Humble

humble brother wrote:

This has to be:
“I don’t believe anything without evidence”
Then they post another message:
“I believe no gods exist”
That’s the very definition of irrational thinking.
Many of these funny atheists also say:
“Nonexistence of evidence is evidence of nonexistence”
Can you believe these yahoos?

The reason that these statements appear contradictory
is because you don’t understand what they actually mean

because you do not understand naturalism or the study of nature, which is science

Statement: “I don’t beleive things without evidence”

This does not mean that I have to personally evaluate or experience or understand – this is an incorrect literal interpretation – and only literally interpreting text means that you are not only missing the subtext, nuances and meaning, but you are not understanding what’s being communicated at all. Nothing is only what it appears to be.

In naturalism, belief is used to describe the moment that they accept the premise without further evaluation. Okay, proved as much as it can be, next steps and build to the next belief from there – and all the beliefs and proofs are peer reviewed, debated, evaluated and eventually, the bad beliefs are proven faulty and the good beliefs are rolled up into a Scientific Theory.

Because while it’s true – Evolution is just a theory – but that also means, religion is just an opinion – because there is no corroborating evidence to support any of the significant claims of any religion that involves deities doing anything.

That the stories told to explain the religion or the events they claim as being relevant to the religion – are no different from Sex in the City – that New York is a real place and some of the locations were real locations that even involved real people who are in the real life real locations – doesn’t mean that Carrie Bradshaw and her friends are real – or even realistic.

Forest Gump – with all it’s incorporated newsreel footage should have made people come to that understanding – a story about real things involving characters who are dubious – aren’t true stories – they are fables and parables, passion plays – they are a means of conveying truth without being truth.

And the problem of reading religious texts as literal isn’t the religious text – it’s  reading any writing of any kind as literal.

People think of literacy as being able to read. That’s only stage one.

Being able to read just means you aren’t illiterate – it doesn’t make you a literary reader – because that’s about comprehension.

If you read only for the literal meaning of any writing, then you can read it but you have no understanding of it – because you are not a reader, you are just reading.

And you don’t have to be an expert, you just have to be familiar with literature and the forms of artistic expression – something that people who only beleive in one book can’t understand because they haven’t read enough other books to see the literary aspects of their bible – especially the King James version – the most poetic book ever written by a committee – but, this being the source, it’s only as good as a committee without the original authors could make it.

To a naturalist, to beleive something means accepting a premise that has been arrived at over time, and revealed through the collective and cooperative work of many people who have made logical and intuitive leaps arising from their robust and complex understanding of the work.

To beleive isn’t an acceptance without question, but to come to understand potential, probability, random chance and verified foundations that have withstood the test of human knowledge – which is why science changes over time – because it’s a process of incorporating new information and ideas.

Whereas, religion is handed down complete and unchanged – except for fits and starts where it had to change to remain in the world, instead of consigned to the mythology section of the book store.

“I beleive no gods exist”

That is a leap, not of faith, but a statement of credibility and logic.

It’s not an emotional beleive that is felt because belief in a god or gods is an emotional belief that is satisfying and makes you feel comforted and connected

There is no emotional content in the statement that no gods exist, it is a logical and intellectual position that means

many have claimed a god or gods, but none have proven or provided any evidence – thus, there are no premises, evidence, work that has been presented that is verifiable.

religion is not a theory, it’s a hypothesis – and not even a good guess based on wishful and magical thinking and without substance – it is pure emotion and emotion alone.

instead, people through the ages have tried to sort out how to make the world a better place and how to communicate those ideas – and not knowing or understanding the human body

opened themselves up to experiences – often drug related – and felt things and the way that their personal expereinced felt could only be interpreted through what they beleived about the world

so the washes of love and comfort where mis-interpreted as gifts from the gods and the person went out in the world and figured out how to make others feel the same way – and that feeling became the basis by which converts were made and some people who got into religion, saw the potential for wealth and power and that was the end of the goodness of religion.

“Nonexistence of evidence is evidence of nonexistence”

When there is no evidence, there is no trail to follow to discovery and understanding

because you say there’s a god and I say there’s an invisible pink unicorn who farts rainbows that cause all those same good feelings that you get from your god

so – it all comes down to your personal experience

I have as much proof for my rainbow farting invisible pink unicorn

as you do for your god

and in person, I can trigger in your brain all the same good feelings that you get from church

so prove that your god is real and my unicorn isn’t.

and you can’t, because all you can talk about is your experience of your religion and why it seems real to you

and I can talk about the human brain and explain all those feelings that you feel without reverting to goddidit

The Way that I think about things…..

