Monday, February 10, 2014

Picking up again

Alright, where I left off...
Why Idaho sucks...

If you haven't heard of the latest movement in Idaho, it is called Add the words, or add the 4 words. We are trying to fix our human rights legislature in our state. Currently sexual orientation and gender identity are NOT included in basic human rights. What does that mean? It means I can deny you service, I can fire you all based on the fact that you are different. Reminds you of something? Something like the civil rights movement?
All of our rallies and letters have been ignored. As if almost in retribution for pushing the issue, a bill has been introduced to give protections to people who excercise their religion as a means to discriminate. Professional licenses will not be under review if you are a doctor and decide not to service someone who is not your idea of lets say christian.
I went to the public hearing on this bill. I got there about 6 minutes late. I don't know how security is at the capital building but it seemed as if there were security guards posted near every door. Kind of set a precedence on how they viewed the hearing. Again, 6 minutes late, room was full, I was directed to the opposite side of the building to the overflow room. It was about 1/4th full in the overflow.
Each person was allocated 3 minutes to testify for or against the bill. After about an hour they had gotten through 1 page, of 21 signed up to speak. People began cutting down the length their testimonies as the same voice was being said over and over in different variations. What voice was that? NO, please vote no! Why should legal discrimination be allowed? At least in Boise, we have options, but the rest of Idaho, if you don't get service, you need to drive hours out of your way. Out of the 3+ hours, only 2 people said vote yes, but did not have a reason why other than because, and did not have an answer to rep. Gannon's questions.
As for the other 3+ hours of testimonies of discrimination, the representatives asked for proof of police reports and documentation of a group of people who feared coming out as who they are for fear of retribution, and as such since no documentation was made, it did not happen and they were all liars. One representative even went as far to say, if I have to force someone to give you service, what kind of service do you expect to receive. It was so ironic that in the overflow room was a giant painting of Abraham Lincoln. All I could think of was, if we had that way of thinking, we would still have slaves, women wouldn't vote, and we would still segregate everything. ALL of these had to be enforced, and forced upon those who did not want to participate. We have made so much progress isn't it great!
So as a result of these countless hearings the vote was still 5 no and 11 yes. The bill will be introduced to the house to be voted on. Of those 5, 2 republicans voted no, those republicans are super awesome, and my groups are going to be signing thank you cards for them, including one more who will vote no when the bill reaches the house.

(one last rant, KTVB sucks hard. Learn how to count. The rally had well over 1 thousand people gathered, how they reported "dozens protest". Then the hearing was a full room, and then more in an overflow. Reported again as "dozens". What does an out of state newspaper report as? Hundreds, and over 500, respectively.)

Now you see why I needed to take a break before talking about this? In other news I will be spending time at the courthouse on valentines day to be at the same sex marriage rally! That is a much much much better use of my time on that holiday!

I guess since I have had time to vent and relax, I don't really care about how people do not understand the scientific theory, evolution, or what should be taught in schools. I will just leave that you should do some research, as some points were made, that got me searching. To sum things up, scientific theory is the highest form of knowledge in science, it has been tested, proven, and has numerous evidence and reviews in it's favor.

A favorite quote of mine is, "Gravity is just a theory, but I don't see you jumping out of any windows".

What about, "I don't like evolution is the only theory being taught in school, I wish other theories were being taught. Great point! I would enjoy other theories being taught, except there isn't ANY OTHER THEORIES. But but but, creationism, or as reworded and the exact same thing intelligent design.....NO....those are hypothesis. They have no evidence....sorry a mistranslated book that you do not take literally and pick only what you want out of it DOESN'T COUNT AS EVIDENCE. The only people who are reviewing these hypothesis as true are church organizations? So if another theory comes about, guess what, science will flock towards it, because science LOVES being wrong. Why? Because it means science has learned something NEW, and new is amazing, our knowledge and understanding has expanded! Isn't that great!? What happens when religion is wrong? It loses power. It loses credibility. It has nothing to gain by being wrong.

Ok I lied, now I have a rant going so I will spend more time on it.

