My ongoing thing for smart women

My ongoing thing for smart women

I am a mad scientist. Because I am successful at it, "they" call me an entrepreneur. I turn science fiction into science fact. I have many facets. I am fascinated with intelligence, tattoos and beautiful women. I build companies and am a leader of men. I have a dark side that I explore in a controlled manner. I enjoy participating in combat sports and other rough distractions. I produce and promote the use of green technology. I both love and hate humanity. I think we are in a failing system because it produces leaders that are the most popular of the average; who wants that? If you have stumbled upon this blog and are under 18 years, leave now and wash your eyes out with soap.

Texas House Bill to allow Creationis Universities to grant science degree

An oxymoron (plural oxymorons or oxymora) (from Greek ὀξύμωρον, “sharp dull”) is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. Oxymorons appear in a variety of contexts, including inadvertent errors such as ground pilot and literary oxymorons crafted to reveal a paradox.

The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective-noun combination of two words. For example, the following line from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King contains two oxymora:

“And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”

Other examples of oxymora of this kind are:

or Science Degree from a Creationist University. Critical thinking skill are required for science, them must be absent or impaired to believe in a fairy sky wizard

http://www.examiner.com/science-in-national/texas-house-bill-to-allow-creationist-university-to-grant-science-degrees

Is there no end to the lengths that Texas lawmakers will go to push their religiously motivated, anti-evolution agenda on science education? This time it isn’t Don McLeroy who is in my sights, it is Republican Leo Berman who is a member of the House Higher Education Committee of Texas.

Berman is the sole sponsor of House Bill 2800 that was introduced on March 9, 2009 in the Texas House of Representatives. It seems that Berman is motivated by his religion to flex his political power to help the Institute for Creation Research to have the authority to award master’s degrees in science.

According to a report by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), Berman has not yet made a statement concerning the bill. NCSE did contact a staffer who said that “…he believed that the bill’s objective was to aid institutions that want to teach creation science or intelligent design.”

According to NCSE’s Glenn Branch, “[w]hen the Institute for Creation Research moved its headquarters from Santee, California, to Dallas, Texas, in June 2007, it expected to be able to continue offering a master’s degree in science education from its graduate school. … But the state’s scientific and educational leaders voiced their opposition, and at its April 24, 2008, meeting, the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board unanimously voted to deny the ICR’s request for a state certificate of authority to offer the degree.”

If House Bill 2800 is enacted, it will make ICR exempt from state regulations thereby allowing them to grant science degrees. As put by NCSE, the bill will “exempt institutions such as the Institute for Creation Research’s graduate school from Texas’s regulations governing degree-granting institutions.”

According to ICR’s Web site, they “[equip] believers with evidence of the Bible’s accuracy and authority through scientific research, educational programs, and media presentations, all conducted within a thoroughly biblical framework.” To that end, it seems, they take discoveries and force them into current biblical understandings of… things. For example, they discussed the recent discovery of the fossilized brain. They said:

“Since the Bible’s historical data is usually ignored in most scientific investigations, it comes as no surprise that this recent discovery ‘all happened by chance.’ The researchers would not expect to find fossilized soft brain tissues if today’s slow processes were all that was at work in the past. However, given the catastrophic formation indicated by most of earth’s geologic structures and the massive extermination of life represented in the fossil record—as well as the preservation of soft tissue from creatures supposedly millions of years old—the biblical Flood is a valid and relevant interpretive key to earth’s past. It can be expected that more soft tissue fossils, including brains and perhaps visceral organs, will be found.”

How does one logically go from finding a fossilized brain to deeming the biblical flood valid and relevant? This is obviously one of those “schools” that will only accept scientific discoveries that they can “make fit” into scriptural accounts of… things. I hate to break this to them, but that is not science. It is intellectual dishonesty. And a school like this has no business whatever granting degrees in science. After all, what they teach is not science.

And, it is downright disgusting to know that there is yet another lawmaker in place in Texas that doesn’t care about what he is supposed to care about… in Berman’s case - higher education. His is too concerned with his own religious agenda to see that this school is an offense to the realm of science. Further, I would say that ICR is an insult to the concept “school.”

aristtaroxxx:

friendlyatheist:

nyquilontherocks:

Reposting these for posterity.

