Freethinker: : one that forms opinions on the basis of reason independently of authority; especially : one who doubts or denies religious dogma
By all means let's be open-minded,
but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.Richard Dawkins, in "Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder,"
Alton Lemonis an "honorary officer" of theFreedom From Religion Foundation, a position reserved for freethinkers who have wonSupreme Court cases in favor of the separation of church and state. He received a"Hero of the First Amendment" awardat the 2003 FFRF convention (although health problems at the last minute prevented him from accepting it in person). Alton Lemon won the case, Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971, which successfully challenged a Pennsylvania law, the first such law in the nation providing public tax funds to religious schools for teaching four secular subjects. As a member of the ACLU, Mr. Lemon volunteered to challenge the law, which resulted in a decision that is a watershed for the Establishment Clause, and which historic decision bears his name. The United States Supreme Court unanimously invalidated the parochial aid. In one of the enduring legacies of the Burger Court, it also codified existing precedent on the Establishment Clause into a test--called the "Lemon Test." Despite attacks against it and attempts to modify and chip away at it, the Lemon Test endures.
“If any of the three prongs of the Lemon Test are violated by an act of government, it is unconstitutional:
1) It must have a secular legislative purpose;
2) Its principal or primary effect must neither advance nor inhibit religion;
3) It must not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion.”
-- The Lemon Test, promulgated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 US 602 (1971)
YouTube has almost everything. Here is a bit of NASA history-making. I remember this day and what a big deal it was, and now few pay attention to shuttle launches. NASA plans at least 13 more missions to the space station before retiring the shuttle fleet in 2010. A mission in September 2008 is planned to repair the aging Hubble Space Telescope.
Click this link for the NASA SHUTTLE webpages where you can find information and history about the Space Shuttle program and the future plans for the shuttle program and future space travel.
Click on image to enlargeCredit: Mir 27 Crew; Copyright: CNES
Explanation: Here is what the Earth looks like during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moved across the Earth at nearly 2000 kilometers per hour. Only observers near the center of the dark circle see a total solar eclipse - others see a partial eclipse where only part of the Sun appearsblocked bythe Moon. This spectacular picture of the 1999 August 11 solar eclipse was one of the last ever taken from the Mir space station. The two bright spots that appear on the upper left are possibly Jupiter and Saturn, although this has yet to be proven. Mir was deorbitedin a controlled re-entry in 2001.
I feel sorry for 17-year-cicadas and the way they finally come above ground after waiting such a long, long time only to only lay eggs and die. Then the offspring will hatch and will crawl back underground and wait to emerge to die in another 17 years only to lay eggs and die. And some human think their lives are pointless!
Here is an interesting article which contains recent speculations about the demise of these mighty beasts that once ruled the Earth millions of years ago. If scientists can figure out how they died, would it would it be a good thing, or a bad thing? Do we want to know about something we can do absolutely nothing about? Seems like evidence is leaning toward volcanic eruption rather than drowning in water as some scientists have speculated. There is nothing we can do to stop a volcano from erupting.
Fossilized dinosaurs often have wide-open mouths, heads thrown back and tails that curve toward the head.Paleontologists have long assumed the dinosaurs died in water and the currents drifted the bones into that position, or that rigor mortis or drying muscles, tendons and ligaments contorted the limbs.
"I'm reading this in the literature and thinking, 'This doesn't make any sense to me as a veterinarian,'" said Cynthia Marshall Faux, a veterinarian-turned-paleontologist at the Museum of the Rockies.
Faux and a colleague say brain damage and asphyxiation are the more likely culprits.
A classic example of the posture, which has puzzled paleontologists for ages, is the 150-million-year-oldArchaeopteryx, the first-known example of afeathered dinosaurand the proposed link between dinosaurs and present-day birds.
"Virtually all articulated specimens of Archaeopteryx are in this posture, exhibiting a classic pose of head thrown back, jaws open, back and tail reflexed backward and limbs contracted,"said Kevin Padian, professor of integrative biology and curator in the Museum of Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley. He Faux (pronounced "Fox") published their findings this week in the journal Paleobiology.
Some animals found in this posture may havesuffocated in ashduring a volcanic eruption, consistent with the fact that manyfossilsare found in ash deposits, Faux and Padian said. But many other possibilities exist, including disease, brain trauma, severe bleeding, thiamine deficiency or poisoning.