But we don't have thumbs on our feet, we can't be apes. Wow you are right! We AREN'T APES, we don't have thumbs on our feet! Let us give this man a prize for having NO IDEA WHAT EVOLUTION IS! YAY! Let us start off with, we are not apes, we did not come from apes. We are the result of a branching off from a common ancestor. Chimps went in a different direction and humans went theirs. Each change best suited the acclimation and survival of the environment each species lived in. As traits were developed that did not work best for the environment they died out and did not survive. We worked best on land, as chimps worked best in trees, thus the difference in feet.
But we're so different! Yes, we are very different, but guess what, that is what happens with over a million years of change. Well I don't see it happen in less than 100 years so it doesn't work. MATH TIEM! What is 400,000 divided by 100, 4,000 of your lifetimes to change. That is also just if gave birth at the end of our lifetime, let us be fair and say 20 is the average birth age, that number is now 20,000 chances of having changed. Guess what, that number gets even bigger, this number is assuming you only have 2 children, and those 2 children only reproduce 2 more children, and so on keeping the population constant. Kinda crazy isn't it? Think of all those variations!
So let me leave this with you, other than disproving ONLY A SECTION of the bible, which you already nit pick what parts you follow and which you don't. What do you have against having a COMMON ANCESTOR to chimps? Are you that arrogant that the thought that humans were once a lowly animal? Got news for you, we're still animals. Get your ego in check, I am not calling you a chimp, just how amazing it is what different routes we changed in.


Stay tuned for all of my rants, questions and logical fallacies about religion next which led me to doubt and begin my horrific route towards....GASP....ATHEISM....

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Rants and Praises

I know, I know, it has been a very long time since I have updated. I have worried about who reads this blog, and what people think of it. I have a great relationship with my family, and I didn't want to ruin it. I have many many feelings about religion that would trample on this relationship and so I have to tread very carefully. I am proud of my family, I think they are amazing people, but I do not agree with them on many things. Even if they themselves do not feel that way, they participate and empower a process that does do harm to people.

That is now off my chest, and that is as detailed as I wish to divulge and will probably get a phone call later...

Let's cheer stuff up for a bit, I wanted to praise an old friend I had the pleasure of talking to last night. Mike was a high school friend, that I met through another friend. I was still mormon at the time going through the usual questions of if I lose the church will I go crazy? What is a person without religion? Don't they all go drink party and have sex? why else would they leave the church if they only wanted to commit sin? Mike and his family as weird as they are, were perfectly normal, behaved, suburban family. Without even knowing they were role models, showed me that religion isn't necessary, just by being there. No talks, no lectures, no questions, just being people. It was amazing and I loved every bit of it. This was probably the first steps into my atheism and I encourage anyone else who is questioning things, simple meet someone outside of your church, observe them, would you be able to tell what religion they were or were not without them telling you or displaying symbols? Your way, is not the only way, people are not lost, they are different.

(out of context insert) Oh also my friend Candice is writing a blog, and with her optimism and dedication has motivated me to pick up the keyboard again, thank you

Wow turning into a rant already....I get very opinionated about this stuff.

Let's dive in then.

I had the "privilege" of watching Nye vs. Ham debate. If I had a drinking game for every time Ham said I have all the answers right here in this book, the Holy Bible, I wouldn't be able to find the keyboard 16 hours later. The contradictions from statement to statement hurt my head, the lack of even listening to a single thing Nye said, and not actually answering any questions. Things that really struck out at me were: Talking about how correct the bible is and that the bible is the word of god and it is full of truths, basing every part of his model on this book. Then when he is asked about if he would stone someone for touching pigs skin, his reply is the book was written by man and is full of mistakes and rules of the current writer's society. It is OK though, Ken Ham knows exactly which parts of the bible are accurate. Later they talk of survival of the fittest, Nye explains that it is a misconception that fittest does not mean strength as in gym fitness but in what fits in best with nature. Not 30 seconds later, Ken Ham attacks survival of the fittest and says it isn't survival of the fittest it is survival of the survivor.....facepalm. He then provides an example of a cave fish who has ancestors that had vision, but now it is blind, see evolution doesn't work because the fish lost a function.....that it no longer uses.....and isn't needed......and doesn't help its survive in it's environment....

Ok so I had a huge break since starting writing and taking care of abby when she got home from school, and I got in a few disputes on facebook that really really irked me. So I guess I will talk about how much Idaho sucks in another post, and why just a theory is a stupid stupid thing to say. So I am going to put the keyboard down, punch a pillow and come back at a later time.