I am Canadian.

To most people, that means a beer commercial.

To Canadians, it means what that beer commercial signifies – and outside of Canada – no one knows what that means because while Canada has always punched above our weight class because we were riding along in America’s wake and the wide swath that they have cut across the world – Canada has never asserted itself on the world stage.

Yes, we were the midwife nation of NATO, yes our forces are in demand for UN Peacekeeping missions, and yes, we play younger sibling nation to America – and I will save that complex story for another time – because Canada does love America – because America is very much what Canada would like to be – but we can’t compete with America with 10 times our population.

Because Canada is not competitive by our nature – we’re small town no matter how big our cities get – because while America is a melting pot (which all the nuances of being lowest common denominator to distilled into essential elements to cream rising to the top) – CANADA is a multi-cultural society and our national debate is not White and Black People – but English Speaking versus French Speaking – which isn’t about any particular people – but is a region to region struggle that everyone is swept up with.

Canada is geographically larger than America, but most of Canada is not easily livable land – Vancouver – known locally as Raincouver – is Canada’s warmest city and it is one of the mostly culturally diverse cities in Canada – Vancouver being the Gateway to the Pacfic Rim that includes Australia (our other sibling who moved farther away from Parental UK and who forged their own adult nationhood image on the world stage), while Canada has been the tugboat to America’s Ocean Liner or Battleship, depending on how you view America.

I prefer the Ocean Liner, because – as I formed my lunch companions at work one day at RCMP when I was lunching with 9 uniformed and armed *corporals to inspector* : “uniforms are more of a fetish than a lifestyle thing for me.”

I have always enjoyed Jewish people best because they combined the certainty of their religion with a Canadian keep it to yourself and don’t even believe it overly much, because hey, we can’t really know so agnostic is the most enlightened religious view like being bisexual is less judgmental than mono-sexuals (be they at the straight end  or the gay end – most of the spectrum if not the people are in the bell curve distribution and not at either end – so why is there such a public push to pretend that everyone with few exceptions is all at the straight end that’s aberrant to the bell curve distribution?), certainly, don’t go pushing and recruiting other people.

Canadian – our public education system which is not hampered or interfered with by religious groups – means that all Canadian children are given a secular education about the history of people – how we’ve lived in the past, understanding how we came to live as we do now, to learn arts and science at age appropriate levels – but our education system is designed to keep people learning – not in silos of information – history there, science here and art over there in the poor part of the school

but how history is driven by science and pushed by arts

So part of why I seem so smart is because the Canadian public education system is better than American private schools for school aged children (and the other part is because I am as smart as I am a pain in certain types of people’s asses)

and Canadian private schools for children, tend to be religious schools and there’s a misconception that you get a better education there – but you can’t.

Religion teaches religion and they dominate their subjects with religion, inserting or asserting it where it does not belong – and as a consequence, the students may learn more details about history but they are not true details; they have been tainted by the religious framework the education exists within.

we know from science that the observer taints the observed.

so when you start with a tainted framework (religion is an answer, not a question) – then nothing that flows from that framework can be trusted to be true.

Science is a question, a multi-generational and multi-cultural means to arrive at answers, providing for best answers based on understanding right now (a scientific theory), but which is robust and modular enough to allow new data to be incorporated or cause a shift to a new theory.

Philosophy is a question, a means to arrive at answers, individually, culturally and within schools of thought.

Art is a question, a means to share partial answers arrived at by the art creator in the context of the conventions of the artistic form framed within the whole of art – history, expression modes – we create art to allow anyone who can see to participate in the art and be inspired or gain insight – because for most of human history, the majority of people couldn’t read – and now with literacy rates the highest they have ever globally been (Iceland has close to an 100% literacy rate for example).

Religion is an answer that no one who had not already been exposed to the idea of religion would arrive at – no matter how long they navel gazed.

Religion says supernatural agency – and everything that humans do has a natural cause because humans cause what’s happened to humans – all our physical, technological and civilization advances – but our own work and efforts.

so why give credit to a no-show deity who can create a universe and everything in it – but not a simple marketing campaign resulting in one true religion for the one true god -

because there’s been 10s of THOUSANDS of religions with even more gods, godesses and divine demi beings in human history – and in America – anyone with a bible and a strong personality can become an important Televangelist with a direct line to the President if they can get enough people to bloc vote as directed.

at least in Europe, religion is more organized and like Microsoft, stamped out competition through the centuries (aka Crusades, Knights Templar)

and like any dictator – when the Church got rid of the external competition – they purges the internal supporters who’s graps exceeded the Church’s.