"This puts a whole new light on the mode of death of these animals, and interpretation of the places they died in," Padian said."This explanation gives us clues to interpreting a great many fossil horizons we didn't understand before and tells us something dinosaurs experienced while dying, not after dying."
Also, because the posture has been seen only in dinosaurs, pterosaurs and mammals, which are known or suspected to have had high metabolic rates, it appears to be a good indicator that the animal was warm blooded, asother research has suggested. Animals with lower metabolic rates, such as crocodiles and lizards, use less oxygen and so might have been less traumatically affected by hypoxia during death throes, Padian said.
Padian acknowledged that many dinosaur fossils show signs that the animal died in water and the current tugged the body into an arched position,but currents cannot explain all the characteristics of an opisthotonic pose.
I was an art major for a couple of years and learned much about religious symbolism in art in my art history classes, and I also read about them again in my World Religion, and Bible as Literature classes at the university, but I first learned about Christian religious symbols way back when I was a young Christian in Sunday School class. Maybe it's because of the college education and review that I remember these things, but it seems odd that I, who am no longer a Christian am more interested in knowing these things more than the people who profess to be of that faith.
I am surprised at how many Christians do not know much about the history of their own religion, and are angry when atheists and even other Christians use ancient religious symbols for Christ and Christianity. Oftentimes people write "Xian" for "Christian", "Xianity" for "Christianity", and "Xmas" for "Christmas", for example. Those who do not understand this symbolism quickly take offense that "Christ" is being left out somehow, when in fact, these words all contain the same meaning, just a quicker and shorter way of writing it.
Almost the entire Old Testament was written in Hebrew during the thousand years of its composition. But a few chapters in the prophecies of Ezra and Daniel and one verse in Jeremiah were written in a language called Aramaic. The New Testament, however, was written in Greek. This seems strange, since you might think it would be either Hebrew or Aramaic. However, Greek was the language of scholarship during the years of the composition of the New Testament from 50 to 100 AD. No one at that time had a problem with the name of Christ being represented with the Greek symbol "X".
In addition to written language of religious texts,Wikipedia tellsus that Christian symbolismis also used to represent central concepts of the Christian faith, either as a reminder of those concepts or as a way of spiritually connecting with the underlying concept or act.
So, for all those who complain about how "sacreligious" those of us who sometimes use the terms "Xianity" or "Xian" in our dialogue, here is an explanation for you:
"What does the abbreviation 'xian' mean? Is it an insult?"
When writing the name "Christ", it is quite common to abbreviate it to X or x, representing the first letter (chi) of the Greek XPICTOC khristos. For example, "xmas" is a common abbreviation of "Christmas". "Xian" just means "Christian".
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the use of the abbreviation "xian" or "xtian" for "Christian" dates back at least as far as 1634. Before that, it was more usual to take the first two letters of XPICTOC, and write "xpian" for "Christian". Priests would record Christenings using the shorthand "xpen" or "xpn".
I usually don't pay attention to sleazy Hollywood stories, but this one really burns me up as it does many other people. Calls all across the country came pouring in to protest the release of Paris Hilton after serving only three days of her already shortened jail sentence because of a "medical problem." Any common person serving jail time would be carted off to the prison infirmary instead of being sent home to serve out the remainder of their sentence sleeping in their nice cushy bed.
Some in the news media are publishing articles asking what kind of message this sends to young people about the consequences for drinking and driving? That if you have enough money to pay for crafty lawyers and maybe some extra little "gifts" for friends in high places you can do pretty much whatever you want without being punished for it?
One concept I couldn't ever quite accept even during my years as a Christian was that of a terrible place called Hell where even very good and kind people would be sent along with unrepentent criminals and murderers for simply not believing in an invisible god, or for not believing in the correct form of Christianity. (But, illogically they believe that murderers who say the magic words at the end of their lives will go up to Jesus when they die.)
Fundamentalist Christians and Christian extremists believe that non-believers, and also those Christians who do not take the concept of Hell literally are also going there when they die. So, even if I were to go back to my Presbyterian-type faith, I would still be going to Hell according to the beliefs of evangelicals and fundies because I would still not be a "True Christian" (funny that the Catholics believe that Baptists, Pentecostal, etc are going to Hell andall 2500 sectsof Christianitycould debate the Hell concept for a thousand years and would not come to an agreement).
