My Mindset in a Nutshell

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

— Hindu Prince Gautama Siddhārtha, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C

God Is NOT an Awesome God (Part II)

For this post, I will be reviewing the first seven verses of Deuteronomy, Chapter 3 because I do not want to be accused of taking things out of context.

¹Then we turned, and went up the way to Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.

²And the LORD said unto me, Fear him not: for I will deliver him, and all his people, and his land, into thy hand; and thou shalt do unto him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon.

³So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him remaining.

⁴And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

⁵All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many.

⁶And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.

⁷But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves.

Basically, what is happening here is that God has given the Israelites, under the leadership of Moses, orders to go through these various cities and annihilate those people unworthy of God. The really disturbing part is that, at the start of the third verse continuing on through the sixth, the Israelites slaughter all the men, women, and children throughout 60 ("threescore"; 3x20) cities! On top of that, they take the cattle as part of the spoils of their deeds. That is a very sickening notion. The God of the Old Testament sure makes Adolf Hitler seem like a saint.

A lot of Christians are quick to point out that the Old Testament and New Testament are very different in that there was not much of a system of law set in place. If that is in fact the case, how can the Bible be considered a divine text? In my mind, the God of supposed love and compassion does not even come close to deserving such positive adjectives attached to his name.

If you are interested, you can find a complete list of the estimated number of people killed either by God himself or in his name here.

God Is NOT an Awesome God (Part I)

I have decided to write about why I have a lack of belief in any religion, namely Christianity. Since I am not really familiar with many other religions, I will not discuss those. Now, if there are any Christians out there that read this, and they wish to present a counterargument, I am more than willing to have a respectful debate.

That being said, in this first part of this series of blog entries, I would like to present Proverbs 31 (from the King James version).

¹The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.

²What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?

³Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.

⁴It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink:

⁵Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.

⁶Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.

⁷Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

⁸Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.

⁹Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.

¹⁰Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

While these first verses do not seem all that bad, my true objection is to the latter verses. As far as these verses are concerned, I do not see any real harm by what they are saying because it seems as if, in a nutshell, they're saying that a person should help those who cannot help themselves, and that a good wife should allow her husband to drink every once in while to ease stress. Women do a lot of good things, therefore they are priceless.

¹¹The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

¹²She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

¹³She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.

¹⁴She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.

¹⁵She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.

¹⁶She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.

¹⁷She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.

¹⁸She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.

¹⁹She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.

²⁰She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.

²¹She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.

²²She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.

²³Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.

²⁴She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.

²⁵Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.

²⁶She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.

²⁷She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.

²⁸Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.

²⁹Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.

³⁰Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

³¹Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

What I derived from these verses is the sentiment that women are supposed to be worker bees, and in order to please their husbands, they must do all of this hard labor while the husband sits on his ass doing nothing. What is praised is when she speaks kindly, without complaint, to her husband.

After doing all of this, she must fear God in order to humble herself, perhaps in order to prevent the sin of pride. I've never understood this logic. If God loves his children, why must a woman who works her ass off need to fear him? Women are not property!

A Christian could argue that God was just saying to work hard, and put forth your best effort to please your husband. However, I believe that is missing the point. If that counterargument were true, a woman need not fear God. Also, I also find it rather amusing that the Bible is blatantly sexist, and yet, Christians always seem to turn a blind eye to that fact. On a final note, what I have just presented here is very mild compared to what I am going to present in later parts of this series.

Why do people laugh at creationists?

Videos created by: Thunderf00t

Use the left and right arrows to scroll through the videos in this series.

Is There Really Such a Thing As Bad Language?

Yes, this is my first entry in a long while. The thought to write about this topic came to me over the last couple of weeks. It is a topic of interest to me because my niece of two years old has been recently caught during some times of the day saying a swear word or two, and I have noticed that, every time she is called on it, the response she receives is, don't say that word. That's a bad word.

That got me thinking whether or not there is such a thing as a bad word. Well, based on what I have been exposed to on TV and the Internet, I conclude that this terminology does not hold very much weight. Firstly, who decides which words are bad and which ones are acceptable? Certainly, it is not the government, or at least it's not supposed to be, because the American Constitution allows people to have free speech. Maybe these words were selected by the Church. They seem to have their hands on everything from how women should behave to little boys.

Now, even though it may seem like I am going into too much thought about this, there is a very valid point to this. Simply put, whoever decided upon this did not consider that children are like sponges. They pick up on everything, so parents have two options. They can either tell their child that the words in group 'A' are bad, and the ones in the second group are good, or they can simply change the terminology that is used in their reasoning. Instead of "bad", use "inappropriate". Why? Simple. It is vastly more precise than saying it the other way. The term "bad" will be automatically perceived as a generalization rather than an age-specific thing.

At a young age, kids have a yearning to experience more grown-up things. Part of this seems to come from the fact that they come to perceive acting as a kid as a negative thing. A common thing that is said to children is, you're bigger now. Big kids don't cry.

These subtle notions are transferred to the child very easily. Unfortunately, there is not much that can be done about this because children do need to learn what is and what is not proper behavior, but it is those little things that encourage them to explore 'big kid stuff' for lack of better phraseology. That being said, regardless of whether or not a child picks something up from what I have said or the person down the street is quite frankly irrelevant. I'm not going to try and pretend that I do not swear because I do as is the case with several people in many different cultures spanning the world-- not just the United States. Also, it is unrealistic to expect everyone in the vicinity of children to speak completely different from how they would otherwise speak. That isn't to say that people cannot tone the more colorful vernacular down a notch, but to expect them to do so entirely is ridiculous and deceptive.

