And of course, most theists believe that life began when their particular god created them. Christians believe the story in the Bible about Adam and Eve, either literally or figuratively. In either case, it’s a supernatural being that consciously and affirmatively decided to create that which we call life. Other religions have their own creation myths, but they all share a beginning story that attempts to explain how we got here.

Science actively seeks the answer to the question, while religion doesn’t bother looking, confident in the belief that it already has the answer. There are a few scientific theories about how life  began, and of course the theory of evolution pretty much explains to most thinking adults how human life began. But given the fact (and it is a fact) that the first bits of life began billions of years ago on this planet (unless you ascribe to panspermia theories), it’s difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty exactly how life began. We can’t go back that far in time and hope to find even a small part of the evidence for those first signs of life. Time has a way of destroying evidence, and evidence is the rock upon which science rests. But that doesn’t stop scientists from trying.

60 years ago the Miller-Urey experiment was able to substantiate one possibility, one hypothesis, by simulating the environment, the so-called “primordial soup”, that may have existed on primitive earth, in the process creating organic matter by adding a little energy.

And recently scientists at the University of York have shown how simple sugars, which are some of the building blocks of life, could have been originally created. In the cited article, the quote from one of the scientists struck me:

“There are a lot of fundamental questions about the origins of life and many people think they are questions about biology. But for life to have evolved, you have to have a moment when non-living things become living — everything up to that point is chemistry.

This strikes to the heart of the issues that divide Christians and non-Christians, theists and non-theists – the point where non-living matter becomes living, organic matter. The accepted understanding of the evidence is that the earth consisted of completely inorganic material up to a point when life began. – chemicals, essentially. “…Everything up to that point is chemistry.” After that, biology comes into existence, along with organic material, that which we call living things. Single cell organisms, RNA, multiple cell organisms, simple creatures,eventually plants and animals as we know them today, but evolved over a long period of time. All of them that originally arose from the primordial soup.

Perhaps our difficulty in coming to terms with the origins is life is that we have defined a bright line in time between life and non-life, and designated two scientific disciplines to study the two sides separately. Chemistry on one side, biology on the other. Perhaps that line is not so bright, that both chemistry and biology simply describe different aspects of the study of matter on what is essentially the same, single continuum. After all, all life is made up of chemicals. Are we not now discovering more and more of the chemical bases for all human functions, from mental disorders, to diseases? The entire pharmaceutical industry depends on the chemical assumptions for life.

More to the point, perhaps there is no single juncture where chemistry stops and biology begins. Maybe it’s all chemistry, and that what we call biology is simply the study of more complex areas of chemistry and chemical interactions. Perhaps our inability to come to grips with the origin of life is because we have defined ourselves into a box. We like to have holes to put our pegs into. In this case, life is a biological peg, and needs a biological hole, when perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it’s still a chemical peg, and we simply don’t fully understand the chemical processes that combine to provided the phenomenon we call life.  These processes are so complex, and occur at such microscopic levels, that we may not have advanced enough in learning and knowledge to properly understand it. Instead of continuing to look for something that causes life, what we should be doing is attempting to understand why and how chemistry evolves in such a complex matter.

Stop calling it life, as if it’s something distinct from non-life. It’s not. Before the first single cell organisms came into existence, it was simple chemistry. Life is just complex chemistry.

If you accept the fact that chemistry explains simple chemical processes, then why doesn’t complex chemistry explain complex chemical processes? And if you accept the latter, then you don’t need a little bit of supernatural magic to create what we call life. No puff of divine breath, no wave of the magic wand, no removal of ribs from sleeping males. Just a whole lot of chemicals doing what chemicals do in accordance with the rules of chemistry.

I know this won’t sit well with people who want to believe they are somehow special, more special than a rock or a starfish or a monkey. They won’t abide the thought that we are explained by chemistry (as they pop their Prozac and Aspirin and Viagra and Vicodin), because they need to believe there is some purpose for their existence, that some conscious being made a conscious choice to create them, especially since they were not consulted in the decision making process. They can’t accept a possibility that life simply created itself, through predicable, albeit difficult to understand chemical processes.

