OVO

Reproduction of a 1976 compilation of oral histories from Portland’s neighborhoods.

Voices of Portland by Christopher Frankonis (a.k.a. The One True b!X) (Book) in Biographies & Memoirs

A travel guide for young people moving to Portland, Oregon and a cautionary tale of abstinence and public deification. The second bit, The Man on the Roof is set against Astoria, Oregon. But very little isn’t against Astoria, Oregon.

Portland by P.L. Carrico (Book) in Literature & Fiction

John McCain’s vice-presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is an evangelical Protestant with a strong record of opposition to abortion and an openness to teaching creationism in the public schools.

Articles of Faith Michael Paulson’s Articles of Faith Blog

An especially good commentary from Pat Condell.

An illusion that tricks people into believing a rubber hand belongs to them isn’t all in the mind, Oxford University researchers have found. They have observed a physical response as well

Sleight Of Hand And Sense Of Self

Less well known than that other surreal benchmark Un Chien Andalou, which followed a year later, this work based on a screenplay by French auteur Antonin Artaud is nonetheless considered the first surrealistic film. The story covers the erotic fantasies of a priest lusting after a general’s wife.

Antonin Artaud – The Seashell and The Clergyman-part01

In 1857, hundreds of strange objects suddenly started appearing in London antique shops: coins and medals, vases and statues, all made out of soft metal with weird designs and cryptic lettering. They were the work of two illiterate London mudlarks, William Smith and Charles Eaton, who managed to fool some of the leading archaeologists of the day into accepting their forgeries as genuine medieval antiquities.

Billys and Charleys | MetaFilter

Prisoner

Seek the Six | MetaFilter

It’s the opposite of a vicious cycle: Healthy people might be happier, and a new study shows that people who are happy and satisfied with their lives might be healthier.

Happiness And Satisfaction Might Lead To Better Health

Heroes, Villains And Everything In Between.

Bam! Kapow!

The following is from a letter in progress…

Some people claim that natural law exists. I have a moderate disagreement with this claim. At times the claim natural law exists seems to be the case. I am my body. My body dictates that (a) I prefer to live optimally, (b) I must eat to continue living, therefore (c) what impedes my ability to go on eating is eventually ‘illegal’ to me. But at times the claim natural law exists does not seem to be the case. What is the natural law that dictates my preference for just so much black pepper in the breading of fried chicken? The strongest case I can make for natural law existing is that in any contradiction one claim at minimum is false. After that it’s a guessing game. These examples show that natural law exists but is not applicable to all experiences. Therefore natural law can serve as part of but not a foundation for law.

Some people claim that natural law is known. I have a strong disagreement with this claim. I am my body. My body dictates that (a) I prefer to live optimally, (b) a specific combination of nutrients will consumed today will optimize my going on living, therefore (c) I must eat a specific combination of nutrients today. There is, objectively / naturally, a specific meal I should eat today. I do not know it and can only at best approximate it. The effort to identify that exact optimal meal would take so long that conditions would change and the answer no longer apply. This example shows that natural law is sometimes knowable but unknown. Therefore natural law can serve as part of but not a foundation for law.

Some people claim that natural law is preferable. I have a strong disagreement with this claim. I am my body. My body dictates that (a) I prefer to live optimally, (b) I must eat to continue living, therefore (c) I should eat what my body needs. But it is this very same body that prefers fried chicken over steamed yams, without regard to the fact that yams are more optimal in nutrition. This example follows my previous examples but is not my best. My best example is that a virus, or crocodile, is following its own natural law were it to consume me but this is clearly not preferable for me. The naturalistic fallacy is that natural law is preferable while playing a ghostly bait-and-switch game as to who it is preferable for. On the one hand natural law is preferable to humanity (and this particular human) because humanity is of nature. On the the other hand, when I’m being eaten by a crocodile, natural law is preferable to “Nature” (as much of an anthropomorphic ghost as “God”). Law comes from humanity. It is based on what we have inherited from the past and what we invent today. It is possible to learn from our errors but not to predict our errors before subjecting them to criticism. Law should be subject to criticism; doubt scours out only error, never fact. Therefore natural law is preferable only sometimes, not always.

Some people claim that science is the accumulation of truth statements. I have a strong disagreement with this claim. I claim that science is the accumulation of falsified statements. Any scientific claim is subject to criticism, likely to be incomplete and likely to include some measure of error. When a scientific claim is made, it is a the claim “if X is not true then Y” and not “if X is true then Y.” Science comes from humanity. It is based on what we have inherited from the past and what we invent today. It is possible to learn from our errors but not to predict our errors before subjecting them to criticism. Science should be subject to criticism; doubt scours out only error, never fact.