If a person lives a good life, doesn't kill, murder, steal...is kind to his neighbors, friends, animals. If a person is forgiving, loving and cares for others, is compassionate, helpful, and obeys the law, it is ludicrous to believe that person is still deserving of some kind of eternal torment, especially when this god is supposedly a "just" god, and also when this god is not making his/her/its existence obviously apparent. Here is an excerpt from ex-minister, Dan Barker's essayFor Goodness Sake
Theology has given us hell.
The threat of damnation is designed to be an incentive to right action; but this is a phony morality. Humanists think we should do good for goodness' sake, not for the selfish prospect of reaping individual rewards or avoiding punishment. Any ideology that makes its point by threatening violence is morally bankrupt. (Hitler's ovens, at least, were relatively quick. The torment Jesus promised is a "fire that shall never be quenched.") Anyone who believes in hell is at heart not moral at all.
If the only way you can be forced to be kind to others is by the threat of hell, that shows how little you think of yourself. If the only way you can be motivated to be kind to others is by the promise of heaven, that shows how little you think of others.
Most atheists will say, "Be good, for goodness' sake!"
Dan Barker, a former evangelical minister, is a staff member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
I think those who are still harping about the "missing link" need to get up to date on their anthropology and archaeology. While more information than one could ever read on the subject can be found on the internet, the best place to really learn, however, is to take accredited courses on these subjects at a college or university, or visit your local library. And stay away from those creationist books...they are NOT scientific sources:
From Wikipedia: A transitional fossil or transitional form is thefossilizedremains of a life form that illustrates anevolutionary transition. It can be identified by having certain primitive (plesiomorphic) traits in comparison with its morederivedrelatives, such as defined in the study ofcladistics. "The Missing Link" is a popular term used for transitional forms.
A popular term to designate transitional forms with is "the missing link". The term is especially used in the regular media, but inaccurate and confusing. This is partly because it implies that there was a single link missing to complete the picture, which now has been discovered. In reality, the continuing discovery of more and more transitional fossils is further adding to our knowledge of evolutionary transitions. The term probably arose in the 19th century where the awaited discovery of a "missing link" between humans and so-called "lower" animals was considered to be the final proof of evolution. TheAustralopithecus afarensisfossil (more commonly known as "Lucy") is seen as a key transitional fossil.
This is anincomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness. Revisions andsourcedadditions are welcome.
This is a very tentative list of vertebratetransitional fossils(fossil remains of a creature that exhibits primitive traits in comparison with more derived life-forms to which it is related). An ideal list would only recursively include 'true' transitionals, i.e. those forms morphologically similar to the ancestors of themonophyleticgroup containing the derived relative, and not intermediate forms. See the article on transitional fossils for an explanation of the difference with intermediate forms. Since all species are supposed to be in transition due to natural selection, the very term "transitional fossil" is essentially a misconception. But the fossils listed represent significant steps in the evolution of major features in various vertebrate lines, and therefore fit the common usage of the phrase.
I hope Beep! Beep! It's Me doesn't mind that I "borrowed" this ;) Nice work, beep.
Beep Beep It's Me writes: "Augustus came from a miraculous conception by the divine and human conjunction of the God Apollo and Atia. How does the historian respond to that story? Are there any who take it literally? That divergence raises an ethical problem for me. Either all such divine conceptions, from Alexander to Augustus and from the Christ to the Buddha, should be accepted literally and miraculously or all of them should be accepted metaphorically and theologically. It is not morally acceptable to say, our story is truth but yours is myth; ours is history but yours is a lie. It is even less morally acceptable to say that indirectly and covertly by manufacturing defensive or protective strategies that apply only to one's own story." - John Crosssan, The Birth of Christianity, 1998, pg 28 - 29.
Native American myths are amongst my favorite stories. Native Americans have such a sense of humor and it comes through in so many areas of their life. Like most ancient mythologies, the stories were spread via oral tradition and passed on from generation to generation, eventually written down to preserve for centuries to come. The stories of Coyote that are used to explain many of the things that ancient folks didn't understand are quite amusing. Here is a funny summary about Coyote from God Checker.com. If you have a chance, stop by God Checker where you will find thousands of gods to read about who people really did worship (some for thousands of years) and many that people in today's world still believe in.
