It seems as though anyone with any sort of science background is scurrying around trying to solve the problem of global warming. Recently some (almost) geoengineers proposed a “solution” that would just make matters worse. It’s an idea that really makes me think that real and professional scientists should be left to coming up with ideas for solving global warming. Their idea? Clouding the atmosphere up with man made aerosol particles. Now, they do admit that it would deplete the ozone in “some” regions, mostly the North and South pole thus turning those regions into irradiated dead zones. But to them it seems like a pretty fair trade off to them.

These aerosol particles that would be added to our atmosphere would in theory reflect sunlight away from the earth thus cooling the planet. But when you consider that for a second… instead of investing money into long term life changing solutions we’re going to (or are proposed to) add more chemicals to our atmosphere that would shift weather patters, deplete our ozone to the point where areas of our Earth would be considered “dead zones” and it seems like such a scheme would cost a gigantic amount of money. And logically - when they STOP shoving all of it into the environment or something faults in the process we’d all be screwed.

Playing with the Earth like this is just crazy. We’ve seen time and time again the playing around with nature is rarely, if ever, a good thing. When it comes to the ozone there is so much that we don’t understand and so much that we’re still discovering. Where would geoengineers even get an idea like this? In 1991 when Mt. Pinatubo erupted and released sulfur into the atmosphere there was a direct correlation with the temperature decreasing.

All of these new fangled attempts at cooling the planet are getting out of control.

There’s the man-made volcano that shoots gigatons of sulfur high into the air. The space “sun shade” made of trillions of little reflectors between Earth and sun, slightly lowering the planet’s temperature. The forest of ugly artificial “trees” that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. And the “Geritol solution,” named after a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement with extra iron — in which iron dust is dumped into the ocean.

All of this time, energy and money is being poured into these ridiculous attempts at using science to cool the planet, when really humanity would be better of pursing changes within their industrial, economic and home lifestyles. All of these crazy ideas could lead to disastrous weather patterns, cloudy skies through which we’d never see the sun again, droughts and famine. Changes on Earth take millions of years for a reason, we can’t just start dumping tonnes of sulfur on the planet and expect everything to be okay… we certainly can’t expect things to be better after such an act.

I had read Hemant Mehta’s book “I Sold My Soul On E-Bay” before, and I just finished reading it again in preparation for his talk that he’ll be doing in Toronto come June and the interview for my radio show that will inevitably follow (actually it is likely to precede).

There were a couple things in his book that I wanted to touch on. I’m not one for writing reviews that say “it was written really well!” or “his imagery was breathtaking!”… The points I wanted to talk about in regards to I Sold My Soul On E-Bay are his confusion and dislike of ritualistic churches, his seemingly simple use of the words “if you want to appeal to me” and his emphasis on discussion as a tool.

Hemant discusses in his book (and in other interviews) the churches that appealed to him the most and why. And in contrast which appealed to him the least, and why. One of the things that didn’t appeal to him were the seemingly useless traditions and rituals. I’m assuming he saw this quite often in catholic churches, and less often in other churches. He sees people going through the motions as if they don’t understand what they’re doing or aren’t thinking really about what they’re doing. Instead they’re just … doing it.

I agreed with Hemant the first time I read the book and that was often a point I brought up with people when getting into a discussion with them. I agreed that a lot of the time people didn’t think about why they were doing something and just did it because they were supposed to. After a while these just become motions engraved into their minds. However, I brought the topic up with a group of people once who made me look at it a little bit differently. They told me a story about about a time in a session that they had played a piece of music and then asked those present to reflect on that particular piece of music.

When it came to the part in the evening where they were able to share anything that they had reflected on one man shared his experience of finally finding meaning in a ritualistic hand movement that he had been doing for years. He finally made the connection. I think Hemant is right in the sense that some people give it absolutely no thought what-so-ever. That could be because they don’t have the spiritual guidance to ask the right questions to find meaning in that movement or it could be because they’re just putting in their weekly time as to get to heaven. But for others there is a deep connection found once they meditate on the motions.

I can see why rituals would be really unappealing to someone who had never seen them before - but to others it is the absolute best way of connecting the heart to the mind. Another aspect of this is that engraving these types of things into people makes it easier for churches to connect them emotionally to it - I’m speaking more in terms of ritualistic things such as music, in this case. By playing the same hymns at different times in the year it creates an emotional connection to that particular time and moment. Some music has been so deeply saturated in my sub conscious that when I hear particular songs I cry. I’m not religious, but I hear them and I just break. It’s a ritual - if there is no meaning behind the song, it doesn’t do anything but when there is it is so powerful - just like rituals that seem pointless to outsiders.

