SuperPope: ex Cathedra

Threadless submission: Poor Little Pluto

My latest Threadless submission, regarding Pluto losing its planetary status.

Dinosaur National Monument Vacation 2006

About a month ago now I went on a road trip with my wife, son, and parents. The impetus for the entire trip was a statement I made: “Ever since I was a little kid I’ve wanted to see that place where they built a building over all those dinosaur fossils in the cliff side.”

That place turns out to be the quarry at the aptly named Dinosaur National Monument, located near the city of Vernal, Utah.

"Even Mariachis Love Japan" Threadless Submission

Another Threadless submission. This one is based on a weird vision of a Mariachi walking the streets of Tokyo that popped into my head just as I was waking up one morning. An interesting side note: the word "Mariachi" can be translated perfectly into Japanese with no change in pronunciation.

"Divine Compliment" Threadless Submission

Another Threadless T-shirt submission of mine.  This one probably has a much greater chance of getting printed.  Please go vote and help me out.

The Da Vinci Code

Thought I'd come out of hibernation real quick to make sure you're all aware of something:  Dan Brown's book "The Da Vinci Code" is a load of ridiculous drivel.  It is not "historical ficton".  It is fiction based on lies based on fiction.

Dan Brown claims in his book that the Dead Sea scrolls are early Christian writings and invalidate the gospels in the Bible.  In actuality, the Dead Sea scrolls predate the birth of Christ and have nothing to do with the New Testament, so Dan's statement of "truth" is an outright lie.  He also claims that the Dead Sea scrolls were originally discovered in the 1950s.  Try Googling the Dead Sea Scrolls.  It is common knowledge that they were first discovered in 1947.  Did this man do ANY research?

But my favorite error in The Da Vinci Code is when one of the characters claims that a reference in the gospel of Philip proves that Mary was Jesus' wife.  The character says, "As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse".  Sorry Dan.  The gospel of Philip (which is itself a known fake) was written in Coptic, not Aramaic, and the word for "companion" in Coptic literally means "companion".

It always intrigues me to see how quickly someone who hates Christianity will latch on to any silly conspiracy theory that proposes to invalidate it.  Case in point:  Any theories about Christ having a relationship with Mary Magdalene are groundlessly extrapolated from late texts (third century or later) that are known to be bogus...that's why they're not in the Bible.  So while people discount what the Bible says about Christ -- even though most of it can be dated to within 50 years of his crucifixion and is known to be faithful to the original writing -- they'll readily accept absurd plots from texts written by kooks pretending to be Christ's contemporaries centuries later.

You have no idea how sick I am of hearing people say, "It's just a good mystery novel."  No, it's not.  It tells a fictional story while pretending to reveal the "fact" that Jesus Christ ran off to Europe and had a child with Mary Magdalene.  So at best it is "just a good mystery novel that directly attacks the deity of Christ."

Oh, I see.  No harm done, then.

I'm not really concerned that this movie will damage anyone's faith, though.  My thinking is this:  If you already think Christianity is a joke, you'll see this movie as validation of your beliefs.  If you don't often use your brain, you might like the movie and just keep living in ignorance.  And if you're a Christian, hopefully you'll just dismiss it for the nonsense it is and get on with your life.

Spaghetti Monsterism

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has become all the rage across the Internet. It started out as a satirical letter to the Kansas School Board, demanding that they give equal time in schools to Spaghetti Monsterism if they are going to give time to the theory of Intelligent Design. Naturalistic Materialists worldwide have lauded it as if it has blown the lid off the idiocy that “those hicks in Kansas” have been trying to shove down kids’ throats.

It’s marginally cute and clever for a college graduate's statement about his belief that science must by necessity exclude the idea of a God (unless, of course, God is real, in which case excluding him would be the most grievous error possible...but I digress). However, its success can be mostly attributed to a public lack of understanding of what Intelligent Design really is. Well, that and the fact that there are a lot of people out there who will swallow up anything that makes fun of organized religion, if only just because it makes their mommy mad.

Opponents of Intelligent Design (ID) begin with a strawman and work from there. The strawman is this: “ID is merely Biblical Young-Earth Creationism repackaged for the science classroom.” This is completely untrue.  Many supporters of ID (including myself) find Young Earth Creationism to be rooted in ignorance of both science and scripture.  It also makes Christians look like idiots in the eyes of many.

Intelligent Design merely calls into question Darwinian Evolution due to the overwhelming lack of concrete evidence, and suggests that the odds against even the simplest forms of life arising out of the total disorder that our universe WANTS to be in are too great. Too much faith in random chance (which is actually not a thing or a force that one can logically have faith in, but instead is just a measure of probability) is required to give Evolution any credence based on what we currently know. In fact, the difficulties facing a naturalistic worldview only get worse with each new discovery.

