Bristol Palin–Mediocrity Exalted

I have nothing against Bristol Palin and I don’t really care about this “Dancing with the stars” program. It’s all fluff and a way to entertain the masses. But this “controversy” about how Bristol stayed so long in the competition despite being, according the “those” who know, a mediocre dancer illustrates how we as a society have our priorities mixed up. Instead of having the “best” rise to the top, we promote those who, for what ever reason, are lackluster.

Jason Gershman, a mathematician from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who studied some of the telephone voting patterns, said he believed Bristol Palin's support was largely political, given that it appeared she got more votes during the weeks that Sarah was in the studio audience. He said he sensed a backlash brewing against Palin by fans who thought the best dancer should win, and they coalesced around Grey, who kept winning perfect scores from the judges despite fighting through injury.

"If her name was Bristol Smith or Bristol Jones, she would not be on the show or she would not have gotten this far," he said. "She went from being a bad dancer to a mediocre dancer. But she was not the best dancer." Reported by David Bauder,
The Associated Press, found on www.troyrecord.com, 11/24/2010

This Bristol Palin thing is an illustration of how we, as a society, raise stupidity and mediocrity up to levels not justified and don’t bother with things that really deserve our attention like science and people that excel in science, just to name one area. Why is it that piss poor athletes like some football and baseball players who are not that good to begin with command such huge salaries while educators who are trying to raise the terrible educational level of our young people don’t get wages that they deserve? Our priories are out of whack.

We have a very smart man currently in the White House but he is constantly slammed by Bristol’s mother who is a few, no many, cards short of a full deck and she is adored by millions. Why is that?

We’re all terrorists now!

I’m here to say that Al Qaeda has won! We are now all considered terrorists when we buy a ticket to fly on a commercial airline. It’s now the default. You’re a terrorists until the  government, in the guise of a TSA flunky, says you’re not.

This recent attention to the new airport screening started with pilots complaining about having to go through body scans over and over every time they go to the airport to fly passengers to their destinations. The TSA responded if they didn’t want to go through the body scan they can submit to pat downs. I can not tell how that’s not a very comforting sight to see your airline pilot being patted down before he gets on YOUR plane. Thank God the TSA has determined that he’s not a terrorist! Whew!

Then the other night was a piece on TV about this TSA body scan and pat down security. In part of this particular piece was a video showing a three year old girl screaming at the top of her lungs “don’t touch me!” as the TSA guard tried to pat her down. Come on folks! Is it necessary to traumatize a little girl just because some idiot from the Middle East tried to blow up his under wear? Realistically, is a three year old girl an agent of Al Qaeda?

On a recent trip I watched how TSA tried to search a frail old lady in a wheelchair to make sure she wasn’t a bomber. She could hardly stand up to go through the metal detector. She didn’t fit the trademarks of a terrorists but the TSA was hell-bent on making sure this woman didn’t have any bomb making material. None-the-less, I’m sure that Al Qaeda is now recruiting little old ladies for their next attack in addition to three year old girls.

Why are we  doing this? To keep America safe! We are continuing to spend time, resources, and gobs of money to catch those terrorists. “They”, who ever “they” are, point out that the terrorists are still trying to blow up planes. They tell us that terrorists keep coming up with new and improved ways to try to blow up planes. And our wonderful government needs to stay one step ahead of them to protect us. Hence all this pat down stuff and the new high tech body scans. So what happens when the terrorists come up with some other way to blow up a plane? What new and denigrating way can the TSA develop to search us before we board that flight?

I propose that the next time you go to the airport to fly, when you get to the security line you take off all your clothes and walk through naked. That way they can just check you visually to see you are not carrying any bombs and then your can dress up and go on your merry way. No pat downs, no body scans. Think how much time and money we will save!

A couple of days after the election and the loonies are coming out of the woodwork. The latest insanity is the story about President Obama’s trip to Asia that is supposedly costing 200 million dollars a day. The bad part of all this is that loonies like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are using this to bash Obama which doesn’t surprise me. And of course Rep. Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota can’t think of anything else to talk about to Anderson Cooper of CNN but this story.

One look at this and anyone with some intelligence will see the $200 million figure doesn’t make sense when it it costs $190 million a day for the war in Afghanistan. Why would the Navy divert 34 warships to protect the president? We do have people to protect the president and they do trips like this all the time.

But what is most upsetting is that our Congress people, the ones that will fix our economy in the next two years, are jumping on this like stink on shit. I shiver to think that Bachmann will get on some committee directing funds here and there and she doesn’t have the brains to check out this Asia trip story before she opens her mouth?

This is scary folks.

Tomorrow is election day and it looks like it’s going to be interesting. We might end up changing the change. It’s not paradise with the new guy we brought in in 2008, so let’s bring in the good ole’ boys!

First thing, I predict that even with a big change in Congress things won’t change anytime soon. Since the Republicans were such gracious players these past two years, I expect to Democrats to be just as nasty. A little tit for tat. Even if enough “Tea Party” people get elected, there is still enough entrenched BS in Congress that will stymie any grand ideas the tea partiers might have.

The big hot button in the election has been taxes. We’re taxed too much and we’re spending too much. So pretty much every politician is spouting the “cut taxes” drivel. And Americans want to hear that because nobody likes paying taxes. Which brings me to the 60 Minutes piece last night with Dave Stockton, Ronald Reagan’s budget director. He made the radical statement that cutting taxes won’t solve the problems we are facing. In fact he is proposing that ALL the Bush taxes cut expire meaning that we all pay more in taxes. Perish the thought!

If you rationally think about it for a moment, he might have something there. How can we run a government on less revenue and expect the government to do what we want it to do, like national defense, social security, Medicare, fight terrorists, etc? The old saw is brought out all the time about putting more money in the pockets of consumers that helps prime the engines of growth. Well, since many more people since the great depression are out of work, they can’t spend because they don’t have anything. So how is that helping to prime the pumps?

He did mention something that I’ve suspected for a long time and that is that the top 5% of Americans in income hold over 40 trillion dollars in wealth. The other 95% has somewhat less… a lot less. Just imagine if we were to tax them just 1% more how much that could help our situation. I know that smack of socialism but continuing like we are now is not working.

Talking about raising taxes is deadly to politicians, but maybe the new GOP and Tea Partiers will have the courage to do the unthinkable. I doubt it.