Occam’s Razor says this is a far simpler explanation than the creation myths of religion. We know that chemical interactions can produce amazing processes, all naturally and predictably. We are learning every day how the chemical imbalances in our physical make up, in our brain, can affect our day-to-day existence. Why not this, rather than creation ex nihilo? At least chemical processes use existing materials and come from somewhere.

You can’t say that about magic religion.

What politician does snail sex remind you of?

Sex. We all know what it is, we all partake of the pleasure and the comfort and the results. It is the leading human motivational force, second to none, though possibly equal to money, and not far ahead of guilt. It’s the engine that turns the human wheel. Look behind many of the human foibles, scandals and mistakes of most politicians, businessmen, blue collar workers, ….hell, everybody… and you’ll find either money or sex. It’s a biological imperative that we have neither the ability nor the will to control, yet we strive mightily to do so, always losing. The sex drive is the strongest drive on earth, turning gigantic intellects into quivering gelatin at the drop of a bra strap.

And of course, the survival of our species depends on it.

Victorian sensibilities shoved it into the background in national politics, where we winked and we nodded, and occasionally were forced to acknowledge it because we had no choice, but it was the so-called sexual revolution of the 60s that allowed us to confront it and speak about it and finally allow it into the forefront of the social consciousness of the nation.

It was, and still is, a topic that is not discussed in polite company (along with politics and religion). Innuendo and euphemisms are the language of normal discourse when the subject is brought up. We have pet names for body parts, and we are often ashamed to speak out loud the words penis, breast, vagina, fellatio, cunnilingus and sexual intercourse. Instead we speak of dicks and boobs, and pussies and fucking. But it is something we do, and have to do, and is as natural as breathing, eating and defecating. Yet it is always an embarrassing topic, except in like company. I blame the religious mores passed down to us, but that’s another topic for another day.

This never made much sense to me, but I was brought up in the same cultural milieu as everyone else, and found myself conforming to the same cultural restrictions. Instead of frank, sexual informational talks with my children, we discussed the “birds and bees”. If we talked about it at all. These puritanical notions of embarrassment at the very thought of sex seems to me to be antithetical to a healthy sexual environment, and in the back of my head, over most of my life, I knew that, but I was psychologically hampered from being more open.  I always admired those that were able to speak about sex in a frank, normal, conversational manner without making others feel embarrassed. Dr. Ruth was one of these, and while her lilliputian physique and German accent seemed sometimes like a caricature, she opened up avenues of sexual discourse that were previously blocked to many. There are a lot of other examples, but they are irrelevant to this post.

My point is that I think it’s healthy for the population to be discussing the sex lives of not only their politicians, but the rest of the country, including ourselves. It’s part of who we are. We should be able to not only recognize, but celebrate the diversity of thought and practice that comes with a healthy individual sex life. It should not, in a psychologically flourishing population, engender feelings of embarrassment, or moral outrage, or disgust, any more than talking about someone’s cancer, or mental illness, or baldness, or hemorrhoids would do so.

When a politician uses sexual activity, or orientation, or history as a plank on a political platform, then that’s a good thing, as long as what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander. Sex is something we all have in common, so a national dialogue is natural. The fact that Newt Gingrich is running on a so-called “family values” platform, which is really a dog whistle for anti-abortion and anti-homosexual, is not objectionable per se. It always was fair game, no more than if he was against man-boy love, NAMBLA style. That’s all part of what should be healthy dialogue about human sexuality. Maybe you disagree that it shouldn’t be part of a political discourse, that perhaps the place to discuss it is elsewhere, but it’s not outside the scope of normal and important human communication. If it sparks a multi-sided debate, then what could possibly be the problem?