Honestly, I do not see the harm in explaining to a child why certain words are unacceptable and inappropriate for their age. It also might help to assure them that, when they reach a certain age, and they can comprehend what the implications of using certain words in different contexts actually entails, they can then use those words. Using this approach, a child will then see that as a reward for listening, learning, and doing what they are told. Otherwise, they will catch on to your hypocrisy in regards to language. While I may not be a parent, I do know that children will question these contradictions. I know I did.

Cannabis: Why Should It Not Be Legal?

I'm going to be flat-out honest. I have supported the legalization of cannabis for a long time now, and I find it interesting that there are so many people that strongly oppose its legalization. The most striking thing is that the people that oppose it usually are avid drinkers of alcohol. A discussion with the anti-cannabis populace, both in groups and on individual levels, usually ensues with some sort of long-winded, redundant discussion about how it kills brain cells, causes anti-motivational syndrome, and makes you stupid. The list goes on from there.

For the purposes of this blog entry, I will not delve into too much detail about the medicinal uses of cannabis, if at all. The reason being is that there is plenty of information readily available for people to research. However, not many people understand the specifics of the cannabis family and of it being a potential food source, thus being better for the environment because pesticides are not really necessary for this type of crop.

With that said, there are two categories of cannabis (each with their own subtypes). There's the psychoactive group and the non-psychoactive group. First, I will discuss the psychoactive categories.

The three psychoactive groups of cannabis are known as Indica, Sativa, and Ruderalis. Indica tends to give off a more drowsy effect (usually good for a sleep aid) while Sativa gives off more of an energetic effect. Ruderalis (technically a subspecies of Sativa) is said to be a very weak psychoactive form of cannabis. It took me awhile to decide whether or not to include this type of cannabis in the psychoactive category as it is said that the Delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels in this Sativa derivative are only concentrated enough to be psychoactive in trace quantities. A good website to go to for more in-depth information would be OC Caregivers.com along with this site on Ruderalis.

With that said, there is one non-psychoactive type known as Hemp. Oddly enough, Hemp is a non-psychoactive derivative of the psychoactive Sativa plant. The big question here would probably be whether or not hemp contains THC. In answering this question, it would be misleading for me to say that hemp does not contain any THC whatsoever. It does contain microscopic amounts of THC. Therefore, if you come across a store that advertises THC-free hemp products, I would consider purchasing from a different store because they are lying to you. In terms of the actual comparative levels, it contains anywhere from .5% to 1% of THC whereas psychoactive cannabis contains a THC range between 3%-20%.

Video on Hemp Food Products:

Now that I have let the cat out of the bag for the uninformed, the next argument to come up would be probably something along these lines. Why would you want to ingest a product that contains any level of THC? My answer to that would be that it's not about getting high, but rather for better health. Choosing not to eat hemp products because of their present, but small, amount of THC content would be similar to choosing not to eat bagels because they contain poppyseeds, which is an opiate. Hemp can also be used in the production of gasoline, shoes, shirts/pants, rope, paper, and body cleansing products.


My hope is that you found this to be informative and insightful. I could go on for about another two pages and write on the medicinal uses of cannabis, but as I said before, doing so would be redundant and pointless as there are many videos available on YouTube and the like of which speak upon these uses.

With all of this information available, the question is whether or not we are able to put a halt to the raids of the medicinal cannabis dispensaries and prohibit these legalities against such a resourceful, naturally-occurring plant.




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College

If you have seen the movie Accepted, you know that the idea of formulating a college institution based on individualized curriculum sounds pretty awesome. I do not believe that idea is far from possible. Granted, it is a movie made for entertainment purposes, but then again, science fiction films like The Terminator that were originally made back in the 80s and 90s are now showing that the ideas purposed in them are now a possibility. I do not think the public will have to worry about a T-1000 walking the streets, at least for now, but I do think artificial intelligence is now frighteningly advanced. That being said, Accepted brings a new possibility to the world of higher education.

If students could create there own classes within reason, more people would enjoy learning. I have to say that college is ridiculously expensive, which in certain ways is setting young adults up for failure. If the prerequisites to each major were not so off topic, there would not be so many students in debt from having to take an abundance of useless classes. Many more people would pay for college if they could go for less and actually learn something that pertains to their interests.

In general, the problem with education (general education that is) in the United States is the fact that students do not really progress at all. At the beginning of each year, students review the previous year, but the review portion is entirely too long. It is too long because teachers have to babysit the students. If there were more disciplined teachers, the students would not be able to run a muck because they would have enough respect for the teacher not to be inclined to do so. The issue will never be fixed though because those teachers that do not have control over their classrooms were probably taught by unruly teachers as well, alas they became gullible and now lack the ability to capture the attention of a room.

If students were given a reason to like a school environment and the courses were not so repetitive, the tempo of classes would be faster, thus students would be at a college level faster. Then they would not have to spend extra time going through general education courses because they would know the material well and pass the placement exam easily. And with the addition of being able to create individualized courses and lower costs, college admissions would vastly increase and the economy would benefit from it. In general education, tacking on a couple extra hours to the current seven-hour day would not be a bad idea either.