COYOTE: The wily, tricky, sneaky, pesky, cheaty God of the Wild West. He's the ubiquitous Trickster God and Cultural Hero of Native American mythology, the original Marx Brother and thorn in RAVEN's side.
Responsible for many things, including the Milky Way (see BLACK-GOD) and the diversity of mankind (see HUMAN-MAKER), there are more stories about him than stars in the sky. He ought to have his own website.
For example, did you hear the one about the Spying Moon? It seems that someone had pinched the moon, and COYOTE offered to stand in as replacement. Everyone agreed that he made a fine moon, but from his elevated position COYOTE could see everything that was going on.
Being of an irritating disposition, he couldn't resist blowing the whistle on friends and enemies alike. "Hey, look what BADGER is doing behind his tepee!" Pretty soon everyone was sick of his snooping and voted him out of the sky.
But nothing can keep COYOTE down for long. Being a boastful old show-off, he loves to impress the girls by juggling his eyeballs. One day he threw one so high it got stuck in the sky and became the star Arcturus. So even now he's keeping an eye on us all. See also BADGER, CHINIGCHINICH, RAVEN.
"Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it."
I took this quiz at Atheist Jew's blog and these are the results:
You scored as Scientific Atheist They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future.
This post was inspired by the opening of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky. It's mind-boggling that in the year 2007, and with all of scientific evidences accumulated over the centuries by highly intelligent and dedicated scientists, explorers, educators, etc. that there are so many who choose to believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old, and that dinosaurs and people co-existed...and that dinosaurs drowned in "the flood" but people survived despite the fact that no vegetation would have survived, and nothing would be left for them to eat after the floodwaters subsided, and nothing for the animals to eat to survive (if they survived such a long time confined to a wooden ark.) The whole story is so obviously absurd mythology, yet there are those who choose to hold onto ignorant beliefs of ancient folks who knew nothing about science, biology, geology, geography, meteorology, etc. And if getting rid of sin and evilness was the goal, this God sure picked a real loser to head up his "mission" to "cleanse the world."
How can people actually take the story of Noah to be real? Have any Bible literalists ever asked themselves why, if an omnipotent God had the ability to create humans and all things in the first place, why the need to go through having an old drunken pervert build an ark, gather two of all the millions and millions of life forms all over the planet, when this God could have just wiped his imperfect creations out in one click of his fingers, and then with the blink of an eye re-create them all over again just as "in the beginning"? If one can look at the Bible with a critical eye, as with other ancient world mythologies, the absurdity of the stories contained therein are at the same level of absurdity.
"Genesis 9:20-25 seems to be one of the strangest stories in the Bible. Noah lands the ark, plants a vineyard, gets drunk off its wine, lays around naked in his tent and is seen by his son Ham who reports it to his two brothers. Noah sobers up knowing what Ham did and curses his grandson Canaan who apparently was not even there. What is even stranger is when I started researching this mystery I discovered the story was once used to support slavery. Further there are theories floating around concerning castration and incest. What is the real story? Is there a deeper meaning to this than Noah having a case of misdirected anger while hung over? Or are we only hearing the watered-down version in our modern day Bible?"
SDSTAFF Dex replies:
"we examined the story of drunken Noah putting a curse on his grandson Canaan. This story came to be used as the biblical justification for slavery in pre-Civil War America, and for racial segregation after the war. The justification wasn't purely an invention of plantation owners, either--its roots go back more than 1,500 years. That seems remarkable, since the story itself doesn't mention race at all. Tracking the development of the slavery interpretation is an object lesson in the use of scripture to justify man's inhumanity to man."
Virginia despite the fact that it is home of the "fundie Vatican," turned out to be a very interesting place full of history and so much to do it would take three vacations or more to see and do everything there is to do. I have always wanted to visit George Washington’s Mt Vernon, and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. We chose Virginia for our vacation this year because our daughter lives in Richmond now, since she is a member of the symphony orchestra there. In recent years, while we prefer the west, northwest or the Great Lakes areas for our vacations, we end up going out east since we work in a visit with her at the same time. Otherwise we wouldn’t get to see her much.
Virginia is a beautiful state, full of magnolia trees which fill the air with a perfumy scent that makes me wish I could have one or two of them right in my own backyard. The surroundings are green and lush with flowers everywhere and colorful songbirds flying all around. People love to garden there. And most properties are well kept and very tidy. People are quite friendly, though very openly"godly." It's a big part of the culture there.
