April 30th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
(Web Comics)
What can I say about Orneryboy? Michael Lalonde has one of the more interesting web comics out there. By theme there it is unquestionably goth, but not in a mopey I-listen-to-nothing-but-the-cure kind of way. He definitely has industrially influenced goth underpinnings, and that makes me happy for obvious reasons.
The story centers around two main characters: Orneryboy and Dirtygir, two gothy folks in a nice relationship. Of course that relationship includes demonic cats and zombies, but hey, no relationship is perfect. The characters are based to some extent on the author and his…er…partner? Lover? Wife? Girlfriend? I’m not sure how they categorize themselves. His site is very slick, I must admit. It isn’t the usual prefabricated web comic setup, and though a good number of the web comics I read do work off of their own setups his shines as one of the better ones. Not that it is terribly important to the comic itself, but let’s face it, a good steak is better if the rest of the plate looks nice, too. And of course, since I’m such an RSS fiend, his site’s RSS feed works fantastically.
If I were to pick the one thing I really love about the comic it is how Michael manages to spin a fantastically crazy-ass tale without having all manner of strange jumps in the story. If you’ve kept up on things you know what’s happening. In doing this, though, he still manages to keep things very interesting because in the end, nothing is predictable in Orneryboy. Give it a shot…you may like it.
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April 30th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
(Free Thought, Philosophy)
Listening to one of the Triad of Reason podcasts one of the guests, Alonzo Fyfe was talking about his theory of Desire Utilitarianism. Not bad, all said, in that it seeks to describe how people actually judge things, not how they should judge things. Thus it isn’t trying to find normative truth which is good since in my book, thus far at least, is an oxymoron. Hopefully some day I’ll straighten that one out in my head. 
In his discussion he brings up what, in terms of his theories, is a vicious circle, or a small circle of reasoning. His example is fantastic:
“God exists.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the Bible says so.”
“Why trust the bible?”
“Because God wrote it. ”
I agree that in complex descriptive systems things will indeed weigh upon each other. Look at a dictionary. Words are defined in terms of other words. This doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong wih it, but just demonstrates that at some level your descriptions will weigh upon each other as though in a web. The problem becomes when you let the web get too small as in the above example.
I’ll definitely have to read up more on his stuff.
“But first his initial definition: desire is the motivation to make a proposition true.” Hmmm…
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April 29th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
(Web Comics)
Although he only manages to crank out a comic about once every two weeks Garth makes an all said fantastic comic. The artwork is quite nice, and his characterizations show the type of depth I tend to enjoy in my web comics.
The basic idea behind Comedity is that it is largely a slice of life comic with the twist of the protagonist’s personality characteristic being actual characters. It shares some similarities with AppleGeeks in content and computers being transformed into hot females (in this case Intel based), but beyond a few surface elements it is quite original.
One good note about Garth’s slow schedule is that it doesn’t take long to catch up on the archives. For those of us who RSS our comics Comedity is fantastic. It has its own RSS feed that works quite nicely so when he puts stuff up I read it, and usually get a good chuckle.
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April 29th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
(Free Thought)
It vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment - Galileo
It is wonderful to see the faithful fighting against science these days. It is reminiscent of a boxer swinging at the air as he falls to the mat. Most have adapted to science, and all said it is a pretty sensible approach. Better to doge than be hit after all. This, of course, is the crux of how most mythicists deal with it. “Yeah, the book says the world was created in seven days, but that’s just symbolic. What are seven days to God?” (I hope I’m not straw dogging anyone here). Others still do their best to shove us back in to ye olde faithful dark ages by abandoning science alltogether. Reading the above quote from Galileo puts it in to perspective for me. This isn’t new, and with luck civilization will persevere through their latest attacks.
The funny part for me is that watching the fundamentalist movement working in tandem with the religiosity of the neo-cons I find it so obvious that it is nothing more than a ploy to control people, and yet a supposedly educated public does nothing but don the shackles and gladly take up their slavery. Even those who manage to break away from the overt control of the money grubbing churches they still till the same plot of land their master put them to as though they have somehow found freedom.
