Religion is the opiate of the masses. - Karl Marx

Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people. - Carlespie Mary Alice McKinney

An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. - John Buchan

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. - Stephen Roberts

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. - Francis Bacon

Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color. - Don Hirschberg

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins

Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s? - Friedrich Nietzsche

God.  Religion.  And all those poor, witless dupes taken in — these are a few of my favorite things! I’m kidding. While I do despise organized religion, that does not automatically mean I have a problem faith. I make this clarification because people will likely assume I believe faith — along with religion — is useless. When the fact is, such a characterization could not be further from the truth.

Its important to make clear that, I’m not saying anything about faith when I talk about religion. That those are two entirely different things.  And though its somewhere in the really boring middle, that the Bible covers this particular topic.

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Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

– Ambrose Bierce

From Scienceblogs, a quote I must not let you miss, showing an interesting turn of conversation. Check it out the full beast here. Terse and lovely, the turn goes…

The other thing we evolutionary biologists don’t do enough of, and this stems from the previous point, is make an emotional and moral case for the study of evolution. Last night, I concluded my talk with a quote from Dover, PA creationist school board member William Cunningham, who declared, “Two thousand years ago someone died on a cross. Can’t someone take a stand for him?”

My response was, “In the last two minutes, someone died from a bacterial infection. We take a stand for him.”

An assumption based in logic, that seems unfortunately too true about our Country is that, in the United States of America, not knowing something makes one popular. This is because, more Americans “don’t know” than those that “do know”,  making ignorance a more socially acceptable attribute at times than intellect.

America, in an age of information, has become a home for a Culture of the Stupid. So says the Washington Post and its sources in a piece titled The Dumbing of America. We have to wonder if this phenomena is the result of people mistaking vision for academic, intellectual or social elitism. Or, if this is just the beginning of an era of Anti-Intellectualism.

There is an article I read which I can’t seem to say enough is Absolute Genius — because thats what its describing: absolute genius. Its called Programming can Ruin Your Life. I keep saying absolute genius because, for me, all of this is truth about reality. Every bit in the article.

I feel what the author has described here, is sort of the weight to which genius can burden. I covered and explained this idea that genius grows exponentially through its own internally created pressures or burdens in a series of essays I wrote entitled “Neurogenesis”. Maybe one day I’ll republish them here. In the meantime, let me lay in with examples of this wonderful piece of literary work… and give you an idea of the bold diagnosis this writer has made of most Programmers (or, as I state in Neurogensis, most geniuses).

When faced with an interesting programming problem your mind will chew it over in the background. Maybe it’s an algorithm you need to develop, maybe its a tricky architecture problem, maybe its data that needs a model. It doesn’t matter. Your mind will quietly work the problem over in search of a solution. The ah-ha! moment will come when you’re in the shower, or playing Tetris. This practice of constant churning will slowly work its way into the rest of your life. Each problem or puzzle you encounter will start its own thread; the toughest and most troubling of which will be blocking.

This all seems very, very accurate to me. I’ m even quite certain that this sort of problem-solving phenomena translate to other careers too. In fact, I contend it translates across so many disciplines because this describes a human compulsion toward optimization (or the providing of a solution of an optimization problem). I contend optimization is the only problem ever being solved during all human problem-solving. But, thats a contention that takes us to deeper place than I want to go with this post. Don’t worry, we’ll get there some day.

One thing I notice about other people is how little they think and I mean that about everything. I can’t imagine how one could exist with such precious little going on inside them as I find with most people. In fact what I’m noticing is not how little those people think but how much I myself think by comparison. I always wonder,”Why don’t they just stop and think for a second?” Thats a good example though.

No wait, its not good, its a Programmers example, its perfect! I’m wondering why others are NOT thinking, in effect, thats just more thinking I have to do [for them] (or thats how I observe the case to be). You see, in problem-solving with Programmers, what I realize is, they’re always thinking, because they’re always programming. But, consider it, and it should only make more sense to you even if you’re a non-programmer.

