Black Hole Wars

 
I saw this at www.richarddawkins.net, and it was too juicy not to comment on.

Professor Susskind says

A black hole is what you get if you compress so much mass into a region of space that it collapses, under its own weight, to an infinitely small, dense, point called the “singularity.” Everything that gets too close to the black hole gets sucked in, and squashed beyond recognition. There is no escape from the singularity, even for a light ray. Someone falling into a black hole might try to send a message, on a beam of light, to the outside world: “Help, I’m being sucked in.” But even the light ray gets pulled back to the singularity.

There is a certain radius—a particular distance from the dangerous singularity—that I like to call “the point-of-no-return.” If you accidentally pass the point-of-no-return there is nothing you can do to escape; you and all your messages will get swept to the singularity and destroyed. The point-of-no-return is also called the horizon of the black hole.

Passing the horizon seems very innocent while it is happening. It’s like being in a rowboat above Niagara Falls. If you accidentally pass the point where the current is moving faster than you can row, you are doomed. But there is no sign—DANGER! POINT OF NO RETURN—to warn you. Maybe on the river there are signs but not at the horizon of a black hole.

When has religion ever produced such magnificent views? That's right, never.

One interesting point raised in the comments were about what was meant the by the scrambling of information. If the information is "scrambled", then does it not mean that the information has been destroyed, as Hawkings had suggested?

But Susskind seems to say otherwise, which seems to mean that the information is, theoretically at least, recoverable. If it's simply a random scrambling, then the original information would not be recoverable, and hence the information can be considered to be destroyed. Or have I utterly failed to understand the concept of information in theoretical physics?

On a different note, I am quite excited by the notion that Quantum Physics and the General Theory of Relativity are on a collision course. It should be entertaining.
 

Jesus: Devil or Dingbat?

 
It's quite fascinating the way Christians can come up with convoluted interpretations to justify their views. The usual claim is that the more vile passages in the Bible were meant metaphorically, and that people have misunderstood them and used them to justify their harmful actions. But what does it tell about the person who preached them in the first place?

In an ancient civilization where slavery was common, if you preach them to keep slaves, and expect them to take it as a metaphor and not treat it literally, either you're endorsing slavery, or you're pretty stupid. So which was it? For Jesus, I mean. If he existed, that is.

Speaking of slavery, here's a wonderful passage from Professor Steven Weinberg, Nobel laureate in Physics.

It is certainly true that the campaign against slavery and the slave trade was greatly strengthened by devout Christians, including the Evangelical layman William Wilberforce in England and the Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing in America. But Christianity, like other great world religions, lived comfortably with slavery for many centuries, and slavery was endorsed in the New Testament. So what was different for anti-slavery Christians like Wilberforce and Channing? There had been no discovery of new sacred scriptures, and neither Wilberforce nor Channing claimed to have received any supernatural revelations. Rather, the eighteenth century had seen a widespread increase in rationality and humanitarianism that led others—for instance, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan—also to oppose slavery, on grounds having nothing to do with religion. Lord Mansfield, the author of the decision in Somersett's Case, which ended slavery in England (though not its colonies), was no more than conventionally religious, and his decision did not mention religious arguments. Although Wilberforce was the instigator of the campaign against the slave trade in the 1790s, this movement had essential support from many in Parliament like Fox and Pitt, who were not known for their piety. As far as I can tell, the moral tone of religion benefited more from the spirit of the times than the spirit of the times benefited from religion.

 

Christopher Hitchens : Religion

 
Christopher Hitchens says it all.



It's an old one, but it's one of my favorite Hitchens videos.
 

Better Dead than Gay?

 
Better to be Dead than Gay?

Good site giving information on suicide among LGBT people.

We know we all love to live. How much pain must one person go through to not want to live?

This suicide letter caught my eye. It is an excellent examples of the kind of suffering caused by "kind and compassionate" believers through their ignorance and stupidity:

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm sorry it had to end this way but it was my fate. I couldn't handle life anymore. You see, the reason I ran away before to commit suicide is the same reason I did again. I'm gay. I never wanted to be and I always wished it would change, but it didn't. I wanted to live a normal life but God created me this way for some reason and there was nothing I could do to change it. I was born this way, believe me I would not choose this way of life for I know how hard and unaccepted it is. I'm painfully sorry you all had to deal with this but I couldn't deal with it. This way I could live a peaceful afterlife instead of a life of fear, agony, and manic depressiveness. Please realize I did not want to hurt anyone I just wanted to end my own pain. I love you all dearly and will someday see you all again hopefully with your understanding hearts and souls. I just hope God will bring me to heaven.

Love always and eternally,
Bruce

Bruce was 21 when he wrote this, before jumping off a cliff to end his life.

Another revolting thing is when people "pray" when someone commits suicide in such a manner, instead of standing up to religion to make sure it doesn't happen again. Just as people prayed after 9/11.
 