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April 27th, 2007 at 9:38 am
(Web Comics)
Though it doesn’t update as often as it used to Chugworth Academy is still one of my favorite web comics because of the quality nonsense and fun going on in every frame. I can understand comics either winding down or going through dry spells. Real life hits comic artists as much as it does any of us, so I can’t really complain about it. This one is definitely worth going through the archives to keep track of who is who, and to enjoy the incredible overarching funny behind it all. Dave and Jamal have managed to deliver over and over again, so I’m really hoping that things clear up for them and Chugworth lives on.
Whenever I think about the comic one always comes to mind: Comic 192. I’d insert it inline here, but the skin I’m using is too narrow. I’ll have to fix that at some point.
I’m not sure why, but it struck me as the funniest thing in the Universe the first time I saw it. Something about the progression of facial expressions and whatnot is hysterical to me.
The only downside to CA is that their rss feed loses big time. Either they changed the URL without leaving the old one behind with one last update about where the new one is or it simply isn’t working, but I had all manner of issues with it. Fortunately Comic Alert! syndicates them so I’ve been using that.
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April 27th, 2007 at 9:01 am
(Free Thought)
A lot of buzz has caught the waves about the New Atheism, led by such writers as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. New Atheists have been called militant in their call to not only disbelieve themselves, but to do away with religion on the whole. I think my favorite criticism comes in the form of calling them fundamentalists.
This whole thing tickles me for a great number of reasons. First of all some act as though Atheism is a unified movement, but nothing could be further from the truth. Certainly some can easily fit within certain labels including Atheist, Free Thinker, Humanist, Materialist, and Nihilist. The problem is that even though those broad brush strokes will indeed capture large numbers of people there isn’t a unified faith behind Atheism as there is in the Theist world, and even then few agree on much of anything. Catholics come in all shapes and flavors, and honestly the only thing they have in common is attending a Catholic church and calling themselves Catholic. This is the same with any religious movement. Until recently I didn’t realize that most people didn’t know that there are several major types of Islam, or that there are major divisions within Buddhism. With Atheism we don’t even have the benefit of working off of a finite set of inspirations. Christians have their bible, and Muslims have the Koran. What to Atheists have? Certainly there is a wide variety of influential authors but none of them are canonical in any sense.
Unification among Atheists resides in other places such as science. We tend not to quibble about the meanings of Newton’s laws since they’re quite obvious. But the thing is that we don’t hold science as a religious viewpoint as some fundamentalist Christians would lead people to believe. Most Catholics I know have the same views on Science that I do: it is an attempt to model the world around us and understand how things work. Catholicism had its fight with Galileo and has long since come to peace with science. Being largely mythicistic (is that even a word?) allows you to do that.
The unifying factors of Atheists are simple: lack of belief in a god and the supernatural as a whole. Yeah, many will argue that perhaps spirituality may have some basis, and that some supernatural beliefs may simply be uncovered science, but overall the view of God as popularized by the big religions is considered a pile of hooey. So yeah, there are those in the Atheist world that view religion as incredibly dangerous or the big factor holding humanity back instead of helping us move forward to whatever eudaimonia one may envision. There are also ones that believe it best to pick the beneficial parts out of religion and leave the obvious falsehoods behind (Thomas Jefferson anyone?). The spectrum of Atheistic belief is quite broad and honestly leaves a lot of room for some quite lively discussion.
So honestly this spectre of New Atheism isn’t quite what the news would like people to believe. Hell…they obviously haven’t spoken to any good quality Nihilists among whose ranks I’m usually counted…though I’ve mellowed out as I’ve gotten older.
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April 26th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
(Web Comics)
What kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t start posting up my favorite web comics? Because I can’t think of any good order to do them in I’m going about this in a rather random fashion. The first one to come to mind is Questionable Content by J. Jaques.