If your job is to feed exotic and somewhat exclusive phrases of a dynamic and specific language into some device and then predict outcomes as well as manage the unpredictable outcomes, you will become as much like that device as possible. This is the mammalian method-trait called mimicry. This method-trait is true of how human beings grasp information at all through all language. Progressively over time the input and output of procedures of communication with others grow as we do, embedding in our minds the pathology to interact socially. Or as it could also be described, so that we’re able to feed other people information and predict outcomes as well as manage the unpredictable ones.

So Programmers, like anyone learning or coping with anything follow a pattern of mimicry in order that they become even better at translating these exotic phrases and languages and predicting outcomes (or at least as close as they can become to the machine). But, mimicry has its draw backs in this case since we’re now trying to mimic something not nearly human — a programming language.

Programmers become obsessed with perfection. This is why they are constantly talking about rewrites. They cannot resist optimum solutions. Perfection requires tossing aside mediocre ideas in search of great ones. A good programmer would rather leave a problem temporarily unsolved than solve it poorly. A good solution takes into account all predictable outcomes and solves the largest number of them in the most efficient way. This mindset prevents you from writing code with limited utility and life span. While its a wonderful trait to have in programming, the demons of scope and efficiency will start to assert themselves on your ordinary life. You will avoid taking care of simple things because the solution is inelegant or simply feels wrong. Time to think will no doubt yield a better result, you’ll say.

This statement by the author acts to solidify my point as well as his; that an obsession for perfection is actually a shedding of the human condition. This means Programmers have trained their minds to be inhuman as such that they cannot make a choice knowingly acceptant that it will be deficient or have a limited life time. This kind of avoidance of care for simple things such as is described is something well known about the personality of most Programmers.

Finally, note the point above that thinking in this way reduces the number of your potential choices to those seemingly optimal at design time. This means Programmers only do things that they analyze as optimal in that moment. So, a night out on the town where one acts foolishly without regard for themselves to a degree, as well as the feelings of the others around (whom act and have cascading affect on those they surround thereafter) — throwing caution to the wind — would not be very attractive to someone measuring each element of their experience in terms of optimality toward building a method based in perfection.

And, it is for some of those reasons that genius tends to burden. Or, as I have put it in Neugenesis: Elegant thought is a symptom of a passionate, sensitive mind, its expression is nothing more than the easing of its burden.

Alright, so, what exactly is going on over at Wired? And, precisely what is Bruce Schneier smoking? Better yet, where can we all purchase some to sell to terrorists when we run into them (since thats what all the talk is lately)?

Talk about shitting the bed…

This is desire directing science and about as bad as it gets. The theory discussed in the article is used in quite a strange way. Mangled in order to make predictions about the resultant conditions of terrorism on a whole society, the corespondent inference theory, they say here, indicates terrorism doesn’t work. Certainly something scientists would like to believe, if you ask me, anyhow — I admit, that is just my opinion, about the only evidence I have of what I allege is the article and the way the idea is used.

Allow me though, using all my mighty force, to engage in a most epic debate. But, whilest I do this and rather quickly I might add, I will need… one, and only one piece of evidence, to make my case. Brace yourself, so you aren’t startled by the dramatic entrance of booming percussion, ladies and gentlemen.

I give you, my evidence: the United States of America.

Terrorism from the analytical perspective of the tactician offers clear and pure lines of thinking on the ultimate goal of the terrorist — to win. Terror is only a tactic, terrorist only a label. Terrorists employ as we’ve seen, extremely violent even self-violating acts to oppose enemies only hoping to create a viral air of concern — what we have also seen is that, that works just fine. This, in turn, leads to a progressive change in the way of life for said enemy, and change in their respective tactics. And, especially for Americans, who lived a very different way prior to the morning of September 11th, 2001. Or, did everyone forget that?

To say terrorism is ineffective, is to wash away any possible excuse for the behavior of the American public in our last two Presidential elections, that is for sure. Truly, it says then what about America if terror is entirely ineffective against us? How desensitized have we become? What then is the cause for our current state too?

I cannot believe this idea that the small demands of terrorism are not in some way met, when all is imbalanced in our country. You may run the circular argument that our country is this way because of corruption, but then, one must question, who is corrupting those politicians or leaders, if not the same kind of criminal element both foreign and domestic, each not worth the various labels prescribed them.