“Abracadabra, everything’s perfect”

I was really surprised when I saw an article in my local paper quoting a retired plant worker saying “Obama’s been in office two years and he’s being blamed for not saying, ‘Abracadabra, everything’s perfect.’” It’s gratifying to hear someone with a more reasonable view of things.

It seems to me we are prone to forget what took place years ago that got us into this mess and how we expect quick fixes. Understandably we are focused on the short term and tend not to look at the long view. For those who are out of work and can’t find a job or who lost their house because they lost their job and can’t pay the mortgage, I can understand that position. But we have to keep reminding ourselves that if it took a long time to get us into this mess, it will take a long time to recover.

There was a lot of euphoria when Obama took office. Our choice in the presidential election was, at least to me, clear. With Obama the mood in the country was that he would quickly change things around for the better. But because the economic problem was so deep and pervasive, the actions he took didn’t seem to fix things a fast as we wanted. Houses are still being foreclosed, people can’t find jobs and the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

A recent article by Rick Newman, of US News and World Report, reported that corporations and investors are doing better under Obama but the undereducated and low-income Americans are doing worst. With the GOP poised to take over the House and possibly the Senate, the gap between the rich an poor will only widen.

So now anger seems to be the word of the day. We will elect a bunch of right leaning newbies who will fix things now! Well, don’t be surprised if things don’t get any better soon. I predict chaos will run rampant. Maybe, just maybe, this will improve Obama’s bid for reelection in 2012. Who knows?

I’m soooooo angry!

Angry. That’s the word you hear a lot about these days. The public is angry over…. well you name it. We’re angry over taxes. Anybody been happy about taxes? We’re angry about spending… except for what we each can get from our government, like social security, medicare, farm subsidies, etc. We’re angry about debt… except for all the individual debt we’ve accumulated over the years. We”re angry at politicians… all those selfish politicians we keep electing to send Washington money back to our towns.

I remember my days as a Corporate Computer Service Manager. No company likes to have their computer systems go down so invariably I’d hear from a lot of angry customers. Well after they ranted and raved for a while I’d say “Now what can we do to fix this problem?” One could understand the anger one might have when computers don’t work and how they impact a company’s business. But being angry doesn’t really solve the problem. Calm investigation and action solves the problem.

The media keeps saying the Americans are angry. Well yes, the present economic situation doesn’t make anyone happy. But if you step back for a moment and look at things rationally (how many Americans look at things rationally?), you’ll see there wasn’t just one thing that caused all this. There were many factors taking place over many years that brought us to this situation. Changing out some idiots in Congress for other idiots really won’t solve things. It will take whole scale changes in how we operate, how we innovate and how we address problems. We’d like to have someone say “this was the cause” but in truth there is no one cause. And it wasn’t Obama. It’s all kinds of things.

So after this election, and I’ll go out on the limb and say that the GOP will take over the house, we need to calm down and really figure out what needs to be done to fix things. We need to restore some sanity in this country. And I’m sure that the new crop of politicians we’ll elect will do that! Don’t hold your breath.

I’m right, despite the facts!

An article in the Boston Globe caught my attention the other day. It was written by Joe Keohane back on July 11, 2010, and his point was that, contrary to what one might think, an informed citizenry is not necessarily better than one that isn’t. In other words facts don’t play as much a role in citizens voting for the best candidates or helping citizens decide on complex issues. Keohane says “we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts.” In other words cognitive dissonance.

Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson made the case for cognitive dissonance in their book “Mistakes were made (but not by me).” Basically cognitive dissonance is the state of mind where logic and facts dictate one thing but an internal bias says something else. Hence there is an internal conflict or dissonance.  An example would be a person who smokes “knows” that smoking is bad for them but justifies their smoking by probably deluding themselves into thinking that they can get away with it and not get lung cancer. This is over and above the addiction issue.

Another example was with George Bush and his decision to invade Iraq. This issue was highlighted in the book by Tavris and Aronson. Bush was convinced that invading Iraq was the right thing to do because Saddam had WMD’s that needed to be taken out. Later after the invasion, and it was shown that no WMD’s existed, Bush just couldn’t admit he was wrong. In the book, Bush is quoted as saying in 2006, “I’ve never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions.” In other words, even after being shown that WMD’s were not in Iraq, Bush had a case of cognitive dissonance about WMD’s. No WMD’s but we were right in bombing the crap out of Iraq!

In the Keohane article he pointed out that many misinformed people often have the strongest political opinions. Remember the brouhaha over the so called “death panels” when Obama’s health care bill was being debated in Congress? Many stuck by the notion that the government was going to dictate who would live or die if this bill passed. It wasn’t true but the “death panel” story lived on.

I personally know of people who are so convinced of their political views and no amount of logic or facts can change their view of things. What can you do about people like that? Probably not much except to express what you think and present facts and hope that some of it sinks in. Or else we all sink!

Atheists know religion

In a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, atheists and agnostics scored highest when asked 32 questions about religion. I’m not surprised. I’ve heard it said that to get into a church you just have to believe but you will be asked to leave if you have knowledge or smarts.

This goes along with what I’ve seen with your ordinary Christian. They tend not to examine their religion too closely for fear of discovering something that might shake their faith. Although many participate in Bible studies I don’t think they study the Bible like a non-believer does. They typically study the Bible to find support for it and discard anything that poses a problem. Many, many books have been written on the problems in the Bible and when you read these books you find them filled with perverted and twisted linguistic logic.

To give an example how Christians can twist the Bible I heard pastor on a Christian radio station (yes, I do listen to them) try to explain Rev. 3:11, “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” The pastor focused on the word “quickly” saying that the writer used the word “quickly” to mean sudden or explosive versus “quickly” meaning soon. Elsewhere in the Bible “quickly” was used to mean soon as in “get here quickly.”

His point, I guess, was to dispel the notion that Jesus would come back soon. Instead he was building a case for Jesus coming back with a “boom” and some time in the future. In essence he perverted the word to get over a difficulty in the Bible.

But anyways back to the Pew Forum survey, it may not have been fair to ask Christians about other religions as they are focused on their own Christianity. Atheists, on the other hand, tend to examine many religions along with Christianity to see if any of them make sense. In the process Atheists come up to speed on religions more than your average Evangelical in the Bible belt of the US. I wouldn't read too much into this survey but at the same time if you can get an evangelical to really study the Bible, you may end up sowing the seeds of doubt. Whoa, wouldn’t that be a kicker!