What’s really objectionable is the hypocrisy associated with the judgmental position he takes, along with his fellow Republican Presidential aspirants. It’s one thing to tell others how they should conduct themselves in their sexual affairs. It’s another to tell them how they should conduct themselves while specifically violating those same judgmental imperatives at the same time. That is pure hypocrisy, and for Newt to find outrage in a question posed to him in a debate that specifically points out his hypocrisy is, in itself, hypocritical, not to mention ironic. It calls into question the very nature and character of Newt himself, and his fitness for being President.

Gingrich was one of the leading instigators and proponents of the Whitewater Investigation, which was turned into a witch hunt of Bill Clinton, and eventually resulted in the discovery of an anti-climatic (no pun intended) semen-stained dress and the impeachment of the President.  Gingrich was extremely judgmental of this short affair with Monica Lewinsky (a blow job in the oval office that did not terminate his marriage), at the same time that he was carrying on a much more involved affair with the woman who would later become his current wife. He was an outspoken advocate for Clinton’s impeachment and hoped-for removal from office (which backfired on him), primarily based on his denouncements of Clinton’s non-family based morality, while he was secretly carrying on a very non-family based relationship with a woman 23 years his junior.

Can you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y? And is his hypocrisy relevant to this election process?

You bet your boobies.

The fact that we went through the sexual revolution, which allows us to be more open about the subject of sex, has had a positive effect on society. We can talk about the consequences of sex, be they STDs, unwanted pregnancies, and children, without the guilt all churches used to impose on the discussion. We don’t look the other way when someone happens to mention that Father O’Reilly touched little Billy in a way Billy wasn’t used to, or which confused him. We now do something about it, and quickly, because Billy knows what a bad touch is.

And when a politician thinks he can sit on his high horse and tell us how we are to conduct our sexual affairs, we can tell him to go to hell fuck himself.

This one is just as good.

Enjoy!!

I see today a story about a young mother who shot and killed a home invader, protecting her child, with a shotgun, who seems to be ruled in the clear for doing so. To add sympathy to the story, her husband conveniently died of cancer on Christmas Day. And, to make it even better, she called the police and asked for permission before she shot the guy. Permission was not granted explicitly, but it was granted implicitly. (No responsible police authority would say “Sure, go ahead and shoot the bastard”. At least not when the 911 call is being recorded.)

However, while I sympathize with that woman (really a teenager, scared and certainly within her rights) the last line of the article bothers me.

According to the latest FBI data, firearms were used in 215 cases of “justifiable homicide” in 2009 in the United States, where every year guns figure in around 30,000 deaths ranging from murder to suicide and accidents.

My calculator says that of all the deaths caused by guns in 2009, less that 1% of them were justifiable. The other 99.3% are from murder, suicide or accidents and the like.

To me, home protection may be a good reason to oppose gun bans, but it certainly has no place in a discussion about gun control. Gun control contemplates some supervisory and regulatory process meant soley to lower the statistics of gun deaths and violence as a result of murders, suicides and accidents, while leaving protection of one’s home intact. Law abiding home owners, one would think, would a) have no problems securing guns to protect themselves, and b) have no problem with minimally intrusive controls placed on their acquisitions.

But the NRA thinks otherwise, and the NRA is a powerful lobby. And we all know how well the Republicans and Democrats love that lobby money.

And while I’m at it, I hate, hate, hate the analogy that gun control opponents use concerning the licensing of automobiles. Yes, automobiles do result in many deaths, and yes, we don’t ban them. But automobiles are not designed nor manufactured for one purpose and one purpose only, as guns are, to kill. Death from automobiles is incidental to their use; it is not their primary purpose.

So I frankly don’t understand the complacency in the country about doing something about guns. It makes no rational sense to me.

Take for instance the ongoing, 150 year old running dispute with Darwin. Yes, evolution, which as a theory and as a fact continues to repeatedly put the lie to religion, by showing that god didn’t create us, and by extrapolation, didn’t create anything. The lackeys of religion – Republican Congress-critters in the state legislatures – continuing to pander for votes, and have introduced new bills in New Hampshire (of all places – “The last time evolution was an issue was in 1994.”) and Indiana, in an attempt to keep people stupid, and therefore reliant on magical thinking, and oh, by the way, Republican politicians.