One thing that for some reason “bothered” me (I put bothered in quotations because I’m not entirely sure if its the word I want to use…) was Hemant’s constant conversation to christians with the words “if you want your church to appeal to me” … I just kept thinking “why would they want their church to appeal to you?” The church doesn’t want super open minded, freethinking, questioning, atheistic… etc etc etc youth in their church. From all the churches I’ve been to, they’d rather I didn’t go. The kinds of churches that are desperately looking for congregation members wouldn’t have the time of means to answer the questions of freethinkers, and those that can afford time and money to devote to those questioning already have a strong enough following that they don’t care.

Acquire The Fire strives very hard to appeal to youth. CHRISTIAN youth. They don’t care if they appeal atheists. They already have an army of christian youth. What I’ve learned by living with a minister is that the church isn’t trying to appeal to freethinkers or atheists or get new members. They’re trying to keep their current members entertained enough that they don’t fall asleep in church.

And in relation to this - you can write a million and a half books about how a church can better appeal to a wider audience but the fact of the matter is that you’re dealing with a lot of “old” people who are incredibly stuck in their ways. Those little churches with boring sermons don’t welcome rock bands and wildly outrageous atheist discussions in their sanctuary. They like their old hymns, played on their old organs, sang by their old choir and followed by old sandwiches and cold coffee. They don’t want to change this. They don’t want a 25 year old atheist mixed in with their crowd.

My step-dad has been fired from various churches because he has proposed the exact change that Hemant is ‘preaching’ (heh). He has proposed discussion groups instead of sermons, he has tried to modernize the way people think, he has tried to perform gay marriage in the church, he has attempted to bring more youth in via music and youth events… but the old folks simply don’t go for it. It’s not as easy as flipping the coin and saying “okay! we’ll do it this way now!” because it’s been done the old way for a very long time.

But, this leads me to my final thought on Hemant’s book, and that is the need for discussion. My radio show isn’t an atheist show, it’s not a show on skepticism or anything of that sort. It is on faith. Because I want to hear about everyone’s faith - how they got there, why they do with it, why they believe its the right faith to have… etc. I love it when C4C shows up at the Guelph Skeptics events and they start hammering us with questions. It starts a discussion. The only time I have enjoyed going to church was when I’d get to go off to “sunday school” and talk about things with the rest of my class.

I wish there was more room for clam and rational discussion. It seems like bringing together progressive christians (like my step dad) and soft atheists (like me) is for some reason difficult. People are so afraid of finding similarities so they stop the talk before it even begins. I often find that I have more in common with my christian parents (in terms of faith and religion) than I do with my secular/freethinking/atheist friends. I really wish that more people would open up their minds and mouths and realize all these similarities.

Anyway - I really like the book. I like that Hemant and I seem to share a brain when it comes to thoughts on religion and faith and the church. So much of what he has written are things that I had experienced myself. (I didn’t have someone give me money to go to different churches - I just do that on my own time and dime.) Give it a read and then come hear him speak at U of T in June! WOO! (I’ll post more info on that as it is available)

Work in retail.

oh, it also belittles your intelligence quite well.

I woke up this morning incredibly happy - mostly because I didn’t have to work today and I didn’t really have anything too overly strenuous planned. And then I saw a lecture by Janna Levin and it made me even happy. She is now my new hero - I even bought her new book A Madmad Dreams of Turing Machines.

There is something about a woman who talks mathematical logic that just turns my crank. Her introduction about the book is absolutely fascinating - I hope the book is even half as good. The book is about Alan Turing and Kurt Godel. Although they never met in person they both dealt with the truths and lies in mathematics. One making a statement equivalent to “this sentence is a lie” in mathematics and the other creating the computer - more or less. Turing is slightly more well known than Godel (out side of the math world, anyway) but I think he’s far more interesting.

Godel was insane - he died by starving himself to death. (Where in direct opposition to that Turing ate a poison apple.) I think what I find most interesting about them is that although they both came to the conclusion that mathematics is essentially infinite and unprovable (no “theory of everything”) they took it entirely different ways in their outlook on life.

Godel …somehow… had it confirm his religion even deeper where as Turing denied religion entirely. Turing called humans biological machines, that are essentially soulless - just as artificial intelligence would be soulless.

Anyway - I’m super excited to read the book. It’s fiction but non-fiction, which is really cool. And I think it’ll be well written. I’ll do a post about it when I finish reading it. But until I read it and end up disappointed Janna will remain my new favorite person on the planet.

 Planned Parenthood had an increase of 25 000 abortions over 2006-2007 numbers, this increase in operations obviously led to an increase of profit - in fact they brought in over 1 billion dollars (according to this article, anyway… I haven’t checked anywhere else, they could be highly skewing the numbers to make their point stronger.)

Again, I didn’t look into this - so I dont know if there is an increase in abortions in general because more people are getting pregnant, or if birth rates are slightly declining because more people are using the option. The only reason I really wanted to link to the article was for this:

“We must stop the flow of government money into the hands of this baby-killing business,” Sedlak added, according to lifenews.com.

Mwa ha ha! Baby killers unite!