Carving up America

Something very disturbing is happening to America. There are two Americas, one is conservative and the other is every thing else.

I tend not to say that the other America is liberal because I don’t really think the liberal bent is that persuasive despite what the right might say. Oh to be sure there are those areas of the country that are liberal like Massachusetts, but I think that the parts of the country that are not conservative are, to some extent, standing on the sidelines watching what is going on. And what is going on is disturbing.

The conservative America is increasingly becoming more hyper biased fueled in part by the right wing extremists. By that I mean that what ever bias the conservative right has, it gets hyped up by far the right nut cases and then the media picks up on it and it goes into hyper drive.

Look at the BS over the Islamic Cultural Center in NYC. Notice I didn’t say Mosque. Some right wing nutters whipped up fellow nutters to make this whole issue a case of Christian America against the Muslims. Normally I would say fine, you Christians go battle it out with the Muslims and let me know when it’s over. But since we are fighting a faction of Islam in Iraq and Afghanistan, does it make sense that we polarize the situation any more than it already is?

Also the dumbness of the stuff the far right puts out is beyond comprehension. Never mind what the facts are, the right has their views and damn anyone else. As in the case of the Islamic Cultural Center, the opposition was whipped up by Pamela Geller, a right wing blogger. One visit to her web site is enough to show you that facts don’t mean anything.

Trying to talk sensibly to them is a waste of time. All they like to do is shout and at the end of the day, nothing is accomplished. Sounds like the GOP to me!

American Sectarian War

Remember when George Bush decided to “free” the people in Iraq from their dictator Saddam Hussein by starting a war? Remember what happened? We literally wrecked their country, got rid of the army, and let all the Shiites and Sunnis go at it in a Sectarian war. Today, where there were cities where Shiites and Sunnis at least co-existed together, now there are only Shiite cities and Sunni cities.

The recent protests in New York City about a proposed mosque near Ground Zero has stirred the Christian right into a tizzy. As noted on “crooksandliars.com” we are about “to transform more than a billion people around the world into our sworn enemies.” Like we needed more.

The mindset the Christians have is that anything non-Christian is wrong and should be whipped off the face of the earth. For example, deep in the Bible Belt, in Murfreesboro Tennessee, a proposed mosque has become political fodder for the Republican candidates for governor and Congress. Of course we always knew what side the GOP stood on – God, guns, and guts. If you’ve ever traveled in the south, there are more Christian churches than you can shake a stick at. Catholic churches are few and synagogues are fewer still. And now no mosques.

Of course it’s OK that there is a porn shop, a strip joint and an Off Track Betting parlor right around Ground Zero in addition to all the commercial buildings going up. But we don’t want a mosque. This begs the question of how big is the “zone of sacredness” around ground zero? In other words how far would the Muslims have to move their mosque to be OK?

Typically the Christians are the first ones to play the persecuted card when in the Middle East Christians are attacked both physically and politically. They always claim that their religion is a religion of peace, spreading “the good news.” Sound familiar?

Obama was right to say that the Muslims have the right to build a mosque there. After all they have been using the building already for prayer services. One could question the wisdom of doing it, but if we continue to polarize ourselves in this way with the rest of the world we will continue to battle terrorists for a long, long time.

Plug the Well

Two letters in my local paper caught my attention recently. Grouped under the title of “Gulf spill was badly managed”, these letters showed how little people seem to understand what was involved and how political biases shaped their view.

One letter said “If you have wondered how John McCain and Sarah Palin would have handled the problem, read her book ‘Going Rouge.’ I don’t think it would take anywhere near three months.” OK so pray tell what would John and Sarah do differently? John would of gone here and there doing a bunch of stuff with out knowing what he was doing like he did when we were faced with economic collapse and he “rushed” back to Washington during his campaign to fix things. But first he stopped by the Late Show with David Letterman to have a little chat. Remember that?

And of course Sarah knows all about oil. She’s from Alaska and has seen oil from her back yard and therefore is an expert. Wonder Woman Palin would don a wet suit and dive in to plug that nasty well. Oh gee, it’s a mile down? Well it might take a little longer for Mrs. Palin.

But the second letter was, to me, the kicker. The writer said, “The oil has been spilling out for months and now they are capping it off. I’d like to know why it took so long just to put a cap on it?” I mean what was the big problem BP? Just come up with some sort of beanie and cap the sucker! Gee don’t you guys in the oil business know anything?

This really points out to me how people generally don’t bother to check all the facts and get informed about things like this oil spill disaster. I seem to recall that BP tried a couple of times to put some sort of cap on the well and it failed. Does anyone watching this from afar really know what is involved when drilling over a mile down in the ocean? Does anyone know how much complex equipment is required to work at those depths and pressures? Of course everyone would of like to have seen the well shut down as soon as possible, especially BP. Not only was this a huge publicity nightmare for BP, it was a real hit to their bottom line. And the costs to them will go on for years. Does anyone smell lawsuits?

I’m not saying we should just sit back and say nothing when an environmental disaster like this occurs, but we should gather all the facts before we make uninformed comments. I know it takes time and effort to get all the facts before one spouts off but maybe we should log off of Facebook for a couple of minutes and get educated on the facts.

Tolerate this!

Muslims are insulted when ever someone draws a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. Christians feel that those godless Atheists are hell bent on ridiculing them while, at the same time, they are bringing down the whole country with their “liberal” ways. Christians always feel under attack, playing the “they’re picking on us” card. All this goes under the heading of a “respect my religion” ploy. Why the hell should we?

To be honest I am sick and tired of hearing how the poor Christians are offended by those godless liberals. You know, after centuries of crap from “loving” Christians about how we are all doomed for hell unless we “get saved”, it has reached a point where we should no longer stand by and not say anything.

Take one of the things that the Christian religion does that I think is very bad. It’s the indoctrination of children, at a very early age, into believing in some sort of space daddy who will send them to hell unless they believe in him, while at the same time telling these kids that Jesus loves them! Does this make sense?