Settlers who arrived from the Old World in the midst of springtime must have initially thought they had found paradise. I wonder what the founding fathers who worked and fought so hard to uphold our freedoms and separation of church and state would think about their grand state of Virginia had turned into the headquarters of some of the most intolerant religious fundamentalists on Earth. (Falwell and Robertson to name two of them.) We stopped at Mt. Vernon first, which is a beautiful mansion and plantation nestled on the hills overlooking the Potomac River. George Washington was a man of many interests and abilities, and he valued knowledge and reason. Not many religious references were to be found amongst the many, many artifacts which remain from the Washington family, except for a family Bible (which belonged to his wife Martha from her first marriage), and a few references in writings by Washington about “Divine Providence”, but nothing about Jesus or Christianity.
As noted by Franklin Steiner in “The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents” (1936), Washington commented on sermons only twice. In his writings, he never referred to “Jesus Christ.” He attended church rarely, and did not take communion - though Martha did, requiring the family carriage to return back to the church to get her later.
Washington was, at most, a deist, however fundies are determined to rewrite Washington’s beliefs and his stance on religion to suit themselves. In the museum that is on the grounds of Mt Vernon, there is a mini-sanctuary with pews to throw in a bit of a religious fiction to the whole “educational” experience, trying to make Washington seem like he was a Christian man when he was not (his wife was, but he was not -- it seemed as if he was just going along with her to make her happy). As his writings show evidence of, and as I said before . . . at most, he was a deist. [George Washington and Religion] The experience at the end of the tour was also quite irritating. At the entrance to Washington’s tomb there is a live prayer reading every twenty minutes, a prayer that was delivered by a Rev. Thomas Davis, Rector of Christ Church at his entombment. When the guide called everyone to the area in front of the tomb for the prayer, the sheeple dressed in their “John 3:16” and “Jesus Loves Me” t-shirts all herded in a huddle with eyes closed and faces squinched as if in pain as the guide read the prayer (most Christians seem very sad and in pain when praying). Some of us kept walking around irreverently taking pictures and ignoring the whole oogie boogie recitation. After it was over, I scooted in the out gate and took my photos of the tomb and sarcophagus.
Monticello was similar in the way the preservationists try to highlight Jefferson’s brief references to God, however I was glad to see that they did place emphasis on Jefferson’s adamant stance that knowledge was the key to success and happiness. While Washington kept his beliefs concerning religion private, Jefferson was more outspoken about where he stood, and therefore a bit more difficult to make shit up about his beliefs. However, Jefferson’s true beliefs were downplayed, while anything remotely “godly” he might have said was taken out of context, highlighted and prominently displayed. This following video contains quotes by Jefferson that SHOULD have been displayed, but weren’t.
Gift shops at the Williamsburg tourist trap information center were playing a steady stream of religious music . . . “and he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own” . . .and in most shops and restaurants we stopped at, church music permeated these public places full of tourists from all cultures.
During this trip, I came to realize how fine the line is drawn between church and state in the south, and in the same way they do their Bible, fundamentalist Christians choose to interpret and rewrite history to their own liking in order to force their beliefs upon the rest of us.
Good video in response byDr. Michael Newdowon separation of church and state:
Going back to our hotel room one evening, there was a woman who scared me. She was standing at the railing of the balcony where our second floor room was located, and she was telling another woman how the “power of the Lawd shot down through her arms” and how she could “feel the heat and tingling as the power of the Lawd” went through her and “traveled out of her fingertips” and into the back of her little dog and healed it! I told my husband to hurry up and get inside our room and barricade the door!
On our way back home we took back roads through western Virginia and through the state of West Virginia. West Virginia is a whole other world, and could write a lengthy post on it's "weirdness". It's like going to another country. Makes Virginia seem like quite a liberal place. At lunchtime we started looking for a place to eat and we came upon a good-sized town with many restaurants and fast food eateries. We decided on Wendy's since we wanted something quick and cheap. The parking lot was jammed. It was around 12:30, and we remembered then that it was Sunday in fundieland. And all there is to do in fundieland is eat, and fundies favorite pastime is eating. We walked into what seemed to be a chapter in a Stephen King horror novel. The place was so full that not one seat remained. (I had never seen that at a Wendy's before at any time of day.) Everyone had on their Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes . . . men in short-sleeved dress shirts and many with ties, and women in their flowery dresses and skirts. The order line was full and there were people in line to get into the order line similar to Olive Garden on a Saturday night. And all in their Sunday's best. And us in our jeans, t-shirts and Reeboks. We were obvious outsiders. We decided that we better find another place to eat.
