If you want BS or Political Correctness you have come to the wrong place.
FAQ How can you be an atheist Jew?
An atheist is one who disbelieves in (or denies) the existence of God, Gods, and other supernatural beings.
A Jew is any person whose mother was a Jew, or any person who has gone through the formal process of conversion to Judaism.
I had Chinese food for the first time in quite a while yesterday. Waking up this morning, I was struck with two revelations. One is that Chinese food makes my stomach hurt and the second one is that I don't read fortune cookies anymore. I don't mind eating the odd fortune cookie, but recently I've just stopped even reading the nonsense. I used to read them, but now that I've morphed from strong agnostic to atheist, I don't even get any entertainment value out of them anymore. I'm not sure how many atheists are like me when it comes to fortune cookies. Is it just me? Do I need to lighten up?
Oh, and I don't read horoscopes anymore either. I definitely read the ones in the newspaper up to my early 30's. I even remember hoping it was right at times. Again, I know we have a evolved a susceptibility to accept supernatural explanations, so I guess I'm only human that way:)
It was over 70 years ago that cane toads were introduced to Australia from Hawaii as a way to try to take care of the cane beetle who were agricultural pests. But:
The plan backfired completely and absolutely. As it turns out, cane toads cannot jump very high, only about two feet actually , so they did not eat the beetles that for the most part lived in the upper stalks of cane plants. Instead of going after the beetles, as growers had planned, the cane toads began going after everything else in sight--insects, bird's eggs and even native frogs. And because the toads are poisonous, they began to kill would-be predators. The toll on native species has been immense.
The Good The cane toad is probably one of the best ways to see evolution happen before our very own eyes, which means that they can be used as PROOF that evolution does happen.
The legs of cane toads have increased by 10% since arriving. Note: there are still toads with shorter legs, but the ones that are on the migration front have the ability to travel more ground per day thanks to their bigger legs.
Now, I know evolution deniers will always say that they have no problem with this kind of evolution. However, evolution is evolution is evolution. The genes of these toads have changed. And if there is still an argument the best thing to do is to ask the denier "now that you agree that evolution happens, what mechanism prevents evolution from making lots of small changes which appear like big changes over lots and lots of time?"
The toads with the smaller bodies seem to be more equipped to live longer and breed more.
The flawed toads may continue to breed their bad lineage if they do in fact make it past toad puberty and are able to make new tadpoles. So we could see a higher percentage of hunchback toads in the near future. But if they wind up overpopulating their ecosystems where no more land is available, the small bodies toads will be the one that survives in the end.
There is also a problem with the immune systems of the toads who get arthritis. Again, this trait could go on if they are able make it to procreation.
There still have a lot of ground to cover before they make it all across Australia, so I don't see the arthritic toads dying out so fast.
Another cool thing is that many other animals are evolving because of the presence of cane toads. Some snake species have evolved smaller jaws so that they can't swallow these poisonous treats even if they wanted to. Of course, this means that the snakes with bigger jaws had a trait that was destined to wind up in the evolutionary trash bin. The toads helped kill off those who had the trait in a very short period of time.
Also, many other animals who were attracted to eating cane toads, are not anymore. Again, this is due to the innate mechanism that tells one what is food and what isn't, evolving to help the species survive. Again though, the animals with the attraction to cane toads helped their line out by dying before procreating too much. The animals without the attraction trait had a better chance of surviving to procreate more. That is evolution 101 to any of my Fundy readers.
There were only 100 or so that were introduced in 1935. Now there are over 200 million of these creature.
Besides being able to get high off their poison (Family Guy had an episode having to do with licking cane toads), these amphibians have an average life span of 10-15 years. That is the same as dogs (which I find totally unfair, if there was a God, dogs would live to 80). In fact, they can live up to 20 years in captivity.
The Ugly
In order to get rid of cane toads, Australians have come up with a couple of gruesome ways. The first one is to refrigerate the cane and then freeze it to death. If you think that is humane, you haven't seen anything.
"There is no evidence of evolution of mankind from any other species. It is easy to prove. Check out my vids. I have studied this for over 40 years. I have no religion and I certainly never want to be indoctrinated by some idiot named Ken. Do your own thinking. Don't be the clone of someone elses thought process and beliefs."
I thought he was talking about assmonkey Ken Ham, but I quickly found out that he meant Dr. Ken Miller.
This guy is hard to watch. There is no entertainment value whatsoever, but more importantly no science either. He pretty much "thinks" that science is one very large conspiracy theory.
I could barely watch a complete video, let alone the 10 videos he has recently put up.