New Hampshire House Bill 1148 would “require evolution to be taught in the public schools of this state as a theory, including the theorists’ political and ideological viewpoints and their position on the concept of atheism.”

Oy vey. And as if that wasn’t bad enough

an Indiana state senator has introduced a bill that would allow school boards to require the teaching of creationism.

Before I comment further, we’re going to break for a short musical interlude to help us calm down.

Ok. That’s better.

Now, go back and read that stuff and try to convince yourself that there is no religious motivation behind the legislation.

The theory of evolution has become a flashpoint for religious conservatives, many of whom argue that the idea of life evolving over billions of years clashes with Biblical beliefs. Republican State Rep. Gary Hopper, who with his Republican district mate John Burt introduced HB 1457, told the Concord Monitor that the theory of evolution teaches students that life is nothing but an accident.

“I want to introduce children to the idea that they have a purpose for being here,” Hopper told the newspaper.

Now why would you want to teach children about purpose of life (a philosophical concept at best, but one taken up by most religions of the world) in a science class? Why not save it for, I don’t know, a philosophy class? Could it be because most elementary and secondary educational facilities don’t teach philosophy, because it’s a subject for a more mature mind, like those that attend college and beyond? Is it possible that you want to get these purely religious concepts in front of children with impressionable minds, because if you don’t, there is a much lower possibility that it will take later on in their education? Get ‘em while their young, because you’ll lose them when they are older?

What we should be teaching them is skepticism, and critical thinking. Perhaps they should introduce legislation that requires an 8th grade, one semester course on critical thinking? They should be able to develop bullshit detectors in their brains, not be told to close them for anything but religion. And…AND they should be able to read ignorant stupidity like this

Jerry Bergevin, a Republican who introduced HB 1148, went further, telling the Concord Monitor that atheism was linked to Nazism and the 1999 Columbine school shooting.

and dismiss it for what it is – pure-unadulterated scare tactics designed to drive you to religion, i.e. bullshit.

And in Indiana, they want alternative theories on the origin of life to be taught, (adding creationism to the list of 7) indicating they have no clue about what the Theory of Evolution actually theorizes. It’s just another attempt to insert religion where it doesn’t belong.

Which is what memes do. You would think that intelligent people would finally give up, but then who said they were intelligent?

———-

For another take on this, check out The Digital Cuttlefish.

1. This one (and I won’t point out the 6th line of the article)

and

2. This one.

and

3. This one. (ignore the part about the lack of “any kind of formal firearms training” if you can.)

Then, to mix it up, I thought I’d throw in a picture of Rick Santorum on a recent pheasant hunting expedition *, and let you draw your own conclusions.

There’s really no connection and there’s no hidden agenda, so I won’t try to influence your thought processes with any

click me

subliminal messages.

Discuss.

———————–

* …wearing an NRA cap. That’s the National Rifle Association, for those who are acronymically challenged.

The Islamic mentality has a very non-westernized sensibility when it comes to women. In fact, it’s probably a fair characterization of Islam to say it’s misogynistic in the extreme. They hate and fear women. Why? Who knows? It’s a very paternalistic religion, and since it arose in paternalistic times, and never evolved much beyond its roots, unlike the rest of human-created religions, it’s still stuck in the 7th Century. Here are a few recent examples of the fear of vaginas endemic to Islam.

In Egypt, female protesters were subjected to “virginity  tests” after they were arrested and put in detention. Virginity tests, you ask? In the 21st Century? The rationale?

The general said the tests were performed as a safeguard against the women accusing authorities of sexual assault, and he defended the tests.

In other words, they were for the protection of the men who might be falsely accused of rape. Yep. No fear or hatred of women involved in that mindset.

