{"id":1232,"date":"2011-01-11T10:42:52","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T16:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=1232"},"modified":"2011-01-12T09:02:39","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T15:02:39","slug":"a-t-tea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2011\/01\/a-t-tea\/","title":{"rendered":"A T & Tea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday, 08 January 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n

You might recall that last September I spoke at the Maple Grove Critical Thinkers’ Club on the topic of Jehovah’s Witnesses.<\/a> <\/strong>Following my presentation that day, the club’s president invited me to come back and speak just on the topic of atheism. My friend, Eric, had accompanied me back in September, so he was asked to come speak on atheism, too.<\/p>\n

So, today I was back at Champp’s in Maple Grove, along with Eric, to deliver a presentation about atheism. After introducing ourselves, Eric offered the definition of several terms, including atheist, agnostic, freethinker, apatheist, antitheist, humanist, and secularist. I then spoke in more detail about atheism and agnosticism. I pointed out that since agnosticism references only knowledge (not religious knowledge necessarily), and that since we all have gaps in our knowledge, then we are all agnostics. I pointed out how it was unfair that most people dismiss agnostics as being unconcerned with looking at the evidences offered for gods’ existences or being too stupid to understand the data. I likewise pointed out that, as an atheist, I am not dogmatically saying gods do not exist (that would make me an antitheist), but that I am merely saying I see no compelling evidence that any exist.<\/p>\n

Eric then listed off a few famous atheists from the recent past and the present. I quickly followed this up by noting that we are all born as atheists (since we are not born believing in any gods) and that, according to a recent article by Ricky Gervais<\/a>, there are 2,870 deities and so, unless anyone in the audience was Hindu, it was safe to say we are all ~99% atheist.<\/p>\n

We also discussed some of the logical problems with a supernatural god and whether a person could be both atheist and spiritual.<\/p>\n

As before, the Q and A portion that followed was the most interesting part of the morning. One questioner wondered why we should be so concerned. The (quick) answer: because religion does lots of damage, the good it does could be done without belief, and in our country, as in many others, public policy is dictated by silly, outmoded beliefs.<\/p>\n

Another person asked how we (Eric and I) felt about near-death and out-of-body experiences. I compared those things to Star Wars (I guess Star Wars is on my mind lately): even if it was proven that people can move things around with their minds, or that our consciousness survives after death, this still does not prove the existence of deities.<\/p>\n

Another comment was: “It seems to me that you guys took your bad experience from your fundamentalist upbringings and then threw out all religions based on one bad experience.” She followed this up by saying that when she goes to her local Buddhist temple, she feels connected to god in that she feels at one with the universe, and senses something larger than herself. I replied by pointing out that the Witnesses “proofs” for god are taken from the bible, so since I discovered that the bible is a pile of shit, then this means not just the Witnesses, but all Christian, Jewish and Muslim sects likewise have no valid argument for god(s). I added that the burden of proof is on the person saying something exists. So, for example, if Ganesha does exist, I can’t be faulted for not believing in her until her existence is proven to me. I also conceded that Eric and I should’ve added “god” to our list of definitions early in our presentation, because if we redefine god to mean “the universe,” then, yes I believe in god. I compared this to the popular graffiti from the 1960s: “Clapton is God;” if ‘god’ is defined as the guitarist Eric Clapton, then I not only whole-heartily believe in him, but I fully understand why people would love him.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite comments was when an older gentleman said that he had once attended an atheist gathering and they all seemed like bummed-out curmudgeons. Conversely, he visited the local Hindu temple and found that everyone there was very excited to see him and they seemed full of happiness. When I mentioned this to my wife, her immediate response was, “That’s called love-bombing.” But my response was different, I said that I’d noticed, in my time, that drunk people are happier than sober people.<\/p>\n

Sunday, 09 January 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n

We began our house-hunting adventures today. I absolutely hate looking for houses. Our new realtor is a major improvement over the last one, but I still found the experience frustrating, annoying and, at least for the moment, depressing. That’s all I’m saying about it, and I’m only saying that because I figure I have to say something about today.If you want more details, contact my wife, who is both more mentally stable regarding this sort of thing and doesn’t find it to be the terrible, terrible experience that I do.<\/p>\n

In other news, I made a pot of tea for me, my wife, and my mom-in-law today. Want to know how stupid I am sometimes? Of course you do:<\/p>\n

The label on the tin of loose tea says “1.5 teaspoons.” So, not wanting to waste this expensive brew, I carefully measured out 1.5 teaspoons and added it to the insert in our cast-iron teapot. After adding in the water and waiting the appropriate 2 minutes, I aliquoted (yes, it’s a word<\/a>) some into the three mugs. As I did so, I said, “Wow, this is really weak looking tea. My wife pointed out that the 1.5 teaspoons was likely referencing each serving (=mug), not an entire pot. After all, the tea store has no idea how large my pot is.<\/p>\n

Monday, 10 January 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but my cell phone provider is AT&T and I absolutely hate their “service” and I used to hate the phone the sold me, until I sold it for a profit through Craig’s List and bought a non-AT&T phone as a substitution. My old Verizon phone (which does not work on an AT&T plan, otherwise I’d be using it right now) is sitting in a box under our bed waiting for July of this year when I can switch back.<\/p>\n

“Hey,” you ask, “if you liked your Verizon phone so much, why did you switch to AT&T in the first place?”<\/p>\n

That’s a great question. The answer is: My wife. Yeah, she wanted an iPhone, and Apple stupidly decided to join forces with AT&T. That’s like if Brian Wilson started partnering with Mariah Carey for song-writing. Anyway, she wanted an iPhone, so we had to switch. Fuck that. I’m switching back to Verizon as soon as my indentured servitude to AT&T expires, and my wife can do whatever she wants with her cell phone future.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I bring this up because it seems I’m not the only one who’s noticed this unholy alliance between one company that makes great products and one company that, well, hasn’t done anything of note since their name became outdated: Apple on AT&T<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For slightly more satisfying reading, here’s an article I read today about why the letters X and Z appear in so many drug names.<\/a><\/p>\n

And finally, here’s a dog that’s smarter than most people I’ve ever met: Border Collie recognizes names for 1,022 items.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday, 08 January 2011 You might recall that last September I spoke at the Maple Grove Critical Thinkers’ Club on the topic of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Following my presentation that day, the club’s president invited me to come back and speak just on the topic of atheism. My friend, Eric, had accompanied me back in September, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1232"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1242,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions\/1242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}