To Phrase A Coin

The motto is “In God We Trust”;
Display it everywhere, we must!
In doing so, recall, it’s just
A hollow little phrase.
It’s on our money, even though
It lost religion long ago—
Rote repetition made it so
It’s meaningless these days.

If you’re like me, you find it odd
That those who claim to love their god
Would fight to keep this cheap façade,
Especially on money!
But now, in congress, start the fight
To grow the phrase in public sight—
Replacing God with new “God lite”
You must admit, it’s funny

Remember Teddy Roosevelt
Opposed the motto, cos he felt
It sacrilege to put on gelt,
Insulting the creator
But that was then, and this is now;
We’ll push our god; we don’t care how,
With every method we allow.
And jobs? Well, maybe later.

Rant, after jump: [Read more…]

Eating Mermaid

A fish connoisseur made paella with Mermaid;
He thought the aroma was nice.
With garnish of seaweed (his sycophants “oui-oui-ed”)
And saffron infusing the rice.
He clarified butter, and started to mutter
“It tastes like it’s really Mazola”
Then added blue cheeses: “the trick, if you please, is—
With Gorgon, you need gorgonzola!”
With minimum bluster, he gutted and trussed her;
You see, in his studies, he’d learned
That the delicate features of mermaid-like creatures,
If left unattended, get burned.
The succulent breast of (as well as the rest of)
The meal, would make proud its creator;
I was told that one bite would bring utter delight,
And I could not refuse… so I ate her.

Originally, I wrote this when I learned that there was a fatwa against eating mermaid. I shit you not. Today, I was simply reminded of the verse, because I am doing a bit of cooking, and an excellent Stilton got me thinking of blue cheeses. Besides, I can’t let Physioprof be the only one on FtB who posts about food.

I Got My Wish!

Wrong-again Harold had made a prediction
Wrong-again Harold was once again wrong
Wrong-again Harold believed in a fiction,
But wrong-again Harold kept chugging along.

Wrong-again Harold had plenty of money
So wrong-again Harold bought billboards and such
People who saw them all thought they were funny
But wrong-again Harold, he didn’t care much

Wrong-again Harold misled the believers
Wrong-again Harold expressed no remorse
Wrong-again, wrong-again,
String-em-along-again,
Wrong-again Harold stayed true to his course.

Wrong-again Harold, he looked through the bible
Wrong-again Harold, he did all the math
Wrong-again Harold, he claim’s he’s reli’ble
And gives us the date and the time of god’s wrath

Wrong-again Harold, I feel I should mention,
Wrong-again Harold has done this before;
Wrong-again Harold, he craves the attention—
Wrong-again Harold’s a media whore.

Wrong-again Harold misled the reporters
Wrong-again Harold expressed no remorse
Wrong-again, wrong-again,
String-em-along-again,
Wrong-again Harold stayed true to his course.

Wrong-again Harold’s not much of a story
Wrong-again Harold has nothing to say
Wrong about rapture and heaven and glory
Please, can we just put this story away?

Wrong-again Harold, the media darling,
Radio, papers, the web, and TV
There on your soapbox, you’ve led me to snarling:
Bury this story, and just let me be!

Wrong-again Harold provided the message
Wrong-again Media, added their force
Wrong-again, wrong-again,
String-us-along-again,
Wrong-again Harold stayed true to his course.

That was my verse from the earlier end of the world. You know, the third or fourth prediction. Not today’s.

I know it’s the end of the world today, but I can’t find it in the early editions of any news sites! You know it’s a bad day for parasitic end-of-times cultists when the only ones paying attention are the ones making fun of them.

20/20 Hindsight (or, The Basis Of Objective Morality)

Cos it’s coming up on that time of the semester. Another one for my students.