The Knights Templar were the first multi-national banking corporation with more gold reserves than the Catholic Church – and God-Pretenders – do not like direct competition, just like their jealous small god who demands that no other gods are worshipped.

whew – so that’s what I learned from grade 1 to grade 7. Then I went to high school and learned more details to fill out that framework and then I went to university and studied film and art history and I wrote for the student paper and I was a DJ on the student radio station and I always felt drawn to the gay and lesbian groups and people but not interestingly the feminist womens studies people or resource room.

In fact, I recall a huge outcry on the campus about a guy who wandered into the Women’s Studies resource room and finding it quiet and empty, laid down on a couch and fell asleep because everywhere else was so loud or filled with napping students.

The mountain that this mole threw up into sharp relief was astounding – I could NOT beleive that *in Canada* in 1990, there was such fury over a guy, half asleep and bleary from study, wandering into the first unoccupied room he could find and laid down and had a nap.

I mean, remember in the Michael Moore documentary that compared Canada to America by opening front doors of homes in Toronto – Canada’s big city?

Putting aside the facts of the making of the documentary – the idea is what’s important – in many places in Canada – not big cities – people really don’t lock their doors – because most places in Canada are not hospitable and the ancient idea of public shelter along trade routes – hostels, safehouses, sanctuaries – these are not separate places to most Canadians – this is how we view our homes.

So when things like plane crashes in Peggy’s Cove happens – the towns people got out in their fishing boats and searched in vain for survivors with the Coast Guard and official Search and Rescue – so when it was downgraded to Search Only – the towns people then opened up their homes to the officials and families of the people who perished in the crash.

Because that’s how Canada rolls. So when 9/11 happened – Newfoundland’s Gander Airport was were most American planes were diverted – and Vancouver International Airport was the western hub of shutting down America’s airline industry because of an international terrorist event.

So, it should be obvious why the persistent lie that the 9/11 Perps came through Canada, because the perps were never in Canada, is hurtful but we understand just how hurt America was and that when hurts are that big the safest people to lash out against are the ones that you can most trust will still be there for you when the hurting part of the hurt is over – but all the people that they displaced were welcomed into Canada, into our very homes and hearts.

Canada stands to service America and we’re happy to do it because it’s that PARTNERSHIP with America that allows us to play on the world’s stage, far above our weight class, we are the least dominate of the G20 countries.

But as other nations fell in the American Sub-Prime Mortgage Debacle that somehow the Car Companies took the fall for – Canada did not – because Canada has always had transparency and accountablity as a government regulatory framework.

So when Canadian politicians try to act like American politicians – and especially their assertion that Canada’s government needs to be smaller and streamlined – what they are really saying is:

I can’t bend the system to my will because it is a transparent and accountable framework already – designed to prevent any person or political party from gumming up the works with their secret or private agendas.

Because the government of Canada is NOT the government of the day. The Government of Canada is the Public Service – rank and file Canadians from all regions, all cultures present in Canada – it is a government of and by the people.

And, as a person who has spent the last 13 years working in 7 Federal Departments – I have learned what has stopped Canada from putting on the weight to back up the kind of peacekeeping, homespun common sense, behind the scenes facilitator – to punch on our own – to stop being America’s Beaver Sidekick and be The Beavenator on the world stage.

Because seriously, if there’s one thing that the world world and everyone in it needs – is to curl up with a nice fat and warm beaver.

But it’s that’s too Canadian Coy, let me Americanize what I am saying.

Everyone needs to bed a wet beaver.

probably still too Canadian.

Why I want to be Prime Minister of Canada

Clifford Olsen.

He is the reason that I want to be Prime Minister of Canada.

Because, when I was in grade seven at Richard McBride Elementary School in New Westminster BC – Clifford Olsen molested, kidnapped and murdered more children than he was ever charged with, because the Justice System at the time – much like what was done with Willie Pickton – charge for the minimum number of victims as possible to ensure a life sentence – so as to not create a gold standard for other murderers to surpass.

It’s not because I encountered him and lived to tell – but it is because I was able to face him and not become his victim that I feel an obligation to consider being Prime Minister of Canada.