We ended up at a Subway that was connected to a gas station several miles up the road in a town so small that you would miss it if you happened to blink while passing through. And who was the manager? An Indian of the Hindu variety! While we try not to stereotype people, the stereotypes are repeatedly reinforced for us and it was amusing to see Hindus in hickland.
Later, around our dinner time in southern Ohio we noticed that all towns seemed deserted. We were still on the back roads and passing in and out of towns along the way. The only way to really get a feel for the different parts of the country is to take the backroads.
We stopped at a Wendy's which was almost deserted. There were two or three workers. We ordered chili and a baked potato. The boy at the counter slowly gave us our change, and then our tray of food. We went to the condiments bar to find spoons. . . no spoons. We asked for spoons and the boy answered "we ain't got any spoons left". How can they sell people chili and Frosties when they have no spoons to eat it with? Lucky we had spoons in our van and my husband went out to get them.
While we sat there eating, we watched a couple people come in and out, and they seemed to know the workers well. That was kind of nice to see, a town where everyone knows each other. That could have a downside though, as with the village I now live in once was. When everyone knows your name, they also seem to be too interested in your personal business. Lots of gossip because there sure isn't anything else to talk about!
Like all vacations, as we got closer and closer to Chicagoland, I felt good. I felt good because of having a great vacation, but also a satisfaction that I was going home to where it is comfortable and familiar to me. And where I can go to Wendy's on a Sunday afternoon, find a seat amongst other heathens who are wearing jeans and Reeboks and don't bother with church.
I will be away on vacation for this week, and here is an excellent video by Christopher Hitchen's concerning freedom of speech.
Despite death threats and strong condemnation from various religious groups who wish to silence him, Hitchens and others risk their lives to speak out in defense of Freedom of Speech and expression. Free speech should be upheld for ALL people whether we agree with what is being said, or not. People also have the right to hear what we have to say, or to choose not to read or listen. In a free society, these freedoms MUST be upheld. It is the main purpose of why I continue to blog. It is my right, my own personal freedom of expression.
When studying World Mythologies in college, this was one of my very favorite South American myth stories because of its humor. Thanks to Godchecker.comand all of their research on these many, many gods from various cultures and societies all over the world, past and present.
He kept the humans he created as slaves without any creature comforts. One day through a hole in the clouds someone noticed a place of beauty below — with birds and butterflies and lush vegetation.
So an escape committee was formed and a rope made. The fattest woman available was used to anchor the rope from the top as the humans crept through the hole and slid down the rope.
Being last and not too bright, the fat lady got stuck in the hole and plugged it up tight. She was stuck fast with her head in the clouds and her feet dangling down towards Earth. This left her in a very awkward position in many ways.
KONONATOO, having discovered where they were, was quite miffed at losing his little helpers. As a punishment, he pledged never to let any human back into Heaven, no matter how hard they prayed. At first life on Earth was not as easy as it seemed — until the humans discovered sex. Then there was no stopping them.
We do hopeKONONATOOhas installed a dishwasher as we don't know what happened to the fat woman.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A hazy ring of dark matter spawned by a colossal cosmic crash eons ago offers the best evidence to date that vast amounts of this mysterious stuff reside in the universe, scientists said on Tuesday.
Images taken by NASA's orbiting Hubble Space Telescope allowed astronomers to detect this ring of dark matter created by the collision of two galaxy clusters 5 billion light-years from Earth.
"This is the strongest evidence yet for the existence of dark matter," astronomer Myungkook James Jee of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore told reporters.
Astronomers believe dark matter -- as opposed to ordinary matter making up the stars, planets and the like -- comprises about 85 percent of the universe's material, but evidence of it has been difficult to come by.
Dark matter cannot be directly seen. It does not shine or reflect light, but astronomers infer its existence in galaxy clusters by observing how its gravity bends the light given off by even more faraway galaxies. They do not know what it is made of, but think it could be a kind of particle.
