My Ubermensch

I believe, like one of my philosophical heros Nietzsche did, that one can attain such a supreme state of being that they should literally be a beacon to the rest of us on how to live.

Nietzsche defined this as someone who could be threatened by a demon from hell with having to relive their life over and over and over for all eternity and not flinch.

The Ubermensch would welcome life on permanent repeat.

Now I don't believe Nietzsche was right on everything, for one he was an anti-darwinist and an imbecilic sexist.

But he was also wise enough to be helping me write my worldview.

Who is my ubermensch?

My father, who told me that you must love that which you do for a living because you spend your life at work.

Marie Curie who wrote, "Nothing in life is to be feared, only understood."

The great teacher James Randi, who is a stage magician who has set himself to expose the frauds born of myths.

Susan Blackmore who is unraveling the truth of memetics. And has pink hair!

The character for Alexander the Great in Reign the Conqueror by Peter Chung, Alexander can only explain his need to conquer by saying, "I must keep advancing."

Natasha Cox, singer of Mankind is Obselete, who walked away from her computer industry job, to sing in a band.

The great Carl Sagan who taught the world to love science.

From Personal Passion

In ancient Greece emotions were called passions by the philosophers. Many considered emotion to be the source of all suffering and resisted its pull. We call these mighty thinkers: the stoics.

I love emotion.

I love its ability to tunnel through whatever stands in your way.

I love its ability to make those you love into gods or saints, and to render those you hate to somehow less than human.

I love that so many of our passions are mere scars of evolution, like my overwhelming love for fat and carbohydrates.

On the savanna carbs and carbohydrates were hard to come by, so those who were willing to do anything to get them, tended to have more babies.

Add technology, industry, and political stability and BAM! you have an obesity problem in the richest nation on earth.

If you have any doubt that my tendency to overeat is a passion, you have obviously never eaten with me!

I love how the only way to dominate these scars of evolution is to use other scars of evolution.

I love to overeat, but I want my peacock feathers to be the brightest and most beautiful of all.

Peacock feathers are not adaptive. They hinder the birds ability to avoid predators in a major way.

But the feathers attract females, so they have survived evolution.

Also any animal who can survive the pain in the ass (joke intended) which is the peacock tail is going to have good genes.

Red Victoria

an Anthony Brownrigg Film

First allow me to say that I like this film enough that I'm watching it for the second time right now as I write this. I fully expect to watch it several more times.

I saw this film screened at Texas Fear Fest 2, not knowing what to expect.

The film in a nutshell is about an artsy-fartsy film writer who cannot sell a meaningful script. So his agent tells him that he has to write a horror movie, because the genre is buying anything.

This was an encouraging sign, any time a film pokes fun at its own genre.

So the writer in his inability to write horror begins to recite a some Shakespeare in the middle of the night and accidently summons a muse.

The muse, Victoria, starts killing people in the writers life in order to inspire him to write horror.

The film has three incredibly powerful good points.

For one, it really is funny.

Its not funny in a particular cheesy way, its funny in a sarcastic, cynical, self-depreciating kind of way that makes it funny. For one, he lures his friend the horror enthusiast, into a conspiracy by promising him glory in "the chatrooms."

As a pop-culture enthusiast who spends too much time on the internet, this is really funny.

Second the film is in fact scary.

As it really crescendos at the end there is a powerful and beautiful tension that caused me to yearn for my own murder.

Vox has published his criticisms of my critique here. It's possible that I may need to clarify some of the points to which he objected, so I'll get to that and then we'll get ready for round 2!

ETA: Here is Vox's response in its entirety. He didn't seem to mind in the comments on his blog, so here ya go.

Great video series that I watch on YouTube. This guy is awesome, and does humanistic analysis (philosophical, historical, literary, etc.) of christian ideas. He rocks!

I think I’ve been postponing this project long enough, and since other people on our forums are starting to talk about this book, I should probably stop playing Rock Band and get my butt in gear. So, welcome to the first in a series of posts discussing Vox Day’s The Irrational Atheist. 

I am going to be going through this book one chapter at a time in order to keep the posts relatively short and still allow for a detailed analysis. I mentioned that plan to Vox Day, who kindly provided me with a complimentary copy of this book, and his suggestion was to read the entire book first before beginning. After getting about half-way through it, I didn’t see anything that necessitated that, but just as an FYI, if any of my points of contention are dealt with in later chapters, I’ll note that in later posts. 

 Texas Fear Fest 2

This weekend I went to the horror movie convention called Texas Fear Fest 2. I went there because I had a hunch that horror movie fans are of above average intelligence, and with some good salesmanship I could get a lot more listeners for my incredibly awesome Mindcore: Shockjock of Science Podcast!! Ooooh-yeah!

So I passed out flyers, bullshitted with people, bought a bunch of cool stuff and had a blast. 

I also learned as I attended panels and movie screenings in the convention I was an opinionated Motherfucker. 

I went to panels with the original cast of the Nightmare on Elm Street film, and found their commentary beautiful and inspiring, and I remembered how much I really loved that movie.

Comment on this news article:

Survey finds religious faith is fickle, fluid in U.S.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008802260377

It is often stated by the theists that people need God to live good and fulfilled lives. I think that we do not, and it’s a good thing too…if we truly relied on a being that didn’t exist, we’d really be in dire straights. But getting to the point…

Josiah Concept Ministries and the Historical Christ Hypothesis

By Rook Hawkins

After my article on the problems of the historical Jesus and the Gospels as fictional narratives,[1] I was worried that Christians would be afraid to refute these positions, and therefore I would not be able to generate the dialog that I so wanted to have.  Thankfully, one Christian, Cory Tucholski,[2] has taken up this charge to defend his faith against my articles.
 

 Your time would be better spent listening to The Mindcore: Shockjock of Science Podcast

Marijuana Law vs. Science

Marijuana is a plant that is regularly enjoyed by many as an intoxicant, which has also been found to be a good treatment for nausea with people who are undergoing chemotherapy. Marijuana contains delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. 

We know this lovely molecule as THC. The intoxication effects of Marijuana have been studied, with funding from the legendary Mayor LaGuardia during his heyday. Marijuana relaxes people, makes them easily amused, enhances perception of sound, and makes them easily amused. Off course another word for a state of being easily amused is happiness.