It’s not entirely because the high school offered a course in career planning and part of that involved entering your work preferences and interests into a computer program called CHOICES that would then crunch through a database of 10,000 jobs and then give you a list of options.

The instructions were to print any results that had fewer than 10 careers.

My first five searches, with all or most of my criteria, unsurprisingly to me but in total shock to the teacher – resulted in zero careers.

I was simply trying to fit too much in – so I had to prioritize and compromise and finally, I was getting jobs for my search results.

The First Result was one job: Prime Minister of Canada.

The next few result lists still had Prime Minister as best suited and Movie Producer as second – other careers included communications/marketing, computer or other sciences, and creative writing/editor – publishing.

I probably still have the dot matrix print outs somewhere.

So the reason why Clifford Olsen makes me want to be Prime Minister is because the Justice System has become a system under which prisoners and accused are ensured a fair trial and that we have actually gone so far as to make the Justice System unresponsive to victims of crime and barely tolerate the families of victims who cannot speak for themselves anymore.

Don’t misunderstand – I am for prisoner rights and safety – and I am even more for the safety of prison guards and administrators – because let’s face it – they are in the prison as a day job – not because they did something wrong.

But I do not see that a system designed to contain the prison population from rioting – by offering “faint hope” of parole, by offering rehabilitation, training and education to allow prisoners the opportunity to become socially capable and responsible citizens upon release – is serving either the prison population or Canadians.

Worse, I do not think there is much justice when the perpetrator of a horrific crime – such as murder – is given every chance possible to become a responsible citizen – and the family of the victim is given no support and no meaningful voice – heck – they are the one who lost a love one – the crime is against that Family more than it is against the Crown or The People.

The loss happened to the family of the victim and they don’t get support that remotely approaches what convicted criminals get – and worse – they have to not only suffer the loss of their loved one – but also have to endure an investigation into their loved one that the impact is often – well, the perp is innocent until proven guilty – so not only do you have to endure the loss of your loved one – but also the idea that they might have brought it upon them self – as appalling an idea that is.

But that’s how it plays in the mind of the family: I have lost my loved one – and this person who is responsible for ending that life – now has to be treated with kid gloves and all kinds of consideration – even when there is little room for doubt – even when the evidence is clear, because one wrong step by police, and the warrant is voided and the evidence is gone from trial consideration.

The need for police procedures and following those procedures is clear. However, I am just going to say this – I would rather Canada have to pay restitution to a wrongfully imprisoned person than allow any obviously by the evidence honestly obtained even if not excessively technically corrected obtained guilty people walk free.

I would reduce the number of wrongfully convicted by ensuring people are not wrongfully arrested at the start or at the least, aren’t taken to trial.

Because the change that I would like to see to the Criminal Justice System is that the police are insulated enough from public and political pressure to not just investigate and arrest whoever is the first good fit.

Remember Clifford Olsen?

My Dad used to jog in Queen Elizabeth Park in New Westminster – probably because he had a beard and because he didn’t have a fancy track suit – the police followed him for a while before Olsen was caught. It was very distressing to know you were being followed by police and weren’t doing anything to warrant it in the best of circumstances so it hasn’t helped by the highly public search for a child killer.

Olsen didn’ t have a beard, the police just had no leads – because when you look at the “solved” murder figures – most murders are solvable because the murderer is known to the victim. Stranger murders, lacking the victim connection, are harder to generate leads or investigation headway.

But that’s not why Olsen makes me want to be Prime Minister.

It was Olsen using the faint hope process and whatever press access he had from solitary confinement – that allowed Olsen to continue to physiologically torture the victim families, and his living victims, specifically and British Columbians generally.

That’s not justice for anyone and it’s an extension of prisoner rights beyond personal safety and Charter Right guarantees.

And if people are so concerned that law abiding gays and lesbians not be given “special rights” – special in this case being the same rights applied meaningfully to the individual circumstance – then I have to wonder – if law abiding gays and lesbians can’t have special rights – why then are criminals and prisoners allowed not only special rights, but vigilant protection of their range of rights by the provincial and federal government?

Why are victims and their families or the families of victims – given the least consideration, protection and the smallest voice? Haven’t they been victimized enough without Establishment marginalizing victims and their families even more?