I just watched the TNG episode “Who Watches the Watchers,” and I must say, it was one of the finest pieces of science fiction I have ever seen, and one of the most important messages in all of fiction itself.

It moved me nearly to tears.

It was nice to see the promotion of knowledge, understanding, and the dispelling of superstition being lauded as the right, fair, and ONLY thing to do rather than nonsensical beliefs and fairy tales that only cause harm and hatred being “respected” for no good reason.

Excellent episode. One of my favorites.
-FA

Just another reason Captain Picard is my secret lover.

my hero

Republican Rep. John Fleming cites The Onion as factual news I know some of you thought for a nano second that my post about the Planned Parenthood 8 Billion Dollar Abortionplex by The Onion here  but don’t feel bad. Republican John Flemming could not figure it out at all. What can you expect from someone placing in office as the most popular among the average of Louisiana. Further proof of lack of critical thinking skills, as a deacon, he has really bought into that whole “fairy sky wizard tribal cave story” thing

Republican Rep. John Fleming cites The Onion as factual news

I know some of you thought for a nano second that my post about the Planned Parenthood 8 Billion Dollar Abortionplex by The Onion here  but don’t feel bad. Republican John Flemming could not figure it out at all. What can you expect from someone placing in office as the most popular among the average of Louisiana. Further proof of lack of critical thinking skills, as a deacon, he has really bought into that whole “fairy sky wizard tribal cave story” thing

lambanajib:

musafeer:

faineemae:


unbearable-light:

OK now, i dont agree with this, i believe that the islamic religion preaches hate, war, fights and abuse to women.

yes not every Muslim is a terrorist, but in recent studies it has shown that every terrorist is a Muslim.
and i stand by that!

Hey Susan, let me tell you a story.

It’s about this girl who believed in a couple of recent studies that had shown that “every terrorist is a Muslim” and let me tell you about those bullshit recent studies. Just about 24% of terrorist/violence acts have been committed by Extreme left wing groups.  The Islamophobes like you claim that Islam is intrinsically a terrorist religion. The proof they supply?  ”Every Terrorist has been Muslim!” they retort.  Unfortunately for you, that’s not quite true, more like 6% percent.  Then we also have that about 7% of terror attacks in the US have been committed by Jewish Extremists in the United States. Now, if you don’t believe my information, you can just click right here. It will lead you to the  FBI website where it will give you the facts about terror attacks in the United States from 2000-2005 which was pretty much the time when all this began.

Let me show you some more things too:

The word “Islam” is closely related to the word “salam or silm” which means peace. Muhammad, sallallahu alayhe wa sallam, himself had a very peaceful nature, was extremely tolerant, and highly protective of the non-Muslim minorities living in the Muslim state.

A Muslim is never allowed to initiate hostilities. “And fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but transgress not the limits. Surely, Allah likes not the transgressors.” [2: 190]

I hope you liked my story and you learned something valuable today.

(Emphasis mine.) 

Hahahahahahahahah in yo’ face.

All of the above is bullshit. The difference is that the extreme christian crasies aren’t making making national policy. When the head of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church (the people protesting soldiers’ funerals) is president, then this comparison holds a little water. Judaism, Christian and Muslim…all of the desert dogmas that sprang from Abraham are shit and result in human misery overall. Further Mohammad was a pedofile, rapist and murderer. The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers.  Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding.  Muslims who do not join the fight are called ‘hypocrites’ and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, most of the verses of violence in the Quran are open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text.  They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Quran.  

Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed.  Muhammad’s own martial legacy and the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran have resulted in a trail of blood and tears across world history

(Source: prettyindian, via mafrommilwaukee)

Athena, a goddess for men

It makes more sense why she chose me

In this passage from the Orphic Hymn to Athena, note the attributes of Athena - athletic, destroyer of the [Gorgon] Medusa, virgin, artist par excellence, warrior, progressive, and androgynous. Few of these attributes are traditionally feminine:

“Athletic Maiden with a heart sublime,
Slayer of the Gorgon, fugitive of the bridal bed,
Mother of Art in all your abundance, catalyst of progress!
You bring folly to the corrupt and a sense of purpose to the pure!
Indeed, you are male and female in one,
Patron of war and wisdom,
You are fluid of form, a dragon,
Infused with inspiration of the Gods!”
(www.globaltown.com/shawn/athena.html)

Elsewhere, I have pointed out how the androgynous warlike Athena was a friend to Greek heroes, but she wasn’t so helpful to women. Deborah Lyons, in Chapter 3 of Gender and Immortality, details Athena’s bias against her own sex, but even without reading Lyons’ interesting essay, in the passage above, you can see Athena destroying the feminine Medusa and eschewing her own sexuality. In what follows, we will look at some of the ways Athena hurt or destroyed mythological women.

Arachne

The story of Arachne told in Book 6 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses is one of the most familiar stories about Athena. Its theme is a familiar one: Comparison of mortals with gods tends to land the mortals in serious trouble. When Agamemnon couldn’t sail from Aulis, the seer Calchas deduced that the reason the winds wouldn’t rise was because Agamemnon had offended Artemis with a boast about the superiority of his hunting skills. Artemis, the goddess of hunting, took herself and her skills very seriously. A sacrifice appeased the goddess. Aphrodite’s specialty was beauty. The comparison of the beauty of the mortal Psyche with the goddess Aphrodite formed the background for the story of Cupid and Psyche familiar from the Metamorphoses (aka Golden Ass) of Apuleius. While ultimately there was a happy ending, to avert Aphrodite’s wrath, Psyche’s family abandoned their daughter to a lonely death. That sacrifice and the fulfillment of a series of impossible trials reconciled the goddess Aphrodite with the mortal Psyche.

The comparison of Arachne with the ultimate artist and craftswoman, Athena, had more enduring consequences.

Arachne had bragged that she could spin and weave as well as the goddess. Athena heard about it and challenged Arachne to a contest to prove her skill. Arachne had not boasted vainly, but that only inflamed Athena more. As Arachne superbly wove a depiction of the gods’ debaucheries, Athena decided to get revenge by making Arachne a permanent weaver. She turned her into a spider and from the name of the hapless mortal, we have the scientific name for spiders — arachnids.

One at the loom so excellently skill’d, That to the Goddess she refus’d to yield, (Ovid, Metamorphoses VI)

This the bright Goddess passionately mov’d,
With envy saw, yet inwardly approv’d.
The scene of heav’nly guilt with haste she tore,
Nor longer the affront with patience bore;
A boxen shuttle in her hand she took,
And more than once Arachne’s forehead struck.
Ovid

Iodama and Medusa

Athena killed Iodama, a mortal woman who was either her sister or her priestess. According to Pausanias, Athena turned Iodama to stone by means of the severed head of Medusa.

Medusa was another mortal who had suffered at Athena’s hands. For whatever reason, the goddess Athena, displeased with Medusa, turned her into a monster who could turn people to stone if they chanced to look upon her eyes or face. Not content with making Medusa into an anti-social monster, Athena helped Perseus decapitate Medusa. Since Perseus couldn’t directly cut off Medusa’s head without risking being turned to stone, Athena held a mirrored shield for Perseus to look into while he worked. Perseus gave the lithifying head to Athena as a reward for her help.

When Iodama glanced at the head of Medusa, it turned her to stone.

[9.34.2] The following tale, too, is told. Iodama, who served the goddess as priestess, entered the precinct by night, where there appeared to her Athena, upon whose tunic was worked the head of Medusa the Gorgon. When Iodama saw it, she was turned to stone. [Pausanias]

Pallas vs Athena

From Deborah Lyons: Gender and Immortality
Another similar story is told about Pallas, the daughter of Triton, whose death Athena caused indirectly while they were practicing martial arts. In Apollodorus’ account Pallas is also a sort of stepsister of Athena, who is being raised by Pallas’ father Tritonos. These sibling relations between goddess and mortals are extraordinary, not least for the genealogical and theological difficulties they would create if taken seriously. Nothing similar is found between gods and heroes, nor for any other goddess.

Original (1999) Online References

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