The non-religious viewpoint—that a moral sense evolves—
Raises up some thorny questions, while some others it resolves
The thing about selection that can give a fellow blindsight
Is that all success and failure is revealed to us in hindsight.
Predicting evolution is a right and awful mess,
Cos a change in the environment will influence success;
When selection pressures differ, they result in different features
In morphology, of course, and the behaviors seen in creatures
“Successful” might be bigger, might be smaller, might be smart
From a cuttlefish in hiding to a peacock’s walking art
From the flora in intestines to domesticated cow
Each of these has been successful; only hindsight tells us how.
A selectionist analysis applies to culture, too—
There’s variety apparent in the many things we do,
As we teach them to our children, replication of a sort
Differentially effective, when attempts may come up short.
When we ask the loaded questions, “What is moral? What is good?”
“Are there independent standards, what we shan’t and what we should?”
As the most successful culture, it should fill us with delight—
We will always look behind us, saying what we did was right
What we did was good and moral, and the gods looked down and smiled;
Now it’s thoroughly objective, and we teach to every child
All the Thou shall not’s we followed, every moral, every rule,
As the basis of our culture, in the church and in the school
In the battles over culture, had another party won
Then morality, objectively, is what that group has done.

The moral code of conduct that determines saints and sinners
Is the product of selection, in the history of the winners

The rest of the lesson, in prose, after the jump: [Read more…]

My First Experience With Faith-Healing Death

My most recent post touched a very sensitive nerve with me; I’ve bumped up against faith healing before. I can’t blame the believers too much in these cases, but I certainly can blame the religion.

A friend of mine, some thirty years ago,
The eldest son, a farming family’s pride,
Was gone from school, about a month or so
Before we heard the truth—the boy had died.

He’d fallen from a tractor in a field,
Though whether he was dead first, we don’t know;
The coroner’s exam? Too late to yield
An answer; there was nothing it could show.

His parents tried to cure the boy with prayer–
They brought him home, and put their son to bed.
Devout and faithful, hope turned to despair;
It broke their hearts, admitting he was dead.

Their church—to whom they turn when times are rough—
Blamed them, and said they had not prayed enough.

Again, these are the examples that leap to mind whenever I hear “but religion gives people hope”. Perhaps there was nothing medicine could have done for my friend; we will never know. But to have a system in place for blaming the parents for their lack of faith, that is just cruel.

No God? No Problem.

So a comment from one of my students put me in mind of this one. For that, this verse is dedicated to a bunch of people who have no idea this blog exists… my students.

I’ve got absolute truths by the dozens
They depend on the god that you cite
And, my brothers and sisters and cousins,
I have to decide which is right.

Each claims their morality’s better
They’re divinely inspired, you see;
So I’d follow their laws to the letter,
Except that they all disagree.

Whenever I look to the bible
To see how a person behaves
I can trust that the info’s reliable,
Like how I should punish my slaves.

I don’t wish to be petty or selfish
I just want to know I am right
Is it worse to be gay, or eat shellfish?
Both are wrong, in Leviticus’ sight.

Is it sinful to kill and eat cattle?
Well, the Hindus, of course, would agree
But then, kosher’s a whole different battle,
Although bacon tastes yummy to me!

I’ve got absolute truths if you want ‘em
Each according to different gods
Some keep them, and others will flaunt ‘em
But you’re breaking some rules, say the odds.

When religions make war over quarrels,
And they claim that their god is the source
Can a person have humanist morals?
Of Course!

Sir, Put The Souvenir Down And Walk Away

The war against terror and the war against christmas have opened a continuous front; the TSA is warning the flying public that they must not bring their snow globes with them, or they’ll be confiscated.

Snow globes.

Just in case, I suppose, the clear liquid is nitroglycerin.

I suspect the TSA hires grade schoolers, and asks them to come up with the coolest ways you could sneak explosives onto planes, then uses that feedback to generate policy. But this latest restriction pits Fox News against themselves–how do you support “all fear, all the time” if you are against the war on christmas?

Verse after the jump: [Read more…]

Major Motion Picture Event

Over at Zingularity, reports of a new major motion picture event–a $150 million dollar retelling of the Noah’s Ark story. I do so hope they go with the “gritty realism” school of movies. If they do, I have the first draft–well, second, I guess, if the bible is the first draft–of their movie all set to go!

Bring popcorn, and meet me after the jump:
[Read more…]

Happy Blasphemy Day

Blasphemy Day is important. Not for offending people, but for celebrating the right to speak without fear that such an offense can land you in jail, or worse. Political speech often offends me, but the rough-and-tumble of open political debate is a good thing. When we coddle ideas, we allow bad ones to flourish. Religious speech is, and should be, protected in the same sense that political speech is. This includes religious speech that the listener disagrees with. A day to celebrate this idea? I like it. More after the jump:
[Read more…]