Schmutz Wednesday

The only reason I ever know that it is Ash Wednesday each year is that I see someone fresh from church and get the urge to walk up to them, lick my thumb, and say "Oh, hold still, you have some schmutz on your forehead" as I proceed to wipe it off.

Bless you?

I have been swaying back and forth lately between saying "Bless you" and not saying "Bless you" when people around me sneeze. I NEVER say "God bless you" of course...that would be stupid.

Since I am currently working toward my teacher certification and Masters degree, I have been thinking about how things will be when I can a teacher. I certainly can't say "Bless you" sometimes and not say it other times, or students might think I am playing favorites.

I think the responsible thing for me to do as an atheist is to stop saying anything, but I am afraid people will find this to be rude. We need to come up with a new, secular phrase to use when people sneeze. Sometimes I tell people "Shut Up!" when they sneeze, but that's just plain mean.

Brownie Points

So I don't believe in god, that should be obvious, but just in case He does exist it's nice to know that I have some brownie points...well, maybe.

Bri and I were in Philadelphia, and when we returned to our hotel from the play I dropped her off a the door and parked the car. As I was leaving my car, I saw an older, larger gentlemen with a cane having some trouble getting over a mound of ice/snow. I offered to give him a hand and I helped him over the mound and across a sheet of ice leading up to his car.

I guess I was in a really good mood, because I also offered to help him get all the ice off his car (it was an SUV actually, which was definitely necessary since it was just him). As I reached into his SUV to get the ice scraper he said to me, "You're gonna get something out of this, you know." And I'm thinking, "Oh my god(lol), what have I gotten myself into?" but I said, "Oh yeah?" He said, "I don't know if you're a Protestant boy or a Catholic boy." I told him that my family is Catholic and he said to me, "Well I'm a Catholic priest."

Of course the first thing I think is that I might get molested, which I chuckle at inside, but I helped him clean off his SUV and made sure he could climb up into it (an SUV is a great idea for someone who can't walk great) and I went on my way.

I would like to think that I get some points for being a good samaritan regardless of this guy's status as a priest, but if the Catholics are right then I just scored some major points.

Just an afterthought: It is interesting that an atheist, with no moral code, would go out of his way to help someone at night in the freezing cold. Just goes to show that not all atheists are depraved heathens...some of us are just heathens.

God is an Electrician?

I always thought he was a carpenter!

My dad was working with a friend of his, trying to get the emergency
generator hooked up.  They thought they were done, but the generator
just wouldn't start up for some reason.

My dad's friend, who happens to be a born-again christian, thought to
look for a loose wire among a few dozen.  In a very short moment he
had found the wire and secured it.

While recounting this story later, my dad commended his friend for his
electrical skills, but he responded, "It wasn't me, it was god." I
don't think he was joking.

It is obvious that the reason he could find this loose wire is because
he is an experienced and observant electrician.

I don't like how many people attribute accomplishments to god because
it diminishes the greatness of some of the best advances humans have
made.

This, of course, is a trivial example, but it is good enough here to
make a point.

Young Earth Creationist Doctor of Palaeontology???

On the front page of the Times today (below the fold) there was an article about a man who recently received his doctorate from the University of Rhode Island in palaeontology. The thing is, he is a young earth creationist. If you don't know what this means, I'll tell you. This means that he believes that the earth cannot be more than about 10,000 years old because of the chronology of events in the bible. What a fucking stupid idea that is!!! I wish I was joking.

Anyway, he does all this science in palaeontology under the "paradigm", as he calls it, that the earth is billions of years old...which it IS!!!! But he doesn't actually believe that! He lives his personal life under the "paradigm" that the earth is only a few thousand years old...which is utter nonsense.

The research that he performed and the dissertation he presented apparently were solidly scientific and supported by evidence, but since he doesn't believe any of the science that he spent years proving, what is he going to do with his Ph.D.? He is going to go around advocating the young earth theory, giving it the appearance of legitimacy because a Doctor of Palaeontology supports it.

There was debate in the article about whether a university should be allowed to discriminate against people who are intending to use their degrees for something which the university or the department would not want to be associated with. It is a tough debate. I want to say they should be able to deny people for this reason, but then I realize that this is discrimination based on religion, which we aren't supposed to allow.

Either way, I say fuck this guy for using his degree in science against science. Fuck him.