Look out! Run! Oh, no, sorry. Wait, stop. Oh, no, I was wrong, its coming straight for us, sorry… Run again! Hurry! Oops, hold on, something in my eye… oh, damn it all — Run! Run! Look out! The Terrorists are coming! The Terrorists are coming! Oh, wait, never you mind… stop a second… take a breather… the coast looks clear, guess my gut was wrong.

The above is fiction, for sure. Yet, at the risk of oversimplifying the process of reading a report, and explaining it to the American people, I wonder, do those statements sound like the kind of security advice you’d be willing to pay for? Probably not. But, that is probably because when it comes to security, the last thing anyone really wants is panic — the statements above smack of panic. And panic usually follows ignorance.

Well, the question of whether or not you would pay, friend, is moot to be sure. Because, you do pay so already. You pay for this wonderful service in taxes. Who’s giving us the advice? The Department of Homeland Security. That is right, the part of the government responsible for keeping our country secure, especially from people who want to terrorize us. Its an interesting irony then, how quickly members of our own government, but especially in this department, tend to use Terrorism as a political tool to meet points in their respective agendas — talk about terror — abusing the people who give you power might be the worst kind.

This little tidbit from AP shows Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff commenting about his gut feeling of the safety of our country. This sets a terrible precedent. This is the man tasked with making Americans feel confident about the country because the country is secure — thats what doing his job is all about. His key concern should be that Americans feel safe not panic.

Besides that, no one calls their boss — in this case the American people — to say what Chertoff is saying. Imagine, I might call up my boss and say, “Hey, so, $3,000,000 in the hardware you paid for, might go belly up this summer — I checked with my gut.” And there is a reason for this. I — you — we — would be fired. Not because we’re raising awareness to a problem, but for being aware of such a huge problem and not already involving the right people from jump — for letting the problems pile up.

See, its not my job to raise awareness of problems its my job to solve them — much like Secretary Chertoff. And, when a problem is too big for me, thats when I visit my bosses office. So, is that what Secretary Chertoff is telling us? He can’t secure our country? He can’t do the job? Thats information I’d be willing to “buy.” Because it takes me forward, I know who I do not want handling the problem, at least.

I mean, its only 2007; there have only been a few technological advances (*cough* Google *cough*) in information gathering in the past while. So seriously, the fact that our Secretary of Homeland Security is basing the safety of the free world on his gut feeling shouldn’t be an issue, should it?

Oddly enough, this all comes at the same time as political analysts determine the best bump in the poll numbers for the Republicans would come from announcing potential terrorist attacks in our near future — our President’s approval rating would rise especially — its suggested it would invigorate his base. And, various members of the Republican party have also come forward with this same “gut feeling.” For instance, the comments Rick Santorum recently gave.

I can’t help but believe this is all one big, heaping pile of Mistakes of The Day.

One question is, is it a mistake to listen to Secretary Chertoff’s gut?

I guess when it comes to security intelligence, you can’t have enough sources. So, of course, I’ll take heed. But, if you ruin my summer Mr. Chertoff, I’ll be alright. Its the whole summer session of the market I’m worried about. How exactly does your gut plan to repair the economic impact it just had on America through use of your mouth? I guess we’ll need to call in Vice President Cheney’s shooting hand in for help. All jokes aside, if its not too much trouble, mister Secretary, perhaps next time you might rely on your brain — that goes doubly for the American people.

Are we allowing the terrorists to act transparently through our government? It is certainly a possibility. Consider that the only true tactic of terrorists is creating terror.

A good question about the comments of Secretary Chertoff, and the terror they created, might be: is this intentional or accidental? And another is, is it a mistake to put the country in a position where concern for terrorist threats can be made a plaything for politicians or worse their gut feelings? Worst of all, who will we be able to trust to give us secure information to save our very lives?

These kinds of messages from government officials tend to destroy confidence, refute their own efforts, and can never solve any aspect of the problem, because (especially in this case) they offer up no facts. These kinds of messages are idle apparitions created by people who are looking for security of another kind: job security. And, if they’re not just idle apparitions and we are in danger, then, Secretary Chertoff , and Rick Santorum know something they’re not supposed to.