Anyone who grew up in the Catholic Church will tell you how much the church loved to put guilt on little kids. From nuns, to brothers to priests, guilt about who you are (awful sinner) was what you carried through out your childhood. Many a psychologist has earned a lot on money trying to “deprogram” Catholics.

Anyway the time has come to call out religion for what it is. And that is a polarizing mythology that no longer has any real value in today’s world. If fundies are disrespected by this, tough cookies!

A thought recently occurred to me the other day about the relationship of science and religion. Much has been written about how religion and science occupy different spheres of thought, or they overlap, or they are at opposite poles. Stephen Jay Gould was famous by proposing his “Non-Overlapping Magisteria”, or NOMA, which didn’t get a lot of press. In it he proposed that religion and science operate in two distinct realms – science covers the empirical realm and religion covers the ultimate meaning of life and moral values. That maybe somewhat true today but religion operated in the realm of science many, many years ago. And still tries to do today.

John Loftus, in “Why I became an Atheist”, makes the point about how religion, two to three thousand years ago, tried to explain how the world work at a time when (a) most people were illiterate and (b) we simply didn’t know much about the world in which we lived.

Religion back then was really the only “science” we had while people were trying to make sense of why plagues hit, why the earth shook, why storms killed people and why disease was prevalent, amongst other things. They looked to their priests and shamans to provide answers to many of the terrible things we experienced while we were trying to survive on a planet that really didn’t care about us.

As we grew in our knowledge about the world and as we opened our minds more, we began to see that we didn’t need gods to explain how things worked. Over time the need to invoke a god wasn’t needed. Today we can explain why plagues hit, why the earth shakes, why storms form, and how diseases come about. We no longer have to consult a witch doctor or priest when we get sick, we go to the doctor (at least most of us.)

Karen Armstrong, in “Battle for God”, talks about how fundamentalists are turning the mythos of religion into logos, and in turn they do a disservice to both religion and science. Creationists insistence that Intelligent Design is science makes a mockery of religion and diverts time and effort away from real science. So as religion tries to make claims that science has a pretty good answer for, religion starts to look foolish. Just look at the trial at Dover Pennsylvania as an example of how Intelligent Design couldn’t stand up to rigorous examination.

It may take many generations until religion is shoved aside but in the meantime it is still raising it’s stupid head.

Supreme Farce?

Reading about the latest hearings on Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, one wonders about the stupidity of all this theater. Of course the Democrats are lining up to support Elena Hagan and the Republicans are playing their usual “I don’t like anyone or anything” game. Of course just to it play safe, like all the nominees before her, Hagan has been carefully prepped not to be TOO specific when answering questions. Don’t provide too much information that the GOP would use to hang you with while providing enough to convince the Democrats that she is qualified.

You have to wonder that if she gave answers exactly as the Republicans wanted, would they support her? Probably not. So the game goes on. The idea now is that as long as the GOP is not in power, nothing, absolutely nothing, the nominee can say will convince them to support her. If the tables were turned, and the GOP was in power of course the Democrats would do the same. So this is just so much theater.

Some have said maybe it’s time that we elect justices to the Supreme Court. Wouldn’t that be nice? Can you imagine ads on TV by a candidate pandering to what ever group they want support from for their vote. “Vote for me and I’ll reject every law that you don’t like.” You think things are screwed up now?

So the show goes on.

Too noisy?

I recently read Frank Schaeffer’s book “Crazy for God” and enjoyed it immensely. I’ve also seen him in a interview on “GRITtv'”, a Dish Network channel, in which he talks about his new book “Patience with God”. In the interview he cautions Atheists to tone down the noise and not to sound so much like the crazies on the right. His concern is that if Atheists start to sound like the far right, then there is a danger that the more liberal voices may be no heard.

I think he has a point to some extent. If we, the non religious, rant and rave like the right then I think we will have an even more difficult time getting our message of reason and sanity across to the majority of Americans that are religious and Christian. But on the other hand Atheists and Agnostics only make up 10% to 15% of Americans so maybe our noise level has to be a little higher.

Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and others need to be heard and if they offend some of the religious among us, so be it. Everyday we are assaulted by the God believers with their world views so we need to make sure we can be heard above the background noise.

It bothers me that the religious seems to get very upset if a non believer publically questions or ridicules their beliefs. As a case in point, look at the Muslims who get freaky when someone draws a cartoon supposedly showing the Prophet Mohammed. Besides how do we even know what he might have looked like? If you make two drawings and label one Mohammed and the other has no name, which one will Muslims get upset about. Mainly the one with the label Mohammed because that what you said you wanted to depict.

I think the Atheists and Agnostics and the Humanists need to continue to speak out. We need to continue to have this discussion and sometimes we need to speak up a little to be heard over the drum banging of the Religious Right.

Noah's Ark once again!

They found it! Again! The TV news people are all agog that some Evangelicals found what they believe is Noah's Ark somewhere on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. Well, they claim to have found some wood pieces that maybe date back 4800 years ago. Or so they claim.

First of all, finding some old wood doesn't mean that it's proof of Noah's Ark. Besides the whole bible story of the flood is only one of many ancient flood stories known to exist. But leave it to fervent evangelicals to use anything to prop up their faith.

Even if the story is remotely true, as one commentator said, after Noah landed somewhere, especially a mountain, using the Ark as fire wood would be one of the first things Noah would do so the likelihood of finding wood from the Ark is very remote. Unless God magically provided good dry camp wood.

The whole flood story has always bugged me. God supposedly is pissed at mankind and wants to kill them all, save Noah and his group. So he causes rain to flood the Earth. If God can do anything he wants, why create a somewhat natural event like a flood instead of just "poofing" out of existence all those baddies? Why put poor old Noah through all the crap of building a boat and hauling all those animals into it? Why not just wipe out all people except Noah and family and move on?

There's no rhyme or reason to all this Bible stuff. Of course there is no rhyme or reason to those who believe this stuff.

This says it!

I recently finished reading “Why I Believed – Reflections of a Former Missionary” by Kenneth W. Daniels. In his book he recounts his journey growing up the son of evangelical missionary parents and later becoming a missionary himself. Then after examining Christianity closely, he left the faith and now considers himself an agnostic.

The book is well written with clear logical explanations on why he’s come to his present position. I was particularly struck by his quoting of Robert Ingersoll towards the end of the book. If I’ve never had a reason to read Ingersoll, I now have. This quote deserves to be read.