For a party that rode into Ottawa on a law and order victim rights agenda – the Reform turned CCRAP (remember when they called themselves Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party? they shoulda had to have kept that name) to whatever they are now being helmed by Mr. Stephen Harper; I can’t say that the party’s treatment of former MP Chuck Cadman gave me the impression that they cared about victims.

And I am a bit baffled by the Widow Cadman both suing the party for how they treated her husband AND being the Conservative MP in Chuck’s riding – the first riding in Canada to ever elect an Independant MP – Chuck Cadman after he was ousted by the party in favour of another candidate – who – I don’t recall if the Conservative Candidate got any votes, whoever it was.

In any event, although he was originally elected within a party that I am not likely to ever join, Chuck Cadman was an outstanding MP who became the first elected independent and he cast the critical vote that extended the Paul Martin government of that day.

But I don’t have any impression of his widow as an MP. No clue about her whatsoever. I don’t know if no impression is accurate, but I rarely read the local community papers – so maybe someone out there can comment here about Donna Cadman, MP?

It’s all very confusing when you look at the facts absent of context, but context leads to editorial and that often leads to …. probably some kind of lawsuit.

So, I want to be Prime Minister of Canada because I have always stood up against bullies and protected their intended targets from harm.

Which is a little bit what Canada does on an international scale – Canada is Peacekeeping – and we punch above our weight class because we have America to the south who we ride along with.

And Canadians are good with that – we don’t want to run the world, we just want to help make the world run a little more peacefully for everyone.

The world needs more Canada – not Canada the American Lite Edition.

The world needs more of traditional Canada – human rights equality, peacekeeping, universal health care and more.

Because governments should execute laws on behalf of citizens, not execute citizens or enact persecution laws or worse, undermine the existing laws and dismantle the social safety net.

Because it’s a lot cheaper to prevent crime through poverty reduction, legalized marijuana and decriminalized other drugs, through public eduction & health, grants & contributions for small business and fostering a society where everyone’s survival needs are met and the only limit to anyone’s thrive-al needs is down to their own hard work and talent – than to manage crime and build more prisons – aka prisoner universities and Club Fed resorts.

In fact, shouldn’t everyone be concerned that the current government of the day is planning to build more prisons while allowing Canada to no longer be the world’s leader of medical radioactive isotopes?

Shouldn’t everyone be concerned that some of the first things that PM Harper did upon taking office was shutting down the Charter Challenge program and gutting The Department of Status of Women? And slashing arts and community event funding? And now, despite his promise to accept Canadians acceptance of marriage equality, somehow, gay marriage is front page news again?

Do we really want a government who is more interested in imprisoning Canadians than ensuring employment and economic opportunity?

Do we really want anyone as Prime Minister who’s Canada doesn’t include everyone who’s already part of Canada?

Yesterday was my 44th Birthday

I wanted to show you the cake that my family made: 1 month of planning, 3 days of work:

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Best.Birthday.Cake.Ever

Censored

Manic Adjustment

I wanted to talk about something about Canada that’s not working for me today.

But circumstances vary day to day and I am feeling a little blue and a little vulnerable – so I can’t talk or even think about what’s not working because I don’t think that I can avoid falling int a pit of despair.

So I am going to go play Fallout: New Vegas – a Post Apocalyptic game with strong cowboy frontier vibes and a Vegas Elvis undertone and go roam the wasteland doing good deed for Pixel People (in game characters) until I feel a little bit better about being in the world and I may be back later today to talk about the Canadian Criminal Justice System and how we have to assure basic personal sovergienty rights to prisoners, but must not allow prisoners to continue to victimize their victims or their victim’s families from inside prison during their incarceration.

Because the point of prison was to allow the public and victims of crime to feel safe in society again – and as long as prisoners – like Clifford Olsen – was allowed to constantly torture and torment the families of his victims and the victims who never had their day in court against him – Olsen was free to continue to entertain himself at the psychological expense of everyone else who’s lives he had already ruined or stolen or tried to take or interfere with.

The purpose of prison is not to allow criminals to set up a base camp to continue their terror campaigns of the public – but to retrain, restore, redress and if necessary, to restrain those that would do harm to vulnerable citizens.

But instead of being a corrective process – prisons have become a government operated Criminal University and Club Fed for when criminal life gets too difficult and you just need to get away and have your life simplified and taken care of for you – until you’re ready to be parolled or released and back to your criminal antics or even bigger ones after study and reflection.

Anyway, I’m off to go roam New Vegas and do some good deeds, even if just for pixel people.