I could only watch half of his last video Final Proof Of Evolution Falsified:
His conclusion from what I saw of the above video is that fossilization dating techniques are always contaminated, so therefore evolution is bull.
In Sideways Logic Miller Whale, Devolution he has a problem with animals evolving to be smaller when on a smaller isolated island:
His "logic" here is again not based on science, but on the premise that animals must either go extinct or be able to exist in the new environment, and I guess if they exist, there is no need to evolve smaller.
He obviously thinks in terms of decades and not not even hundreds of years.
Funny that he calls Ken Miller an idiot, makes fun of Miller's PHD, and questions why he should be allowed to tour the country lecturing.
But this is the best part. In the comment section of both those videos, I've been engaging him somewhat, though it is hard not to just call him a moron and be done with him. He claims both evolution and creation are both bull. When I asked what he believed, he said you can't know for sure (while calling evolution a belief and religion like a good creationist does). Then when confronting him a bit more in a logical way, I asked him if evolution is bull and creation is bull, what else is there?
Of course, I haven't and I won't get a reasonable answer to that question. He is obviously nothing but a disingenuous creationist trying something new on Youtube.
This is just another example of why intelligent design is simply creationism. Either life evolved on this planet or it was poofed here as is. There is no in between. Of course, I can live with the theistic evolutionists who want to believe that God set everything in motion as long as they don't deny science in the equation.
I also asked him to explain the Nylon Bug to me, and he asked me to explain it to him first so that he can give me reasons for why my worldview about it is wrong. I told him that this is not how the game is played, I asked you a question, you get to answer me before I answer your questions.
First off I want to say that this religious nutter seems like a very nice person. But as soon as saw the video I said to myself "I've got to post it." I discovered Ronen Levi Yitzchak Youtube channel because I am a follower of Atheist Media Blog, and another Yitzchak video was posted there. He criticized Christopher Hitchens without knowing anything about what Hitchens has to say except for the title of the book he wrote, God Is Not Great.
This video is classic. Ronen has it all figured out. When a guy masturbates he has his male hand gripping his penis, and since one is accepting of a male hand on his penis, he becomes more and more prone to becoming a homosexual. If we cut down on this type of gay behaviour, less and less gays would be created.
The old religious mindset that gays are created by nurture is prevalent. How about this Ronen, homosexuality is mostly created in the womb. And when straight guys like me masturbate, I'm thinking of women. I'm sure when homosexual men masturbate they mostly think about men.
Not only does masturbation most likely reduces the chances of prostate cancer, it also relieves tension and that makes us human males less likely to be overly aggressive most of the time. Sure, sex with a willing female is preferred, but I live in a real world where women (ie wives) tend not to need it as much as men, after they get their wedding ring that is.
Masturbation. There, I said it, I'm relieved....OK, I'm not relieved....not yet anyway.
To my amazement, I was able to watch a new Nova episode on the very same day it was available to most US households. For some reason the Buffalo PBS station is behind when it comes to shows like Nova. I was able to watch it on a Seattle station that comes with my West time zone subscription from my local cable carrier.
I was actually looking forward to The Bible's Buried Secrets. Something told me it wouldn't be too far off The Bible Unearthed, which was quite an eye opener.
Both were similar. Both compared the Old Testament to actual archaeological findings.
Yesterday's documentary seemed to give more detail and more explanation to what most likely actually happened in the region of Israel whereas The Bible Unearthed was more of a bible debunking video.
The idea of the Exodus and Moses remains an impossibility. And it is very likely that the early Israelites were poor Canaanites, who were the product of a have havenot economy that went into the dumper.
More havenots came from outside of Canaan to form what I like to call the Pre-Jews. Included were some former slaves from Egypt, not hundreds of thousands, and maybe not even a thousand.
Another interesting tidbit is that not only were most of the Pre-Jews idol worshipers, they also believed God had a wife:
The land was full of sun God worshiping animal sacrificing poor people. Finally, when the Pre-Jews got their butts whooped in Jerusalem in 586 BC by the Babylonians, the excuse of having more than one God causing the loss stuck, and finally monotheistic Judaism was created.
Ezra and his buddies put all the stories and myths into a book with strict laws and lots of lessons in morality around 450 BC's, and the Pre-Jews became Jews.
I've often wondered how necessary it is to most Christians that the Exodus story be literal. I also wonder how some religious Jews can make a case for the Exodus story being mostly allegorical.
I'm glad that TBBS didn't even attempt to tackle the ridiculous Global Flood crapola. I can't believe there are still some intelligent human beings who still believe Noah's story is literal.