Some comics I read in the hopes that on any given day they’ll have a good one, some I read because they used to be really good and I hope they’ll get better. Others, like QC, haven’t ever really disappointed me. In the early days of the archive you get to see Jeph’s art style in its more formative stages, but the quality of the writing easily makes up for any of his early art’s failings. Over time his artwork has improved and is one of the better drawn comics I read.
What really keeps me going, though, are two things. One is his ability to mix comedy and drama in a way that’s actually funny and interesting. Thus it isn’t just a loose plot to support jokes, or a constant tear jerking oh-woe-is-me drama fest. The other is that the characters are actually interesting. Even people who have only showed up in a few frames have a life about them, and the regular cast are real people who grow, learn, and of course do incredibly stupid shit.
I also like how he gives me a view into the world I find constantly surrounding me working at a college: youngeons. The students here are over a decade younger than me and honestly I don’t want to be one of those old fucks who can’t relate to people who are of a different age than him. I try to at least be aware of what is going on with people of other “generations” (in quotes because a generation is really 30 years, but in our day and age 10 years makes a hell of a difference), and QC is one of the ways I do that.
Like all good comics he has an rss feed (and don’t miss his QC Livejournal). I highly recommend linking to it (publishes weekdays like clockwork), and catching up on the archives. Enjoyable at every turn!
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April 26th, 2007 at 11:48 am
(Free Thought)
I love it when people think age old ideas are new. It shows nothing but a general lack of energy to look under the surface, the desire to be right instead of knowing the truth. Trust me…those are two very different things.
Lately there has been a surge of belief surrounding a movie that appeared on youtube.com and later a DVD and book known as The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne. Its messages about the Laws of Attraction ring in my ears based on years of study in to western mysticism. Let’s face it. They took a few basic ideas from the practice of Western Magic used by such notable authors as Alister Crowley, Peter Carrol and wrapped them tightly in Christian mythos.
Of course the hoi polloi have been eating this shit up with a soup spoon. Why? Because it promises everything with no actual work involved, and of course that’s what everyone wants. The regular world of Christianity fights against this, of course, since it is hard to keep your ass glued to a pew if you aren’t afraid of eternal damnation in exchange for your sense of righteousness, and that’s simply bad for the economics of religion.
At the end of the day, though, if you really look at it people only want to be told that they can do things in order for them to do it. Some folks need some sort of motivating force to propel them forward in to whatever it was they could do anyway if they just convinced themselves of such. You want to know the real secret? You are what you make of yourself, so go ahead and be who you want to be. You don’t need to pay someone twenty bucks to find that out.
As far as the other possible riches of western mysticism? Well…find that out for yourself. It is a fantastic trip.
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April 24th, 2007 at 10:10 am
(Free Thought, Humor)
I can’t remember where I originally saw this, but since I’m cleaning up my links I thought I should share this one with all of you:
The Official God Faq
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April 20th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
(Free Thought)
So here’s a great one that came down the AP newswire on the 13th:
WASHINGTON - Students who took part in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.
Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes that were reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes. And they first had sex at about the same age as other students — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.
The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education. Critics have repeatedly said they don’t believe the programs are working, and the study will give them reinforcement.
However, Bush administration officials cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study. They said the four programs reviewed — among several hundred across the nation — were some of the very first established after Congress overhauled the nation’s welfare laws in 1996.
Officials said one lesson they learned from the study is that the abstinence message should be reinforced in subsequent years to truly affect behavior.
There’s more here, but I simply can’t stomach to print any more of this.
So in short this demonstrates yet another time that religious morality simply doesn’t work and doesn’t help keep people on the straight and narrow. A lot of parents desire to send their children to church even if they themselves aren’t faithful because they are led to believe that religious moral education is supposed to ensure that their children have a strong moral base during childhood and concequentialy become better people.
Bull Shit
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