Don't Blame the Religion, Blame the People Who Misinterpret It

 
"Don't blame the religion, blame the people who misinterpret it" - this is a tiring argument that I've constantly read and heard. This is a line of argument that you can almost always expect from so-called "moderate" believers.

According to this point of view, people do terrible things in the name of religion not because religion is evil, but because people are terrible by nature.

Of course people do terrible things, but that does not mean that religion is exempt from blame. Religion has incited men and women to do violence and injustice to their fellow humans, and will continue do so as long as it exists.

In the context of homophobia, the Abrahamic faiths provide good examples to show that religion can incite people to cause much pain and suffering.

Christianity has a very rich tradition of murdering and torturing gay people. The reply of many moderate believers is to say that people in ancient times were homophobic, and that they twisted the Bible to justify it. A look at how gay people have been treated elsewhere in the world blasts away this myth. Take countries that have had a Buddhist history, for example. Buddhism has it's share of homophobia, but it's quite mild when compared to what Christianity has to say about it. Why doesn't Buddhism have a history of murdering gay people? Why didn't they murder gay people and use their religion to justify it?

A look at Christian and Buddhist religious texts makes the answer clear: you cannot use Buddhist texts to justify murdering gays because no where do the texts mention such a thing. Christian(and those of other Abrahamic religions) texts, on the other hand calls unwaveringly to kill, kill, kill the gays. Of course, killing doesn't end things - that's just the beginning of the party. When the murdered gay guy goes to hell, the real fun begins - at least from Jesus' point of view. So it's clear that people didn't just "use" the Bible to justify their existing homophobia. The Bible gave them homophobia. Anyone who praises this vile book can only have a truly wicked mentality.

"The Bible is to gays what Mein Kampf is to Jews. It is the theory and practice of Homo Holocaust"
- Peter Tatchell

 

My First Youtube Video

 
 

What Boteach and Hitler have in Common

I first saw this guy from his debate with Hitchens. There's little to say about it other than Hitchens demolished him. Boteach didn't even try to fight, it seemed, and neither did he try to slither away in the way that Theologians like Dr. Alister McGrath do.

And then I saw this whole "storm in a teapot" as Dawkins put it. It seems that Boteach and Professor Dawkins have a wee bit of history, going back a couple of years when Boteach was living at Oxford.

Well, Boteach accused Dawkins of comparing him to Hitler, to which Dawkins' reply can be see in the above link. Dawkins says that he did not mean that Boteach thinks like Hitler.

On Boteach's web page, I saw this.

Clearly he doesn't understand much about homosexuality, but after all the drivel he comes to the final paragraph where he makes an open display of his hypocrisy:

While banning gay marriage is indeed discriminatory, so are the bans against polygamy and polyandry, which seem equally unfair. After all, a man who is married and has a mistress whom he only meets for sex has done nothing illegal (and in some countries has even proven his virility.) But if he suddenly desires to take responsibility for the woman and commit to her in marriage, he is thrown into jail. This is, of course, absurd because by doing so we reward causal sex and punish commitment. Still, amid the absurdity of the logic, nearly all agree that polygamy must remain strictly illegal so as to protect the single, time-honored definition of marriage: one man to woman. Period.

So he admits that all these bans are discriminatory, and still says it should be banned to protect the "single, time-honored definition of marriage: one man to woman". Is this dingbat for real? Your fucked-up religious values have no meaning in other people's lives, asshole!

Gay marriage does have a history, if you bother to look at history before the advent of the Judaeo-Christian religions, and other cultures poisoned by the Abrahamic faiths.

Well, it seems now that Dawkins was mistaken when he said Boteach didn't think like Hitler. Well, Mr. Boteach, when it comes to the matter of homosexuality, it seems that you and Hitler are indeed like minded.
 

Are all Christians Homophobes?

No, but they all support homophobia.

You cannot support the bible without supporting homophobia. Why not?

There is no one singular way to interpret the bible. If there were, then there would be a logical description of how to correctly interpret the bible and everyone would follow this one true interpretation. But this is not the case. The faith of the believer plays a part in its interpretation. Therefore, once you give any validation to one faith-based-interpretation, you have to give validity to all of them. You cannot select it à la carte.

It's a bit like donating money to the Republican campaign. The Republicans pander to the homophobia of the people, and you cannot give money to the campaign and say you don't support homophobia.

Which is why all-forms of religion need to be eradicated, fundamentalist or moderate. Religion - Abrahamic ones in particular, is not the single cause of homophobia, but it is the main cause. Eradication of religion may not eradicate homophobia completely, but certainly eradicating homophobia could never be done if religion is not eradicated. In this sense, one could wonder if it is a possible goal at all, but whether possible or not, it is certainly worth trying, at least for every LGBT person. We ourselves might not get much out of it, but do it for the future generations.

Gay Victims of the Holocaust

I know there's a zero chance of it happening, but I wish I could one day meet one of the survivors...
 

Love

Song : True Colors by Sarina Paris