Next to external life is eternal death. Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark will never know again the touch of tears. Lips that have been touched by eternal silence will never utter another word of grief. Hearts of dust do not break; the dead do not weep. And I had rather think of those I have loved, and those I have lost, as having returned, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world--I would rather think of them as unconscious dust--I would rather think of them as gurgling in the stream, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds--I would rather think of them as the inanimate and eternally unconscious, that to have even a suspicion that their naked souls had been clutched by an orthodox God.

But for me, I will leave the dead where nature leaves them. And whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish; but I can not believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. And I would rather that every God would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, that that just one soul should suffer eternal agony. I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful. Upon that rock I stand. That he will forgive the forgiving. Upon that rock I stand. That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime. And upon that rock I stand. The honest man, the good, kind, sweet woman, the happy child, has nothing to fear, neither in this world, nor the world to come. And upon that rock I stand.

Fear Them!

In a previous post (The GOP Religion) I talked about how the GOP is a lot like the religious right. The recent back and forth between Dick Cheney and Joe Biden caused me to think about how both the GOP and religion use fear to push their agendas.

Consider the fear theme that ole grumpy Cheney keeps pushing. Those bad terrorists are still planning to attack and kill us nice, sweet Americans! And, according to ole grumpy, we must attack anyone who looks like a terrorist with everything our military can muster. Because someone wearing explosives in their panties is a sicko deserving of our wrath.

Then there is religion, especially evangelical Christian religion. First of all, you must be saved. Saved from what? Why Hell, you sicko! If you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior (never sure what that really meant) you'll burn forever in the fires of Hell. So come and join our religion and you'll be safe. You'll go up to heaven where you'll have 72 virgins at your disposal. Oh wait, that's the OTHER religion pushing that. Christians will just sit around and sing all day -- forever!

Cheney and his GOP flunkies really love to push the fear factor. They figure that if they can scare the crap out of us, we'll accept the GOP as our Savior party. And we, as dumb American sheep, go along with it. Terrorists are the worse thing that ever happened to America and we have to pull out all the stops to stop them, Cheney shouts. Never mind that more people die from the flu every year than from terrorists.

Now I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything about these wackos. I've heard it said elsewhere that we need to make the terrorists inconsequential. In other words don't forget about them but at the same time don't give them what they really want. And what they want is us quaking in our boots at the thought of what they might do to us. Here's ugly old bin Laden hiding in a cave somewhere in Pakistan having the U.S. jump every time he speaks. Well, ignore him and let him rot in the cave!

These terrorists are nothing more than low life criminals, like Timothy McVey, Richard Reid - the shoe bomber - and the Christmas underwear bomber. Throw them in jail and forget about them! As for the others, strengthen police and undercover work and nab them before they do the dirty. As for our military, let them fight legitimate wars not police actions.

Guerrilla tactics, such as the terrorists employ, are not designed to win anything. Their sole goal is to terrorize and as long as we stay scared of them, they gain the upper hand. If we treat them like annoying mosquitos, then they fail and slowly die of old age.

The Idiocy of America.

Frankly it's getting pretty annoying as well as frightening. It seems there is a segment of the American population that doesn't know how to think. The evidence is in the Tea Party movement or what ever you want to call it. Where was all the noise about big government when Bushie expanded the federal government by creating the largest agency in U.S. history? Where was the backlash against government spending when Bushie asked Congress to fund his Iraq war effort? Now suddenly the Tea Partiers want all government out of our lives. You guys are a little late!

I guess this group is OK with their health care (if they have any) run by for profit companies jacking up every year the premiums with bean counters telling them what operations they can and can not have. Don't want those government folks running our health care like they do in Canada and England.

For all those who don't like the government consider how many take a monthly check from Social Security, are signed up on Medicare, praise our troops (government funded) overseas, want government help when natural disasters strike, and want government oversight on everything from the food we eat, to the pills we swallow, and to the cars we drive. But keep the government out of my life!!!!!!

Then there is the poster girl for all this lunacy, Sarah - just checkin' my palm - Palin. Like a junior high teen with her hand crib notes, Sarah spouts hokey stuff like "how's that changey, hopey stuff workin' for ya?" Sarah, get an education! But I have to give her credit, for being just as smart as Brittney Spears, she's making pretty good money off of all those dumb asses. Maybe there are a few brains cells working for Sarah.

The most troubling part of all this is the fact that so many folks across this country are eating this crap up. Thinking about issues, researching the facts and reasoning things through doesn't work with this crowd. It's more gut level reactions that seems to be the norm with them.

And through all this the Party of No doesn't seem to be able or is unwilling to put forth any real proposal to solve the problems we have. They seem to forget that they are in large part (Democrats are right behind them) responsible for most of the mess. For a group that seems to love big business they aren't eager to help their buddies on Wall Street.

How do you deal with people like this? Reasoning won't do it. Shouting at them will only make them shout louder. Maybe evolution will take care of them. No wait! They still haven't figured out where babies come from!

Blame it on the Devil, Pat!

If you haven't seen it Pat Robinson, the perennial wing nut of the Evangelicals, blames the recent earthquake in Haiti on the fact that the Haitians had, in the past, made a pact with the devil. Well at least Pat is consistent. He previously said that Katrina was punishment for the wicked sinful ways of New Orleans and that New Yorkers, evil liberals, were to blame for the attacks of 9/11.

I guess the reason Pat's people go to Haiti is not for humanitarian work but to fight the devil. Well looks like the devil got the last laugh because, undoubtedly, some missionaries were probably lost in the earthquake.

Then, that cigar smoking tub of lard Rush Limbaugh, complained that Obama was taking advantage of the situation to look compassionate for those "light skinned and dark skinned" folks by having a quick press conference and rushing aid to Haiti. Such sensitivity!

But don't fear, Pat will do his best praying for those folks in Haiti (that will help!) and Rush will continue to blather into his gold microphone, spouting more inanities for all his loyal followers. Don't you just love it!

Loving Christians!

So there's this banner going around quoting Psalm 109:8 calling, essentially for the death of Obama. How nice!

Then there's the letter to the editor in a local paper here titled "Palin for President? You betcha!" The author of the letter said that she read Palin's book, saying Palin is "articulate, honest and real." I guess Sarah is really honest with the shirt she worn in Hawaii with "If you don't like America, then get the hell out!" on it. She ended the letter with a reference to Psalm 109:8. The letter writer and Palin have a lot in common.

