The Heroic Work of The Rational Response Squad

When I was a kid I had the pleasure of seeing a band perform called The Reversal of Man. They had a good show so I bought their 10 inch, and I remember that on the cover it said something along the lines of,

“Me and my friends are going to save the world.”

That idea, of me and my friends saving the world, has never stopped inspiring me.

But I had a simple problem.

What does it mean to save the world.

When I was a theist I thought that saving the world meant bringing the world to Jesus.

Lets discuss briefly what that would mean. It would mean that everyone on earth would be a Christian. That everyone on earth would believe that a supernatural omnipotent omnipresent and omniscient creator had made this world of earth, which is in distant isolation from any neighboring life, so that this creator-being could give birth to itself in the form of a man, so that it could die, because it was so disgusted with humanity that it required a brief experience of suicide to accept humanity as its offspring.

This is indeed a disgusting and troubling fantasy.

But in this belief I had an opportunity to train in virtues such as patience, which is merely self discipline as one copes with the delay of gratification. I trained in hope, which is merely optimistic motivation.  I trained in compassion, which is acknowledging a common humanity as you make decisions. These virtues have nothing to do with the strange suicidal sacrificial god described above, they are virtues in spite of this.

It just so happens that these virtues are strewn about in all the hogwash of scripture and Christian thought.

These virtues gave me a little taste of what it might mean to save the world.

Later as I began to distance myself from strong religious affiliation I tried to save the world with Communism.

I learned that Carl Marx was trying to make a scientific assessment over a century ago, and that  basic assessment that human social behaviors and economic systems would follow a short working-class based trend towards communal and collectivist expressions of civilization has been sense falsified by the self-correction of the scientific method.

But I was learning to try to look at reality for a way to save the world.

Finally the royal road of science has found my feet. Carl Marx wrote, “There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.”

Indeed.

Science in its fatiguing climb has personally caused me to abandon many treasured beliefs, and to restructure my whole world view in order to not be guilty of hypocrisy.
If one truly makes assumptions based on the evidence, the existence of any supernatural being is highly unlikely.
Highly unlikely is actually an understatement.

Then I really learned about saving the world.

Immunization has saved much of the world, a gift of science.

Antibiotics, and understanding how pathogens evolutionarily adapt to them has saved much of the world, a gift of science.

Engineering has saved much of the world through diagnostic and life sustaining machines like MRIs and iron lungs, a gift of science.

Astronomy may really save the world by preventing a giant meteor strike, a pending gift of science.

Atmospheric science is trying to save the world by making us aware of the global warming problem, a pending gift of science.

It is a fact that I can defend against any nay-sayer that science must be allowed to bloom without restraint if humanity is to survive in nature into the millennia ahead.

Science can save the world and its been doing it since the enlightenment.

What does this have to do with the Rational Response Squad?

I believe that science is hindered in its ability to pursue necessary tools essential to human survival, happiness, and comfort by limitation of science funding.

I think that science funding is considered a relatively low priority by the democratically elected governments of the world because people are so heavily pacified by their religious beliefs that they do not see things like global warming as anything more than a sign that Jesus will return soon to save the Christians and damn sinners like me to eternal torment.

By reducing the influence of Christianity the Rational Response Squad makes the world safer for science. The Rational Response Squad is increasing the number of people who don’t believe in God in the world every day. It is thriving in this one, and extremely important aspect.

If your belief in Jesus prevented you from examining the political candidates positions on global warming, medical research, or science education by making you think something like gay marriage is actually a problem, then the Rational Response Squad is absolutely necessary for science to do its job in saving the world.

The Rational Response Squad has risen from out of the World Wide Web (Wild Wild West) on YouTube videos and Myspace activism. Now its membership includes people like Greydon Square who is a detriment to irrational beliefs to anyone who listens to his brilliant rap album. This is a guy whose gang affiliations allow him to be able to talk to gang members without fear about his chosen profession: physics. Greydon claims to be the Black Carl Sagan, well if Greydon can popularize science in hip hop he may just outdistance the legend Carl Sagan.

This could only have come out of the raw and passionate work of the Rational Response Squad.

The leadership of the Rational Response Squad endure for peanuts while facing serious security threats as they provide this essential public service.

The volunteers of the Rational Response Squad work endlessly to try to provide quality internet service to those who are truly seeking answers, who are really considering taking reality on its own terms.

The rank and file of the Rational Response Squad are an internet presence which can ultimately only be described as formidable.

If you have any doubts about the power of the internet, only ask yourself why Fox News media mogul, Ruport Murdoch, bought myspace.

The internet could be reasonably compared to the wild west gold rush, with analogues to everything from public hangings, saloon showdowns, to horse thieves. Just think about flaming, forums, and hackers.

The world needs the Rational Response Squad.

It is a conspiracy of heroes.