I've been a fan of Neil Young's music going all the way back to his days with Buffalo Springfield. "Truth Be Known" is one of my favorite songs by Neil (backed by Pearl Jam minus Eddie Vedder, with Neil on lead vocals), on his CD Mirror Ball. Pearl Jam fans -- please don't rush out to buy the CD just because Stone Gossard and Mike McCready are playing rhythm and lead guitars behind Neil, and Jeff Ament is on bass. You might be disappointed. At least, listen to "I'm the Ocean" and "Big Green Country" before you make a purchase decision either way. In fairness, at the very least, you need to be aware that Eddie Vedder only sings a single verse on one song. It's not a Pearl Jam album, by any stretch of the imagination. Fans of Neil Young, however,..shame on you if you don't already own a copy. Neil's vocals are an acquired taste, but you've already acquired it, right? The guys from Pearl Jam certainly seemed to have invigorated Young on the 1995 release. I especially liked the guitar work of Gossard and McCready on "Big Green Country", and the lyrics from one particular verse in "Truth Be Known" that went: When the fire that once was your friend Burns your fingers to the bone And your song meets a sudden end Echoing through right and wrong Truth be known... There is great wisdom in those words -- nothing hurts worse than being betrayed by a friend. Try to imagine what Jesus must have felt like, when Judas kissed his cheek. Of course, if you're a conspiracy theorist like D. M. Murdock, you may not even believe Jesus existed. By strange coincidence, a … [Read more...]
An open letter to Dr. Francis Collins (and Dr. Ken Miller)
Dear Dr. Collins, I'd like to begin by saying that I have tremendous respect for your work on the Human Genome Project. I enjoyed your book The Language of God so much that even quoted you a couple of times in my book, Counterargument for God. So, if there is a human being on planet Earth as qualified to answer my question as (atheist) biologist Jerry Coyne, it would appear to be either you, or (Catholic) biology professor Ken Miller, whose work I'm most familiar with from watching his lectures posted on You Tube that attack intelligent design. However, I did appreciate his calm and pleasant demeanor on display while he ridiculed my personal beliefs. One thing that you and Professor Miller seem to share in common with Professor Coyne is your apparent belief in the infallibility of evolution theory, and that descent is the only viable explanation for the origin of species. Unsurprisingly, Professor Coyne didn't respond to his open letter. However, I didn't really try to hide the fact that I am a creationist and an advocate of intelligent design. Professor Coyne may have been hostile to the source, rather than the questions asked. In retrospect, I probably could have done a better job of framing my questions without antagonizing him. Professor Benoit LeBlanc was kind enough to attempt answering them, but unfortunately his answer required Deep Time that I don't believe is available in the scenario we're hopefully about to discuss. I don't believe my personal religious beliefs will keep either of you gentlemen from answering my questions because we are all … [Read more...]
Christian atheists
Some words just don't seem to go together. For example, there's honest politician. Another phrase that seems somewhat oxymoronic is lucky loser. And then there's Christian atheist. Seriously? How can anyone be an atheist and a Christian? The contradiction of the two terms seems painfully obvious. The short answer is, you can't. This isn't another way of describing Christian apostasy -- apostates tend to be activists, relentless and very aggressive with their attacks on Christianity. Many Christian apostates not only reject the tenets of their former faith, they seek to eradicate belief in weak Christians. Wikipedia defined a Christian atheist as someone who rejects belief in any sort of a supernatural God, but tries to emulate the moral example of Jesus. I must admit that I've never encountered a Christian atheist before -- in fact, the only person that might have fit the description of one was Mahatma Gandhi, and he was murdered years before I was born. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem to make any sense to reject that Jesus was the Christ, yet make him your primary role model. Let's face facts -- Jesus wasn't real big on having fun, was he? Think about it...if atheism really is true, and Darwin's theory about how life randomly descended into modern animals without rhyme or reason, then the only sensible rule for society should truly be survival of the fittest. Every man for himself and woman for herself, and get all you can while you can. After all, you're going to die soon enough, and there goes your chance to lie, cheat, steal, commit … [Read more...]
How does the brain record memories?
I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I am not a scientist, nor do I pretend to be one. However, that's never going to stop me from asking serious questions to those people who do claim or pretend to be professional scientists. Recently an atheist friend (probably former friend, to be technically correct. I think he "unfriended" me after this exchange) asserted in our discussion as a statement with authority that neuroscientists have pretty much figured out how the human brain works. Really? I thought. It's been my considered opinion for some time now that we humans aren't nearly as smart as we think. So I asked my now-former friend what I thought was a pretty simple and straightforward question: how does our brain store a memory? I do know how computers manage the feat but for humans, I can only guess. Most people understand that computers mimic the human brain in several respects. However, as a former developer, I know quite a bit about how computers go about performing their job, and the ways in which computers and the human brain are quite different. Computers and humans both have memory, meaning an ability to recall historical information for use in current and future decision-making. When we work in a computer program, our efforts are only stored temporarily in that computer's memory. For our work to become persistent and thus made available for future use, we must take specific action to save our effort in the current session to the computer's hard drive. Otherwise, when we close the browser and turn off the machine, our work is lost … [Read more...]
