Atheism Corner

Humanity in Progress

Feeling Bad About TED

by Leave a Comment

A while ago I posted some angry post about (what I called) the worst TED talk ever, and since that post I have been feeling bad about it, not because I think that the talk is any good, but because there are hundreds – if not thousnads of other amazing talks on this site, and that it is the prime site for inspirational and groundbreaking ideas presented to the people without anyone getting in the way.

So here is one great talk, by Paul Nicklen (watch it here), who talks about his work taking photos of animals in Antarctica. There is a sub theme to this talk and its about global warming or specifically the melting of the ice caps, by now I hope most of you know that global warming is not true, that it is a naturally occurring process moved mainly by sun spots and not by human activity, and that every couple of hundred years this happens, and we got nothing to do with this. In other words if this talks moves you (as it moved me) you should think about this courageous person dedicating his life to explore this place and its many life forms, not about how you can tax people in the western world for omitting a gas that is one of the four main elements to life on this planet.

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_nicklen_tales_of_ice_bound_wonderlands.html

Rome Still Stands (Or Stands Still)

by Leave a Comment

The prediction was wrong, in this case the one that Italian dictator the Fascist Mussolini awarded with a medal, was wrong, or at least has only 6-7 hours to get it right, Rome did not experience the worst earthquake of the modern era, and it is still alive and well, and still.

The idea of pulling this one on the Italians is a good idea, since they are known to pray more to individual saints than to the lord itself (its a kind of personalized request audition), these people are no fools when it comes to predictions and profecies, or in other words – they do not want to be the only ones that did not believe.

6 hours to go on this one.

No Pasta Today - Rome Might Shake

The Drunken Crazies of Tahrir Square

by 2 Comments

This Monday the TV show “60 minutes” had an interview with its own report Lara Logan, who had been covering the story out of Eygpt Tahrir square on the eve of the revolution, unfortunatly she was attacked by a crowd of happy drunken men who wanted to rape and kill her.

Wait! they can not have been drunk, its Egypt – a Muslim country and not many people consume alcohol – even on an exciting evening like that. So, what was the reason they attacked her?, surprisingly the interview does not cover that, even though the “why” question is pretty basic to good reporting.

The interview does say this – “someone shouted “she’s Jewish, she’s Israeli, she is neither…”, ah, so if she was Israeli or Jewish (or both) it would have covered the “why”, question answered, makes sense, a Jew in Egypt can not expect anything less than rape and death, nice job “60 minutes”, I don’t see any awards coming your way for this one.

So, no alcohol, a crowd of exclusively male crazies all working together without disruption to rape a foreign woman and tear her apart in a celebration for the freedom of the country, what religion covers that one? ah, yes, its Islam.

Its Islam, in which any woman not covering herself up is to blame for any male responce, its Islam where a non Muslim is concidered fair game, and can be raped or killed without any punishment, because it is not something that this religion respects (I mean female human being – of any other religion – are not respected, just look at what they do to their own girls).

And this small, silly little fact managed to escape the producers and good people of “60 Minutes”, they almost get it in the end when the brave and almost heroic Logan says that some people started talking about her breaking the silence, about women being attacked in Muslim countries, but nothing to say about why men think its OK to do this, and why they do not see it in any way to being morally wrong. Shame.

Brave Reporter Logan Before Her Attack

Comfort Could Mean Death

by 1 Comment

Scary title, ha?

I love TED, its probably my most visited site over the years, and I spend most of my lunch time in front of one of its many brilliant talks, it never failed me, well, until yesterday. As I was tuning in for one of the talks, I saw a presentation called “A radical experiment in Empathy” by sociologist Sam Richards, the name alone got me thinking and I went in and clicked it.

This presenter is obviously an educated man, he also presents well and has some sense of drama and theater in him, the keynote is designed well as well. I do encourage you to go and see at least the few opening minutes of his talk. And why was I so disappointed by what he said? Well, because I think he got it all wrong, and I also think that if a man of this standing could get it SO wrong and go out to display it to the world there are many others that do the same thing.

I do not know Mr. Sam Richards, and I have not a clue as to what he did and who he is beyond the very short description on TED, but it seems to me that he had come to the conclusion that we need to put ourselves in the shoes of others to really and truly understand them, and I agree. But he does it all wrong. See, he plays a little game and tries to think like an person living in Iraq, he tries to show the audience how easy it is to see the Americans as a religious fanatics coming to wage war on them because of their resources. Maybe he thought of this idea in his office in the university for a long time, maybe even his whole career, maybe he went to Iraq and lived with a family for a few years and discussed with them day in and day out the meaning of the war, maybe.

If he did, he missed the point.

To assume that the average Iraqi did not experience any grief or trouble before the American invasion, to think that the Iraqi people are all more or less the same, to assume that fear and terror is new to them is a mistake. Iraq, like many other countries in that region, is made of tribes, if you move further away you will see that most of those tribes focus on a different version of religion, if you’re Iraqi Muslim you can be sonnie or shiite, you can also be a Kurd, and all of these tribes have got bad blood between them for ages. To add to this their version of religion determines that the other versions are so wrong that its followers are infidels and need to be destroyed. Another thing that is common to all the versions is an apocalyptic story about the end of time, and it usually involves some outer force coming in and during bad things, so that any event like this soon sparks the nutters and crazies into action.

I did not do my own research, but I do know how many Muslims think, or better yet – follow their leaders thoughts, there is no place for empathy, infidels are on earth to stop and delay the coming of the glory-ending of this place, they are an obstacle to anything that is good and as long as these infidels live there will not be a happy ending and god will not be pleased. There is no regard to children of infidels because if they will stop and start to think about them they could not decapitate them or their parents. The war that is going on now, in eyes of religious Muslims, makes complete sense because if they would have the power they would quickly do the same to the west, as is commanded in their holy books and scripture.

The comfort of live leads many to sit and ponder why things are the way they are (“why does the Arab world hate us?”) and one can easily make the mistake of thinking that everyone is the same, that education systems around the world are the same, and that cultures all teach the same thing. But that is not true, and from that very basic mistake you get a 20 minute talk about something that is just not real, and probably the worst TED talk I ever saw.

The only good that this talk can do is to show people how well intentioned individuals can make inflated theories of people when they do not know what motivates these people and who they really are, what education and belief systems that follow and to what degree.

Lots of Rich People Singing for the English God

by Leave a Comment

Lets not forget that this is not the Catholic church, but an individual version of a church (“the church of England”) that was founded by Henry the VIII, mainly to solve his own personal issues, but hi, who would argue with god’s king?

So, just if you are bored looking at the faces of rich spoiled royals singing songs for a god that does not exists, check out this from Wiki –

 

The first Act of Supremacy was a piece of legislation that granted King Henry VIII of England Royal Supremacy, which means that he was declared the supreme head of the Church of England. It is still the legal authority of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. Royal Supremacy is specifically used to describe the legal sovereignty of the civil laws over the laws of the Church in England.

More here