It's curious that the Christian right can be so loving one moment and so hateful the next. I wonder how they would of felt if someone on the left of the political spectrum developed a banner calling for Bush to be kill, as in Psalm 109:8.

The scary part of all this is that the right, mainly religious, have become more entrenched. They are digging in heir heels and really pushing the "them and us" tactic. How many times have you heard about how Obama really screwed things up in the first year in office while the religious right conveniently forgot that Mr. Bush got us into two wars, costing lots of blood and money, allowed banks and financial institutions to almost wreck the economy and, oh by the way, ignored science and global warming. Great job George!

The problem with these people is that you can't reason with them. They are stuck in their world and no amount of persuasion will move them out of it. My only hope is that the younger generation is slowly tending to move away from this insanity.

Can you say something coherent?

Talk about mumbo-jumbo stuff, consider the following----

"Once upon a time, there was only the cycle of birth, life, and death. Then God created Darwin, whose theory of evolution transformed a static wheel of existence into a great arc of change, with bacteria, beast, biosphere and even human consciousness caught up in the currents of an evolutionary universe. This still radical revelation poses a fundamental challenge to some of our most cherished spiritual beliefs. In this teleseminar, Carter Phipps will upend traditional concepts of enlightenment and spiritual awakening, showing how the latest insights in science, philosophy, and spirituality are destined to transform our relationship to life, God, and…well, everything!"

I'm always amazed at how these "new age" gurus can peddle such nonsense. It seems like they know how to string a bunch of words together that at first glance sounds nice but upon closer examination, mean nothing. "The static wheel of existence into a great arc of change", huh? Darwin proposed a theory and "static" was done away with and "change" happened. Gee maybe I propose a theory of beautiful women that crave old guys like me and it will happen - just like that.

The quote was from EnlightenNext, a new age scam run by Andrew Cohen and Carter Phipps promoting a teleseminar entitled "Evolution Changes Everything: How the Discovery of Progress is Transforming the Spiritual Path". Huh?

Check out http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ and search for "I get Spam".

Hardy Ardi

I can hear the Creationists howl now. “It’s not a human. It’s a chimp!” In case you haven’t heard, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, announced the discovery of a fossil skeleton pre-dating the earliest known hominid, known as Lucy. The newest find, Ardipithecus ramidus, AKA Ardi, was dated at 4.4 millions years, some million years older than Australopithecus afarensis, AKA Lucy.

What struck me about this announcement is that we continue to discover more on more fossils that are adding to the overwhelming evidence for evolution. Also recently was the announcement of more evidence of the link between dinosaurs and birds with the discovery of a four legged winged reptile. Still no missing link, the Creationists continue to rant!

“No evidence! Just a theory,” creationists scream. Well what about this latest find guys? Oh, they say, the dating is suspect - it might just be a chimp.

If the creationists are smart – I know they are not – they should start to back off of trying to strike down every new discovery. Science will continue to find more and more evidence and every time they do, the creationist will have to come up with another excuse. They need to learn to pick their battles. Oh wait, they have, they trot out their inane reasoning on an American public which is increasingly scientifically illiterate. They have succeeded in make inroads into schools about Intelligent Design despite the overwhelming rejection by the scientific community. Maybe it says more about the dunbness of our fellow citizens than the smartness of the ID people.

Angry at God?

I've seen some comments on the web about Atheists being "angry at God." The statement makes the assumption that God exists and that Atheists are mad at him because they (Atheists) don't have a belief in him or something like that. Just writing that sentence didn't make sense to me but what do I know - I'm angry at God!

What Christians are getting at, in my view, is that Atheists are mad that they don't believe in God and God needs to somehow straighten them out if only they (Atheists) will believe in him. Here we go again with nonsensical reasoning.

Listen up Christians, first of all Atheists by definition, don't have a belief in a supernatural being so there is nothing to get angry at or about. It's like saying that I'm angry at unicorns and I know they don't exist but boy am I mad at them! Again what am I angry about?

This whole "angry at God" thing is really a ploy by Christians who are trying to support their view (in their own feeble minds) by contending that the belief benchmark is a belief in God and those who don't believe are going against a given fact (God exists). They can not comprehend that maybe this God thing isn't real. They surely can not comprehend that someone in the good ole U S of A doesn't buy the notion of a God - large G or small g.

So the next time some Christian, those loving kind souls (ha!), yell at you that you are angry at God, tell them that you want God to contact you and then you and God can have a sit down over a beer in the White House gardens. Even Biden will be invited.

Is belief bad?

I’ve been thinking about faith and belief lately. At the outset I would like to say that as far as I’m concern, faith and belief are one and the same. In my Catholic school days, the nuns would say that in order to have faith you must believe. And in order to believe you must have faith. Two views of the same thing or circular reasoning?

The faith and belief that’s promoted today by many religions tend to be talked about in terms that could lead one to think that faith and belief are “things”. It’s supposedly something that comes into you as a gift when you pray a lot or attend church a lot. I prefer to see it as a mind concept or process that can supplant normal reasoning.

Look how, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, belief is defined -”that state of the mind by which it assents to propositions, not by reason of their intrinsic evidence, but because of authority.”

To me the crucial items in the definition are “not by reason” and “because of authority.” So when you believe something you abandon reason and you assent or accept belief because of some authority, either human or written.

The problem with that is that you relinquish your normal reasoning to just accepting what someone tells you. You abandon looking at evidence and questioning assumptions. That, to me, can lead you to be susceptible to anything because you have no external basis to judge validity. If you believe that illness can be cured just by praying, then you may die sooner than if you sought medical help. So belief can be a life or death issue.

It’s amazing to me to hear how much preachers continually push the notion to “just have faith” and everything will be just dandy. From an evolutionary point of view, belief can be a life saving thing for example if the tall grass is rustling, and you believe it’s because a lion is walking through there, it might save your life. But then again it might just that the wind is moving the grass. So if you are right or wrong in your belief doesn’t matter because you are still alive to tell about it.

But as we have gain knowledge through science about how the world works we need to abandon some beliefs. Infrared technology can now tell us whether or not the lion is in the tall grass. We no longer have to rely on faith. But to hold onto to faith when science and evidence tell you other wise, can have profound consequences.

