Is reality real?

I love when scientists wonder whether the universe is a simulation. Do we exist within an elaborate computer game? Right now there is a serious scientific effort to investigate this possibility.

The idea is that if reality is a simulation, there must be a lattice, an invisible structure on which the simulation is built. They're looking for it right now. Mind you, I don't want them to find it because we already have enough problems accepting reality. If it all turns out to be a life-long game, who knows how people would react? For one thing, there'd be no god...unless he's the game master. Hmmm. 

Anyway, I love this stuff. You yank the rug out from under me and I say "Wheeeee!"

Why do religious people lack morals?

You see it all the time.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A 17,000-member megachurch deep in Oklahoma's Bible Belt has been rattled by allegations that five employees waited two weeks to report the rape of a 13-year-old girl in a campus stairwell, allegedly by a church worker. 

They can't tell right from wrong. They have no clue about this. None. Why does this happen? Why do religious people have no moral center?

It's simple. When you make a fairytale the centerpiece of your life, you lose contact with reality. Up becomes down; wrong becomes right. You're lost in the wilderness.

You don't have to consult a dusty book or talk to someone who isn't there, to know right from wrong. You just have to be able to see reality. Religion prevents that.

Religion is the scourge of mankind. This is not an exaggeration. 

More religious dimwittery

There's an AP story today about the guy who died while handling snakes for jeebus. I linked to Jerry Coyne's dry summary of the event in the post below. In the AP story, there's this gem from a witness:

"I don't think anyone necessarily expected it," she told the newspaper, "but they've dealt with it before so it's not such a huge shock, maybe." 

It's just a normal day at the office for these folks. Dimwits, one and all. Here's a quote from the guy who died:

"I know it's real; it is the power of God," Wolford told The Washington Post Magazine last year. If he hadn't started handling snakes after returning to his church, he said, "it'd be the same as denying the power and saying it was not real." 

Indeed. And now you're dead. That's what's real.

Hey folks, I've been told mobile readers can't comment on this blog of late. If you experience this problem, would you let me know through the contact address at the bottom left of this page? Thanks (not that I know what to do about it if this is happening).

Weird experience

The master.

A segment on the news tonight featured an invention I made up for Xmas Carol. There it was, up on the screen -- no longer my secret idea. How dare they invent something I made up? It's downright rude! 

Anyway, horrors. Now it'll look like I lifted the idea. Ah, but my pre-publication readers can attest to my coming up with it first! I'm saved. Then again, I may just come up a new invention and stick it in. Take that, inventors!

This was a seriously strange experience. Again, how dare they?

Internet reality vs. TV "news"

I assume anyone who finds his or her way to this blog is an alert, intelligent person who uses the internet adroitly. We are internet people. We're awake and we know stuff.

One effect of this is that it's very difficult to watch "the news" on TV. Isn't it amazing how what they call "news" are items we've known about for days, weeks, months or even years? They actually present this stuff as fresh, new and vital -- as if all of us alert folks out here don't even exist.

But see, we do. And we find their words to be old, tired and almost always delivered from an obtuse, unhelpful viewpoint. We recognize how uninformed the "news anchors" are, and their ignorance is painful to observe.

How much longer will TV news be around? It's already dead, of course. But what I mean is how long will it be until everyone notices it's dead and stops tuning in? Sense would say "soon" but sense doesn't apply in our insular, knowledge-free America.

I wonder how long NBC's stentorous blowhard Brian Williams will be allowed to pontificate on the air. How many more months or years will I have to watch Katie Couric muddle her way through hairstyles and issues? And, horror of horrors, how can I continue to sit on the edge of my seat each night wondering how long Diane Sawyer's eyelashes will be this evening? One day she'll fall flat on her face from the weight of them. Even now, she can hardly keep her eyes open. Toss them out, woman, and give those eyes a rest!

What is their job supposed to be, anyway? They're introducers? I don't know about you, but these days I shoot through what they say since it adds nothing to the stories. The video that they introduce is "the news", what little there is of it. So what's with the introducers? These "anchors" are models reading words they don't understand (although in blowhard Williams' case, I accept that he's awake and actively evil). Their words don't amount to anything. They might as well not say them for all the effect they have.

The internet has opened our eyes and there is no way to close them again. We are alert, informed and self-motivated enough to seek out the real news. TV can't fool us anymore. So why are these people still on every night? And when will they go away? I won't miss them.

TV news is dead and when death happens, we need to toss out the body and switch our attention to the living. The internet is our only hope of obtaining true information about the world.

However, if the broadcast stations ever decided to present the real news again we'd flock back in droves. But as long as "the news" is just a bunch of mindless flacks presenting pre-packaged, government-approved pap -- we won't be there. Does a broadcast make any noise if no one watches? We'll soon find out.

Because the old-school model of "the news" will soon go the way of the dinosaur, this means the corporate powers-that-be will try to find other means to control our access to information -- and that means that, in the end, they will attack the internet with all their might. It's inevitable.

That will be the final battle. If we lose that one, we lose it all.