“The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine,” the general told CNN at the time. “These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs).”

Those women were different than the idealized women of their families. They associated with riff-raff. They were riff-raff. First they demonize them, then they victimize them. It’s real easy when your religion teaches you that women are the devil’s handmaidens.

And, if you can’t keep them in their place by checking them for signs of hymen loss (as if that was even a reliable test), once they are caught having an “illicit relationship outside marriage”, then you stone them. Or, if the public raises a hue and cry about such a barbaric act of execution, you  change the method of execution to a good, proper hanging, and then rationalize it.

Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the head of the judiciary in East Azerbaijan, said on Sunday that the prison does not have the “necessary facilities” to carry out the sentence of stoning. Therefore, he said, authorities are considering hanging as an alternative.

Wait! All one needs for a stoning is a bit of ground, a pile of rocks and some willing participants (read:executioners). Just like the Koran requires.You would think those requirements could be easily met in Iran. A lack of facilities didn’t stop the previous seven stonings since 2006, in that country alone.

And don’t forget, the murder of her husband only required a 10 year prison sentence (and she’s halfway through that already), but a little sex outside marriage? Only death can satisfy the public interest.

The crotch is mightier than the sword!

But, he has a good attitude about it. I wish Americans had this kind of response.

It’s 2011. The appropriate reaction to people who think Jesus is a supernatural being is mild embarrassment, sighing tolerance and patient education.

And anger when they’re being bigots.

Oh, and satire. There’s always satire.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

In the Can-Your-God-Do-This? Department, science has done what, as usual, god cannot do. Or, to believe most believers, he could do it, so he apparently doesn’t want to.

In 1974, 13 year old Ima Jean Sanders disappeared. She was never heard from again, and for 37 years her mother has never had a day go by where she didn’t think about her, or wonder whatever happened to her. The remains of a young female were discovered in 1976, but never linked to Ima.

Fast forward to 2011. In the interim between the discovery of the bones and now, DNA matching methods are devised by scientists, and are used to not only exonerate people on death row who are wrongly convicted, but are used to help solve “cold cases” still on the books. Ima Jean Sanders case was one of these. The remains found in 1976 have turned out to be a match for those of Ima, and she will now be returned to her family. Her murder has been linked to a known serial killer of the day.

During all this time, presumably, (and I have to presume here, because I can find no direct quotes) but presumably her family prayed to god to help them find their daughter, or discover what happened to her. Or maybe her family didn’t, but neighbors or friends or relatives or members of her church did, or if she wasn’t affiliated with a church, perhaps just members of any church in town prayed to god to help in the investigation.Or someone who read the paper at the time. This is Georgia, so it’s not a stretch to assume that someone prayed to their god to find her.

God wasn’t listening. Or maybe he was preoccupied with a football game at the moment. Who knows? (Answer: Nobody)

And her remains remained (sorry) in storage, unidentified, and unclaimed, for 35 years, waiting for that day when science and medicine and technology (or should I say, human beings using science and medicine and technology) devised a means of identifying and matching the DNA (allegedly divinely created) of two samples, one from a known sample of Ima’s family DNA, and that recovered from her remains.

So I ask Christians (and Muslims, and Jews and all other theists who believe in a personal god, one who answers prayers and watches over his creation) what was so hard for your god that he couldn’t break away from the football game (or soccer match, or all the worship time devoted to him) and nudge the authorities a little in the direction of finding little Alma, instead of waiting 37 years for humans to invent the means to do so without his assistance?

I’m sure there are some apologists who will say that he did, that DNA testing was a gift from god, that he’s not bound by earthly time constraints, that he works in mysterious ways, and what could be more mysterious than a 37 year time lapse? If you believe that, you’re in serious self-denial, and need to crawl back under that rock.

Any god that sees a family suffering from a lack of knowledge about their precious child and does nothing about that, when doing something would be analogous to scratching a heavenly itch, well…simply doesn’t exist.

Any child could suss that one out.