ID makes no claim as to who the intelligent designer might be or how he might have created life. You could believe it to be aliens, creatures from another dimension, Yahweh of the Bible, and yes, even a Flying Spaghetti Monster. So the Spaghetti Monster has already earned equal time in Kansas schools right along side the One True God…his prophet is just too blind to realize it.

Intelligent Design is important to the future of science. It is seeing to it that the outdated theory of evolution is examined as the flawed theory that it is, with no evidence to support it except homology. And homology (similarity among types) does not prove correlation. A spoon, a saucepan, and a kettle are homologous. That doesn’t mean the spoon begat the saucepan. They all simply utilize the same useful features. This is all that homology tells us definitively about the diversity of life.

Darwin admitted that his theory would require future fossil finds to show better correlation between species than simple homology. He truly believed that the fossil record would vindicate him.  Instead, it has only increased the amount of diversity we know of, and has never produced a single verifiable “missing link”. Darwin said that any irreducible system that couldn’t be explained through natural selection would be devastating to his theory, while he believed cells to be “disorganized blobs of jelly". We now know that cells are amazingly complex and organized machines, with tiny motors, gear systems, and data replication facilities far superior to anything mankind can create. In short, Darwin was WRONG about many things his theory's success hinged on (not to mention the fact that he believed Blacks to be genetically inferior to Whites and that they would eventually be wiped out through natural selection).

So perhaps the most important thing about Intelligent Design is that it calls Evolution as we know it into question. Allowing ID to be discussed in schools merely encourages future scientists to not take the word of Darwin as gospel and to explore other, better explanations as to why life exists.

My T-Shirt Design Needs Your Vote!

I created this T-shirt design for the ongoing T-shirt contest at Threadless.com. Please click on the link below before June 13th, 2005 and vote for my design! Also, be sure to check the "I would buy it" box to the left of the voting field if you really think you would. Comment and let me know what you think!

One month from today...

Mitch Hedberg Dies (1968 - 2005)

Mitch Hedberg used to do drugs. He would still be doing drugs, except he died earlier this week in his hotel room due to an apparent heart attack.

I can honestly say that I never thought any comedian was as funny as he was. He swore a lot (when he wasn't on TV), but his jokes were funny because they were silly and clever, not because they were offensive. He never made jokes about religion, sex, or politics.

My friends and I quote him about every 30 seconds. That's not likely to stop, but for a while the quotes will be followed by, "dang it, I wish he were still alive."

You can buy his two CDs ("one of them is in stores") on-line. There's a lot more I could say about him, but nothing that hasn't already been said elsewhere on the web. Just Google it if you've never heard his stuff. Then you'll be mourning his death, too.

Revenge of the Sith Trailer

As I’m sure most of you are aware, the much anticipated Revenge of the Sith trailer was released to Star Wars Hyperspace subscribers and AOL users yesterday, November 4th.  In case you didn’t see it, I’ve got SnagIt, so I made a few screenshots.

The highlights:  Vader rising from a table Frankenstein style, Chewie and a hoard of other Wookies, ship-to-ship combat in the sky above Coruscant, Padme with Leia-style hair, and snaggle-tooth Darth Sidious swinging a lightsaber.

Nearly half of the trailer is spent showing old footage, signifying how it has all been leading up to this.  We are really just teased with some small bits of information, but it is a satisfying tease.

I am guessing that Yoda is on Kashyyyk in the shots where he is shown.  He’s indoors, but the architecture reminds me of the bases on Endor.  Another shot shows Threepio (now golden) and Artoo standing in a hallway that is very reminiscent (if not identical) to the one in which we first see them standing in A New Hope.  Hmmm…

Evidently there’s an entire planet of lava and volcanoes in this film.  So the circle is now complete, with a planet representing every different possible climate now in the series.  Here’s a quick rundown:

Tatooine (desert)
Yavin (jungle)
Hoth (tundra)
Dagobah (swamp)
Bespin (clouds)
Endor (forest)
Coruscant (city)
Kamino (ocean)
Geonosis (canyon)
Kashyyyk (more forest with bigger trees)

What planet did I leave out?  Naboo.  The “Mediterranean Europe” planet is the best label I can find for it.  It’s got seas, plains, swamp, forests and cities, so it’s an oddball for the Star Wars universe.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the film.  If you want to see the trailer on the big screen, just go see The Incredibles tonight.