Oct

23

I Almost Felt Bad

October 23, 2009 by Brandon | 7 Comments

A 20 year old Home Depot worker was fired recently in Florida, apparently over a button which read, “One nation under God, indivisible.”

Now I know what you’re thinking. Big deal. Frankly, at first I agreed. Who cares? Why should he be fired for that? He wore the button for 19 months without incident. That is… until he started toting a Bible to work, too.

Trevor Keezer says at this point his manager confronted him about the button. “That’s when I was told it had to come off, or I would be sent home. So they sent me home for six straight days without pay. And then today they terminated me,” he said.

Notice the omission there where he doesn’t tell you that he refused to remove the button, and that’s why he was sent home without pay and then fired. He was admittedly given an option to remove it, which he apparently didn’t.

So now I can’t feel bad for the idiot. The article doesn’t really detail exactly why he was confronted about the button after it had been ignored for so long, but honestly all it will take is one customer or employee complaint. Keezer was technically breaking the dress code with the button, and Home Depot issued a statement saying that they have their own buttons for employees to wear, including one in support of the US, which states, “United We Stand.” Why didn’t he accept that button? Showing support for the military was Keezer’s real concern, after all. Wasn’t it?

Apparently not.. Keezer said he preferred to wear his button because, “you can’t have country without God. Every pin they showed me had no ‘God’ on it or anything.”

Well no shit, Sherlock. If the company endorsed a button that said that, they’d probably have a real religious discrimination case on their hands, rather than firing your stupid ass for not complying with their dress code policy and the request of your superior to follow that policy.

Let me make this clear. The way you avoid religious discrimination is by ignoring all religions. If you give special treatment to one without giving it to the others, you are now discriminating. It is against the law.

It should come as no surprise that the local bumpkins are up in arms over this, because a company dared to refuse their God special treatment. They’re calling for boycotts of Home Depot, and some other local company is saying they’re going to order buttons for their employees to wear.

I assure you, if I was working there, and they made me wear a button that said that, or refused to allowed me to wear a button that said “One nation, under Ceiling Cat,” there would be trouble.



Oct

22

Two Tickets For The Ghost Hunters

October 22, 2009 by Brandon | 2 Comments

Jason and Grant, the two plumbers behind the hit Sci-Fi (SyFy) channel series Ghost Hunters, which has now spawned no less than two spin-offs, were here in York, Pennsylvania at the Penn State Pullo Center, and I was lucky enough to get two tickets for the event.

As you know, I don’t believe in ghosts. Or spirits. Or demons. Or angels. Or even the idea that there is such a thing as a “residual” haunting caused by trapped emotional energy or whatever they want to make up. I do, however, enjoy their shows for a variety of reasons. For one, I like to get scared, and to accomplish this I am willing to play make-believe for an hour just as everyone else does when they go see a movie like Transformers. Two, out of all the paranormal “reality” TV shows that are out there, the Ghost Hunters do make the best effort to actually debunk claims and look for any kind of alternative explanation. This is simply an attempt to make themselves seem more credible, so that when something does happen they appear justified in saying that it must be a ghost because they can’t explain it. Of course, we know that this is a logical fallacy, and all it really means is that they can’t explain it. Still, I do appreciate it when they tell people the banging noise in their home at 3am isn’t a ghost, but old heating pipes.

That being said, Jason and Grant pretty much ruined the entire event which I had been looking forward to in their opening statement. Again, I went to be entertained, and was willing to set aside my disbelief so that I might get a few scares from the audio and video clips they played. First, they came right out and said they aren’t scientists, and they do not rely on the scientific method at all during their investigations. This is humorous because they proudly proclaim all this “evidence” they gather, but if they aren’t gathering it in a scientific fashion, their “evidence” is bogus.

Then they had to issue a disclaimer, apparently because the state of California requires it, and they do work in California.

