Growing Up With 2 Mommies

Science scores another point over religion this week, as the Brits have figured out how to make a child out of three parents. Upon hearing the news, I could only think one thing: OMG how friggin' awesome is that?!

Briefly, the procedure involved implanting the nucleus of a fertilized zygote into a donor egg cell. The extra DNA from the 2nd mother can theoretically "overwrite" any inherited "bad" DNA. This technology has the potential to eliminate many genetic birth defects.

Sure, the news will doubtless have some bible-thumping, Huckabee-voting Americans proclaiming that Armageddon is at hand, but for the rest of the non-zealous world, technology has just made yet another giant leap towards improving our lives.
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My Formative Years

Taking a break from more serious(ish) topics, here's a list of things that I remember from my formative years (age 10 - 15)

-The State on MTV
-Green Day
-Chuck Taylors
-Beavis and Butthead
-Discovering Nirvana, then learning that Kurt Cobain was dead.
-Alicia Silverstone (my hero back then)
-Kate Libby from Hackers (my other hero)
-Wearing flannel long after it had become uncool
-Ripped, no, SHREDDED jeans
-Gavin Rossdale
-Marilyn Manson
-Trent Reznor
-The Maxx, an animated series on MTV
-The Head, same.
-Ace of Base
-Riding my bike through the muddy backwaters of the MN river
-Rolling Stone magazine
-Hit Parader magazine
-quoting The Simpsons line-for-line
-Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
-GX jeans
-Who sucked more: Backstreet Boys or N'Sync
-The Spice Girls, signaling the beginning of the end for popular music
-Fred Durst is a no-talent hack.
-Categorizing other teenagers by the kind of music they listened to
-WalMart was the best store ever.
-Using christmas lights as year-round bedroom decor
-Loveline w/Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew
-Incense, inflatable furniture
-Late summer nights spent writing poetry and playing the same five songs on guitar
-Hormones, gloominess, and teenaged angst.
-Truth or Dare
-Battling frizzy hair
-Orthodontics
-8th grade history report on Spartacus.
-Believe it or not, I still remember watching a movie in my 8th grade human heritage class about ancient human societies in the middle east, and learning about the story of the Tower of Babel. It moved me almost to the point of tears, I remember, thinking that something so mysterious and magnificent-if it ever existed in the first place-would have been destroyed. I remember that story affected me, it stayed with me for years afterward. Thinking about it again now...I consider it one of the most tragic stories I've ever heard.



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Categorizing Atheists

I had an idea the other day about atheism, and after some thought, I've come up with 4 types of atheists. (This is speculation only; pure mental masturbation).

1. Scientific Atheists - uphold science as the only method of obtaining truths about the world. Believe that the lack of empirical (non-testimonial) evidence is reason enough to not grant assent to the God-claim. Because their disbelief is largely based on the scientific method and statistical reasoning (God isn't impossible, just infinitesimally improbable), their rationale is very difficult to communicate to the religious layman. Richard Dawkins falls into this category.

2. Philosophical Atheists - reason and logic tells them that god is a logical impossibility. Additionally, philosopher-atheists tend to be better at using language than their scientific counterparts. These philosphers can usually make a good case against the religious layman, but when you get them in a room with a philosophical religionist (or apologetic), the conversation quickly spirals into a word game. I consider Bertrand Russell to be a philosophical atheist (although his extensive work in mathematics could place him in the previous category, his ability to use language makes this category more appropriate).

3. Formerly Religious Atheists - strict religious upbringing (Missouri Senate, many Catholics, strong anti-gay churches, etc.), often coupled with antagonistic relations with parents/family causes them to rebel in their adulthood, which takes the form of turning against God. Because their disbelief is just a tool of their angry revolt against their perceived victimizer (God or God through their parents), many of these atheists still feel an internal need for religion, and seem to be the most likely to return to religious belief later in life (as Universal Unitarians). Think Brian Warner (a.k.a. Marilyn Manson), activists, shock-value atheists.

4. Apathetic Atheists - people with no apparent reason for or against disbelief. Atheists of this type seem to have either grown up in atheistic or otherwise non-religious families, or religious belief simply was never able to take root in their minds. Similar to the religious layman, this is the atheistic layman. Frank Zappa is a good example.

Where does your humble author fall in this categorization scheme? I'd say a mix of 1 and 4.



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On Music and the Last Temptation

So I got my hands on Peter Gabriel's Passion album today, the soundtrack to the Scorcese film The Last Temptation of Christ. It's got to be the most amazing music I've ever heard. I've got my headphones on and I'm listening to it in the middle of the intern room, and I'm just about moved to tears. From just listening. Peter Gabriel is a master at his craft.

Which led me to wonder why the film was so offensive to people's sensibilities in the first place. I consider it one of the best films/stories I've ever seen. I wonder if Christianity had been taught to me (or the world) from that paradigm, as the idea of sacrificing your own desires for a greater cause, (rather than the "magic man," miracle-worker crap I learned in sunday school), if I wouldn't be an atheist today. Kazantzakis' story speaks in a way that disarms your auto-skepticism and really drives home the overall theme, so much so that you can disregard the mystical threads in the larger philosophical tapestry.


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