Take the belief that prayer works. If a child is sick and the parents refuse to take the child to the doctors and rely on prayer instead, then the child is in great danger. Or if you are out of work and you have the belief or faith that God will find you a job with out you looking for one, you may end up on the street.

Or if your belief is that the Bible has the truth about how people came to be on this earth and insist on Creationism or Intelligent Design be taught in pubic schools instead of evolution, then our whole country is put at risk.

Beliefs can be comforting but they can be dangerous. We really need to recognize that.

I want to be a preacher!

I have a relative, a Christian evangelical, who lost his regular job some time ago and rumor has it that he is thinking of becoming a preacher. This caused me to think about the preaching business and let there be no mistake, it is a business.

For the longest time I have always thought that the reason Christianity succeeded was that it was one of the first network or multilevel marketing organizations. The idea was that you would "convert" some of your friends and you would get them to convert some of their friends and so on. Just like selling insurance with Primerica. Over a period of time the organization would grow and bingo, you have a megachurch like Joel Osteen's. Need less to say the guy at the top gets all the coin.

The other part of being a preacher is that you are really a salesman selling something that people don't get, supposedly, until they die. Notice that the really good ones, those with the most coin, tend to be good salesmen. What a great scam this Christianity is. I, your wonderful preacher, is selling you "eternal life." Want some? Well you'll get it but first you have to die. If you die and don't get eternal life, well tough cookies. No refund!

Now if you could only figure out a way to do that and not have to deal with all those closed minded Christians who may lynch you if you don't preach the right thing. Oh, I thought Christinaity was about peace and love. Silly me.

The GOP Religion

It struck me the other day that there is a commonality between the Republicans and Christian religion more than most people think. To me it’s more than a coincidence that many who are to the right in the political spectrum tend to be both religious and Republican. There is also a shared cultural phenomenon and process going on.

The Christian religion tends to promote a particular view of the world and uses a rigid system of teaching dogma to promote and maintain that view. Every week in Christian churches across the country the pastor indoctrinates the congregation on this view and it is reinforced over and over with very little allowance for opposing views. Sure there are Sunday school sessions and other “Bible Studies” but they tend to be opportunities to squelch differing views before they cloud the mind of the believers. The over riding theme seems to be “I know this doesn’t make sense, but just believe it.” In fact the convoluted attempts to make sense of the Bible and other religious tenets, have created confusion and spawned other sects who see the dogma just a little bit differently.

Republicans use the same tactic when it comes to political views. They are entrenched in certain dogmas, i.e. no abortion, less taxes, less government, etc, and for the most part put their hands over their ears when ever anyone offers a different view. Many Republicans tends to see and hear only what they want to see and hear just like the congregations on Sunday.

The GOP is very good in reducing issues down to clever phrases or ideas and they work like crazy to enrage the populace, just like a revival meeting. Take the hype about the “death panel.” The right has latched onto this and uses it to support their dogma of “less government.” “The government wants to kill your Grandma”, they scream! Whether it’s true or not (it’s not), they use this to support their dogma of less government involvement in individual lives.

What can you do? Not much except to get out as much of the facts as possible and hope some will alter their view – somewhat. As much as you try to point out contradictions in the bible, believers will still stick to their belief despite logic. The same is true with Republicans. Logic takes a back seat in the GOP.

Birthing a notion

It floats around like swarms of mosquitoes that annoy and annoy. It’s seems like such a minor thing but it just doesn’t go away and to kill it takes a lot of effort. I’m talking about the “birth controversy” regarding Obama.

There is a segment of the population that contends that Obama wasn’t born in the US and therefore can’t be the President. The controversy is fanned various groups all over the internet and on TV by many including Lou Dobbs, who was thought to be a reasonable reporter. Despite the evidence of a live birth certificate issued by Hawaii and newspaper clippings announcing his birth, the "birthers" continue their rant. What we are dealing with here is not that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii (he was) but that the belief of him not being born in the US is kept alive by those who cling to that belief despite the evidence.

It’s a classic case of intractable belief. You’ve seen cases like this before. There are those who contend that the attacks of 9/11was the work of the US government to get us to go war in Iraq. Or that the crash of TWA flight 800 off Long Island on July 17, 1996 was caused by a missile fired by a military jet or an onboard terrorist. Once a notion or belief is created and held by an individual, no amount of contrary evidence will do.

The same is true of those who hold a religious belief. No amount of discussion will change the mind of the believer. The more you talk to them the more their view gets entrenched. As Carol Tarvis and Elliot Aronson point out in their book “ Mistakes were made (but not by me)”, “the brain comes packaged with other self-serving habits that allow us to justify our own perceptions and beliefs as being accurate, realistic, and unbiased.”

So the “birthers” will continue to rant until they tire but the religious believers go on forever inflicting their nonsense on us. I would say "Jesus help us!" but he seems to be a slacker of late.

Foxy News

I’ve never been a fan of Fox News or the Fox Network. It’s been apparent to me that it leans so far right that it’s not even funny. Except for their tag line - “Fair and Balanced.” Now that’s laughable.

Anyway a video was recently put up on the blog “Pharyngula” by P.Z. Myers that was in response to a piece that Bill O’Reilly did some time ago about the Netherlands. Seems, according to O’Reilly, the Netherlands was shutting down some prostitute houses and curbing pot use. The point O’Reilly and others were making was that all this liberal business by the Dutch was leaving the country in a “cesspool of corruption”(1) according to conservative talking head Monica Crowley, Ph.D. Again according to these Fox Network folks, the Netherlands was where every criminal, crack head and whore were going. However the video countered with some interesting stats like the percentage of people who ever used cannabis in the US is 40.3% while in the Netherlands it’s 22.6% and a more telling stat was that the homicide rate per 100,000 in the US is 5.6 while it’s 1.2 in the Netherlands. Of course remember that America is a good Christian country loaded with guns and while the Dutch are not!