The disclaimer, which they mocked, was a statement that forced them to acknowledge that what they’re doing is complete bull. That it is in no way a scientific field. They were presenting it via powerpoint presentation, and they displayed the text on the theatre screen, playfully sped through reading it like it was some infomercial disclaimer, and literally ended it with “Blah, blah, blah…” on the screen.

Needless to say, this irritated me a little. Because here are some guys who claim to be hell-bent on presenting the world with evidence that ghosts and the paranormal exist. They get up on a stage and proceed to not only deny using the only tool we have to gather evidence and verify any sort of unknown or hypothesis, but go out of their way to ridicule it like it’s worthless. Instead, they say they rely on their “common sense.”

Well, good for you. Unfortunately, when it comes to common sense, we are not all equal; some have more than others, while some, like these two, apparently have none.



Oct

17

Paranormal Activity

October 17, 2009 by Brandon | 5 Comments

People would probably be surprised to know that scary movies involving religiously tainted or paranormal stories are among my most favorite movies, including, but not limited to, The Blair Witch Project and Stigmata. Just to give you an idea.

So obviously I was pretty excited that Paranormal Activity, an extremely low-budget film that had a viral ad campaign on the intertubes, received enough attention to be released in theatres nationwide. The film followed in the same vein as the above mentioned The Blair Witch Project, in that it was shot with a simple handheld camorder. The film follows a young couple who have recently moved in together. It’s explained at the start by the boyfriend, who bought the camorder, that his intent was to document some strange occurrences which have been keeping them awake at night.

The movie itself doesn’t rely on the usual tricks that will make you jump from surprise, but instead gradually makes you feel more and more uneasy as the recorded nights you’re viewing progress and stranger and stranger things occur.

What the idea that will perhaps scare most people is that the paranormal activity the couple are trying to endure in the film isn’t caused by a ghost, but by some demonic creature that has been attached to the girl nearly all her life. Why is this thought scary? Well let’s assume you live in a new house, with no reason to suspect that anyone died anywhere near the property. Why would you be scared of a ghost? Instead the film postulates that this sort of possession can afflict anyone at any time, no doubt causing movie-goers to second guess what that bump in the night just might be.

Truly the movie scared me, which is ironic because obviously I don’t believe in any of this. Still, I never really cared much for the dark; deep inside everyone is a lingering, primal fear of what can’t be seen in blackness of night. The dark can be a dangerous place, and it was even more dangerous for our ancestors who learned it’s best to keep out of it, lest you want to be some wild animal’s meal. But in times where one need not venture out into the woods and caverns, religion and superstition filled our imaginations with other terrible things to keep that part of the brain alive and well.

There are some emotions which, no matter how rational you want to be about it, still get the better of you.



Oct

14

Which Brings Me To Tonight’s Word

October 14, 2009 by Brandon | 10 Comments

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word – Symbol-Minded
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore


Oct

12

Think Or Be Damned

October 12, 2009 by Brandon | 3 Comments

I came across a site that has a bunch of political cartoons dating back to the 1860’s through the turn of the century that discuss evolution.

A specific cartoon amazed me because it seems as though it could have been produced today rather than in 1899.

In the picture, men of science waving a flag reading “THINK OR BE DAMNED” aim a gatling gun titled “Enlightenment” toward a mob of pasters, priests, monks, and other religious folk, who are armed with primitive, dark age weapons and carry a flag reading “BELIEVE OR BE DAMNED.”

The barrels of the gun are individually named “History,” “Archaeology,” “Evolution,” and “Geology,” while the boxes of ammunition lying around are labled “Historical Facts,” “Scientific Facts,” and “Rational Religion.”

The religious mob ignorantly charges forward, but ultimately they’ll be mowed down by scientific progress. They don’t even stand a chance.

Again, this is a cartoon that was made back in 1899 and was depicting a battle between science and religion then, where scientists were killing superstition with the most devastating weapon of the day, yet we have people trying to tell us that this conflict is new.

Anyway, I thought it was amusing so I figured I’d share it.



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What is Fractal Wrongness?

The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person's worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

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