin', decided to dispose of my heathen fish by tearing it off my car and sticking it somewhere "obscure".  They probably assumed that when the truck drove off, the fish would fly off the step and get run over a bunch of times somewhere out in the middle of the street and I would be none-the-wiser until I got home.  Luck, or perhaps their stupidity, happened to side with me.  I managed to get enough of the glue residue to "sticky" status so I could push it back into its place and hopefully it wouldn't be torn off again later. 

Talk about Christian values - what the hell gives them the right to violate my personal property?  How about I go to their house and rip off all their crosses from the wall, and toss them in the dumpster.