Astronomer Richard Massey of the California Institute of Technology, not involved in the research, said the findings are facing skepticism within the astronomical community.
Explanation: How do we know that dark matter isn't just normal matter exhibiting strange gravity? A new observation of gravitationally magnified faint galaxies far in the distance behind a massive cluster of galaxies is shedding new dark on the subject. The above detailed image from the Hubble Space Telescope indicates that a huge ring of dark matter likely exists surrounding the center of CL0024+17 that has no normal matter counterpart. What is visible in the above image, first and foremost, are many spectacular galaxies that are part of CL0024+17 itself, typically appearing tan in color. Next, a close inspection of the cluster center shows several unusual and repeated galaxy shapes, typically more blue. These are multiple images of a few distant galaxies, showing that the cluster is a strong gravitational lens. It is the relatively weak distortions of the many distant faint blue galaxies all over the image, however, that indicates the existence of the dark matter ring. The computationally modeled dark matter ring spans about five million light years and been digitally superimposed to the image in diffuse blue. A hypothesis for the formation of the huge dark matter ring holds that it is a transient feature formed when galaxy cluster CL0024+17 collided with another cluster of galaxies about one billion years ago, leaving a ring similar to when a rock is thrown in a pond.
Male Bottlenose Dolphins often form lifelong pair-bonds with each other. Adolescent and younger males typically live in all-male groups in which homosexual activity is common; within these groups, a male begins to develop a strong bond with a particular partner (usually of the same age) with whom he will spend the rest of his life. The two Dolphins become constant companions, often traveling widely; although sexual activity probably declines as they get older, it may continue to be a regular feature of such partnerships. Paired males sometimes take turns guarding or remaining vigilant while their partner rests. They also defend their mates against predators such as sharks and protect them while they are healing from wounds inflicted during preclators' attacks. Sometimes three males form a tightly bonded trio. On the death of his partner, a male may spend a long time searching for a new male companion—usually unsuccessfully, since most other males in the community are already paired and will not break their bonds. If, however, he can find another "widower" whose male partner has died, the two may become a couple...
The lives of male Bottlenose Dolphins are characterized by extensive bisexuality, combined with periods of exclusive homosexuality. As adolescents and young males, they have regular homosexual interactions in all-male groups, sometimes alternating with heterosexual activity. From age 10 onward, most male Dolphins form pair-bonds with another male, and because they do not usually father calves until they are 20-25 years old, this can be an extended period—10-15 years—of principally same-sex interaction. Later, when they begin mating heterosexually, they still retain their primary male pair-bonds, and in some populations male pairs and trios cooperate in herding females or in interacting homosexually with Spotted Dolphins.
(Excerpt from the book "Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" by Bruce Bagemihl.)
Explanation: Strange shapes and textures can be found in the neighborhood of the Cone Nebula. These patterns result from the tumultuous unrest that accompanies the formation of the open cluster of stars known as NGC 2264, the Snowflakecluster. To better understand this process, a detailed image of this region was taken in two colors of infrared lightby the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope. Bright stars from the Snowflake cluster dot the field. These stars soon heat up and destroy the gas and dust mountains in which they formed. One such dust mountain is the famous Cone Nebula, visible in the above image on the left, pointing toward a bright star near the center of the field. The entire NGC 2264region is located about 2,500 light years away toward the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros).
I love to write, read, paint, draw, take photos, listen to music, travel, and stargaze. If I could live my life over again I would be an astronomer.
“Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
Arthur C. Clarke
Alton Lemon is an "honorary officer" of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a position reserved for freethinkers who have won Supreme Court cases in favor of the separation of church and state. He received a "Hero of the First Amendment" award at the 2003 FFRF convention (although health problems at the last minute prevented him from accepting it in person). Alton Lemon won the case, Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971, which successfully challenged a Pennsylvania law, the first such law in the nation providing public tax funds to religious schools for teaching four secular subjects. As a member of the ACLU, Mr. Lemon volunteered to challenge the law, which resulted in a decision that is a watershed for the Establishment Clause, and which historic decision bears his name. The United States Supreme Court unanimously invalidated the parochial aid. In one of the enduring legacies of the Burger Court, it also codified existing precedent on the Establishment Clause into a test--called the "Lemon Test." Despite attacks against it and attempts to modify and chip away at it, the Lemon Test endures.