What concerns me with this story is not the blather that O’Reilly and others at Fox News put out but the fact that most who watch this network don’t bother to check the facts or even care about the facts. Fox News and the various programs they broadcast are little more that a bunch of biased right wing yoyos who spout garbage and inanities while their loyal audience just eats it up without question. In my opinion Fox News is developing a group of Americans who buy into what ever is said on their network that supports their beliefs, whether it’s true or not. The fact that most of their viewers see what they say as the “truth” is very worrisome. Fox News is not even journalism – it’s a forum for who ever want to speak their mind regardless of the facts. A case in point is Glenn Beck, another Fox yoyo, who recently said that Obama has a “hatred for white people.”(2) Fox News will say that Glenn Beck is not a journalist but a commentator, but their viewers don’t know the difference.

We need, as a country, to have citizens who that want to dig for the truth, that don’t buy into what one person may say without hearing from others, and who hold belief until they make a careful analysis of all facts. I fear that that’s not going to happen. It’s a lot like the Sunday preacher who tells his sheep, excuse me, congregation to believe even though it doesn’t make sense. Perish the thought that believers would want to question things. That’s heresy!!!

[1] “Well, in the Netherlands their experimentation with social tolerance, free love, free drugs, clearly has backfired. Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption, crime. Everything is out of control. It's anarchy. And as you point out, you know, one of the great magnets for tourism in Amsterdam was this, except it has now crossed the line and gotten totally out of control.” Monica Crowley on the O’Reilly Report, December 9, 2008

[2] “This president has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture, I don't know what it is.” Glenn Beck on video posted on “Crooks and Liars” July 28, 2009

How stupid can you be!

Ireland has just passed a law that punishes anyone who makes "blasphemous" remarks about a religion that offends a number of adherents. The fine is 25,000 Euros.

First of all, how do you enforce such stupidity? Do you have to read all the newspapers, watch all the TV broadcasts, listen to all the radio programs and read ALL the Internet? Come on!

Secondly, religion it's self will be in trouble with this law. How many time have you heard Muslims calling for the death of Christians and Jews? Every time a Christian preacher states that Muslims are going to hell because they don't have the "right" religion, would they be subject to this law?

Now granted this law is an Irish law and doesn't affect other countries but it is a trend that is very worrisome.

Recently the UN tried to pass a resolution calling on countries to try and prevent people from speaking ill of people who hold religious views. In other words if you say that Christians are nuts for believing in a space daddy who rewards and punishes them after they die, are you guilty of blasphemy?

For centuries, religious individuals have blasted non-believers in nasty ways. Just look at the nutty believers at the Westboro Baptist Church in the news that carry signs saying that "God hates Fags." Believers can be very nasty, even violent especially around abortion.

Religion needs to be always questioned. Religion continually makes assertions about many things that affect us all especially science. You only have to look at Christians who are pushing for the teaching of Intelligent Design in science courses under the guise of "Teach the Controversy" and other such nonsense.

It's apparent in Europe and some Far East countries that religion is loosing it's grip on the population but they continue to use every tool available to maintain some sort of influence for as long as they can. Even in the U.S. more and more people are indicating that they are non-religious or at least do not proscribe to any particular religion. At the same time you see the very vocal Christian opposition to things like abortion, stem cell research and evolution. The only way to call Christians on their claims is to speak up. It's not blasphemy, it's telling it like it is.

Sarah, we hardly knew ya...

Not that I really cared about Sarah Palin but her quitting as Alaska's Governor doesn't surprise me in the least. I never could understand why the GOP gushed all over her except that maybe the GOP, being a party of middle aged horny white guys and she being a hot chick, aroused them.... you know.. down there! But all this spinning of her resignation is funny to watch because the political right is trying their darnedest to show her as smart and cagey. Listen GOP, maybe she just doesn't have the stomach to handle all the pressure of political life.

Can you imagine her running for national office now, of any kind, and the first question to her is going to be "How long do you intend to stay in office?"

If Sarah was the new GOP, boy are they in trouble! Democrats, don't get cocky. You got to get your act together too.

Christian nation?

I got an email from a person I knew in the Service many, many years ago. The email was about Obama saying at some point that "America is not a Christian nation." As you can imagine this upset my friend, who is, I guess, a devout Christian now. The email was basically a chain email for folks to send to others.

I was going to respond to him directly but since it's been many years since I've known him I decided to respond in my blog.

I think Obama was right in saying that the U.S. is not a Christian nation. I know many Christians who want to force their religion on others but we are not a Christian nation. More correctly, in my view, we are a nation OF Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, AND non-believers. The government of the the U.S. must be secular, taking no position on any religion. Hence the separation of church and state. I do not want to be a Christian nor do I want our government to run at the will of Christians. In fact, if the U.S. government were to favor one religion, which it seems to be sliding towards, then it will be to the detriment of all religions and all Americans.

We had eight years of Bush siding with the religious right and see what it got us! Let's move towards the other direction!

My aching back!

There's an article in the Boston Globe that caught my attention. It's about a man, Jack Sullivan, from Marshfield Massachusetts who in August 2001 prayed to some dead Cardinal to cure him of the terrible back pain he was having. This piqued my interest because I too have experienced very bad back pain that over time eased up and went away. But the curious part of this story was that when he did this prayer thing to Cardinal John Newman from England, it was AFTER surgery on his back at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston. Gee makes you wonder!

The story goes that in June of 2000, Jack Sullivan had some vertebrae squeezing on his spinal cord. He apparently had some surgery then (the story isn't too clear on that) and he prayed to Cardinal Newman at that time. According to the story he was then pain free for eight months before the pain returned (prayer cure timed out?). He again had back surgery and again he prayed. Now he's been pain free since (according to him).

Now having had back issues for many, many years and knowing that if it isn't serious, most back pain eases with rest and mild exercise. Yes in some cases surgery is needed and the outcome to back surgeries is not good in many cases. But sometimes it works.

So my question is, what really caused the cessation of back pain? Prayer or surgery? How many times had Jack been praying to Cardinal Newman or to God and nothing happened? How serious was the back issue and what do doctors say about this? Given what we know about back problems and how they sometimes respond to treatment/surgery and how they sometimes get better on their own, it makes you at least question as to the efficacy of prayer in this case.

Of course the faithful will tout this as proof that God answers prayers - sometimes! It's a case of how we are quick to jump to some conclusion that supports our beliefs while ignoring the obvious. It's also interesting that Jack had opted for back surgery. He could of saved a lot of money if he had prayed first to cure his back problem before going in for surgery. I guess believers like it both ways!