When some people claim that natural law exists, is known and is preferable I take it in a poetic sense and not a literal sense. It inspires but does not inform. To speak less in the abstract, they are a tonic against political correctness or letting oneself off the hook from the consequences of choices made. But they are not literally true. I place these claims in the same category as private ritual. My curses or blessings are not going to literally make ill or good occur in themselves but are rough mental landmarks for a path that I have to actually walk with my actual feet. Regarding the claim that science is the accumulation of truth claims, this is a claim in error but closer to the truth than the majority of theistic thinking (i.e. the majority of humanity today and throughout history). These claims are in error but the errors do not negate my decision to associate with those who speak of natural law.

There are many indicators that god does not exist, and this page is a thematic introduction to some of the arguments that support atheism.

Refuting Monotheism, God does not exist

A law that applies even to the law-givers, thus a founding document to the West. But a law given by God to a man and immutable, thus incompatable with the West. You take what you can get.

EAWC Anthology: Hammurabi’s Code of Laws

Am I therefore become your enemy for telling you the truth? -The Apostle Paul in Galatians 4:16

Set Free from Jesus

This site contains scholarship, blasphemy, heresy, freethought, rationalism, atheism, history, psychology, sociology, theology, anthropology, etc. Years of research are summarized, via abstracts from scholars.

Christianism.com

See Sharp Press publishes books and pamphlets on a wide range of topics — anarchism, atheism, music, substance abuse, and psychology.

See Sharp Press Home Page

The time has come to abandon Christianity.

Welcome to undoJesus.org, a site dedicated to prescinding the acceptance of the Holy Bible as truth.

Leading the Animation Conversation

Cartoon Brew

This article begins by establishing that Imam Ashafa is an authority on his religion and a recognized representative of his religion…

Mohammad Nureen Ashafa is the Imam of Ashafa Central Mosque, Tudun Wada, Kaduna; Vice President, Ashafa Mosque Foundation, as well as the Co-Executive Director of Interfaith Mediation Centre of Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum, also in Kaduna. He spoke to some media organisations on the implications of the death sentence [fatwa] passed on octogenarian Islamic preacher, Mohammed Bello Abubakar, by the Jama’tu Nasril Islam [JNI], for marrying 86 wives contrary to Islamic injunctions.

This article includes words about women that will sound pleasing to the Western ear…

Islam took into consideration certain needs, social and emotional, sexual urge, all these are part of the things a woman needs in marriage. It is injustice if you do not provide these adequately for the woman. [...] So, how do you share 86 wives in a year? It means that you cannot meet some of the women more than once in a week. In fact, it may not even be possible because we have 52 weeks in a year. So, if you see one every week, the others have to wait till the next year to take their turns. What is the legitimacy? There is no legitimacy for that in Islam. It is an abuse on the rights and dignity of these women. It is an abuse on the sanctity of woman-hood. It is an abuse to marry 86 wives in the name of Islam. [...] Women have rights, they have dignity and honour. Islam respects the dignity of women. A woman needs emotional satisfaction. That affection is part of the rudiments of marriage. How does the man with 86 wives satisfy the sexual and emotional needs of these women?

… with all that being said a reader might accidentally gloss over the sections where Imam Ashafa condones having women as sexual slaves and stock animals…

There is room for concubine in Islam. And that is why you see some royal fathers have four wives and they have concubines. The history of concubine has to do with slavery, if you had women who are in your possession as slaves. This is because in those days, people bought slaves. It may no longer be fashionable in modern times but the law is still there. If you have women as slaves, they can have children for you but you have to protect them, and give them the same honour you give your wives, though they are not legitimate wives. [...] He can do that in the name of culture because there is no restriction on the number of women a man can marry, in most of the traditions.

… thus one is left to wonder what Imam Ashafa is talking about, what is it that Islam is really saying about women and slavery. Perhaps we should turn to the Holy Quran for answers. Answers like “All married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess” or you don’t have to be modest around your wives or your slave girls “that your right hand possess.” If we go by what the Holy Quran says, if we go by what today’s representatives of Islam say, then using women for sexual slavery and breeding stock is an acceptable practice in the 21st Century just as it was centuries ago. And then there’s the question of putting someone to death because hundreds of years ago a mass murderer and a bandit said that an invisible monster that lives in the sky told us we had to.

What do you say? – Trevor Blake

In a study of 50 healthy adult men, 25 black and 25 white, significantly different amounts of certain immune system cells were found between the races.

One Cause Of Higher Rates Of Transplanted Kidney Rejection In Blacks