Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
Robert A. Heinlein
Category: Finds
Links, quotes, and other things I found on the web.
What if mice showed greater distress at the suffering of familiar mice than unfamiliar ones? (They do.) What if monkeys will starve themselves to prevent their cage-mates from receiving painful shocks? (They will.) What if chimps have a demonstrable sense of fairness when receiving food rewards? (They have.) Wouldn’t these be precisely the sorts of findings one would expect if our morality were the product of evolution?
Sam Harris
If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?
Sarah Palin, Going Rogue
This woman is unbelievably stupid. You know what else is made of meat? People. Does Sarah Palin eat people?
The word “skeptic” has negative connotations for some. But it is really a positive, inquisitive, reality-based approach to all aspects of life. A skeptic is a person who asks for evidence before accepting a belief and who asks if there could be another explanation other than the first one that is offered. Scientists are skeptics. Skeptics think scientifically.
Harriet Hall
Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.
Derek Powazek in the best SEO rant I’ve ever seen. (via davidkaneda)
How shall I respond?
How shall I respond if you ask me,
Written by David Yanez
What are you?
Do you believe in God?
If not, What do you believe in?
Don’t you believe in anything?
Shall I make a list and carry it around
Lest you judge me for not having any beliefs?
“Judge not, that ye be not judged”
I wonder who said that?
Oh yeah, It was the same guy who judged
Those who didn’t like his preaching and said:
“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers,
How can ye escape the damnation of hell.”
How civilized. How tolerant.
What a gentleman.
I shall respond civilized.
I shall respond with tolerance.
I shall rise above the fear, which controls you,
The fear, which holds you prisoner and,
I shall proudly say:
I am a Humanist, a Free Thinker
A Naturalist, a Skeptic
A Secularist, a Scientist at heart,
An Agnostic, a Nontheist
A Rationalist, an Empiricist, and a Positivist.
And Last I am an Atheist.
“For I am a destroyer of Gods
In a world of Demons,
A giver of hope to those who know not,
For I am Human,
And Humane is what I long to be”.
I believe in life before death.
I believe this is the only life we will ever have.
I believe we can do in life what we could never do in death.
I believe in love, compassion, justice, equality,
Forgiveness, and freedom for all.
Did I mention I believe in social, economic, and racial equality?
I believe in your right to believe, and say what you wish.
I believe in not saying that which will cause
Physical and mental suffering to others.
I believe that no human is collateral when seeking justice.
I believe that those in power should be
Held accountable for the deliberate deaths of the innocent.
No life is expendable, No life at all.
I believe war is a crime if it can be avoided.
I believe the innocent should be defended
From their oppressors through shared international law.
Did I say I believe in justice?
I believe I don’t know the answers, but neither do you.
Most of all I believe in hope,
That someday humankind can live in peace.
And accept his place within nature
And put aside his selfish needs
For those who suffer,
For those that are disabled
For those with no voice,
For those less fortunate
And for all the creatures that can co-exist with us.
I’ve contemplated the big picture since I was a child,
And know in my heart
There is no God,
Which by definition makes me an Atheist,
But as you can see,
I’m a whole lot more!
Binker
Binker—what I call him—is a secret of my own,
And Binker is the reason why I never feel alone.
Playing in the nursery, sitting on the stair,
Whatever I am busy at, Binker will be there.Oh, Daddy is clever, he’s a clever sort of man,
And Mummy is the best since the world began,
And Nanny is Nanny, and I call her Nan
But they can’t See Binker.Binker’s always talking, ’cos I’m teaching him to speak
He sometimes likes to do it in a funny sort of squeak,
And he sometimes likes to do it in a hoodling sort of roar…
And I have to do it for him ’cos his throat is rather sore.Oh, Daddy is clever, he’s a clever sort of man,
And Mummy knows all that anybody can,
And Nanny is Nanny, and I call her Nan
But they don’t Know Binker.Binker’s brave as lions when we’re running in the park;
Binker’s brave as tigers when we’re lying in the dark;
Binker’s brave as elephants. He never, never cries…
Except (like other people) when the soap gets in his eyes.Oh, Daddy is Daddy, he’s a Daddy sort of man,
And Mummy is as Mummy as anybody can,
And Nanny is Nanny, and I call her Nan…
But they’re not Like Binker.Binker isn’t greedy, but he does like things to eat,
So I have to say to people when they’re giving me a sweet,
“Oh, Binker wants a chocolate, so could you give me two?”
And then I eat it for him, ’cos his teeth are rather new.Well, I’m very fond of Daddy, but he hasn’t time to play,
And I’m very fond of Mummy, but she sometimes goes away,
And I’m often cross with Nanny when she wants to brush my hair…But Binker’s always Binker, and is certain to be there.
A. A. MILNE, Now We Are Six
“Well, science doesn’t know everything.” Well, science knows it doesn’t know anything, otherwise it would stop… But just because science doesn’t know everything doesn’t mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairytale most appeals to you.
Dara O’Briain
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Albert Einstein
“I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs. I wouldn’t be here without such generosity,” an emotional Jobs told the audience, exhorting them to all become organ donors
Steve Jobs
Let there be no doubt that as they are currently practiced, there is no common ground between science and religion… The argument is simple. I have yet to see a successful prediction about the physical world that was inferred or extrapolated from the content of any religious document. Indeed, I can make an even stronger statement. Whenever people have used religious documents to make detailed predictions about the physical world they have been famously wrong.
Neil Tyson
I can see into the future, and it is awesome
No, I am not claiming to have psychic powers or anything. I have just been watching lots of TED videos and they fill me with awe. Some of the stuff that is being developed right now makes science fiction look more and more like a documentary of the future.
The only problem is it can’t come soon enough!
On the NHS
The demonstrably false, idiotic FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) being spread by U.S. Republicans about the NHS / Health Reform just goes to show how pathetic they are — they will lie and cheat and spread nonsense to try and force America to keep health care for the rich and fortunate.
What is their motive? Do they really believe that those too poor to afford health insurance should die?
One possible scenario involves Apple leveraging the e-commerce potential of the iPhone by allowing users to pay for real-world items in-store using their mobile devices in combination with their iTunes account. If an iPhone could replace cards, wallet and cash, that would definitely become a selling point for many.
Rumor Has It: Apple Set to Go Toe-to-Toe With PayPal
Oh yes, most definitely. If I could pay for shopping / bus and train fares / etc. wirelessly with just my iPhone, that would be awesome. Very futuristic.
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
Richard Dawkins
Examine the notion of a “loving god.” This god only loves you if you follow the rules. No questions, no doubts, no objections, are allowed. “Because I said so, that’s why.” He/she/it loves you as a farmer loves a draft-animal; you’re useful, you obey, and you’re docile. If you stray, your firstborn will be murdered, if you don’t follow a capricious order, you’re a pillar of salt. This is “love”? If so, I’ll take indifference.
James Randi
Wikipedia: List of common misconceptions
Wikipedia: List of common misconceptions
This is an absolute goldmine of common misconceptions — many of which I already knew but some I had taken for granted. Fantastic!
Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man — living in the sky — who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ‘til the end of time … But He loves you!
George Carlin
Here’s to the crazy ones
Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.
— Think Different. (Apple Computer Ad Campaign)
The argument “Jesus must have existed because so many things were written about him” makes me want to go to New York to meet Spider-Man.
