A brief look at what’s really important to us as a species

You may (or may not) have heard that recently SETI had to mothball it’s Allen Telescope Array.  Apparently it would cost $2.5 million to keep it operational.  That’s a lot of money, especially in these hard economic times, right?

It depends on what’s important to you.  I recently saw a bumper sticker that read something to the effect of “we never have enough money for education, but we always seem to have enough money for war”.  Think about that. The swath of Republicans we just voted into office (due in no small part to the billions of anonymous dollars filtered through SuperPACs made possible by the Citizen’s United ruling) have been busy slashing funding left and right.  They claim we can’t afford these things.  Things like health care for all Americans, NPR, PBS, Planned Parenthood, and our educational system.  I’m watching my sister facing the possibility of being fired and forced to re-apply for her job as a way of “improving our educational system”.  What a crock.  Meanwhile, we’re involved in a third war now.  We don’t pay our soldiers much, but damn do we buy them some expensive toys. 

Microcosmologist has put together a little infographic that shows, quite clearly, where our priorities lie.  (there’s more after the picture)

Is this stuff important? Is it worth the money? I defer to the great Carl Sagan.

Back online for what it’s worth

I decided to reopen the blog.  Is it safe to?  No.  “Then why?” you ask.  Cause I really don’t give a fuck anymore.  My reasons for closing the blog down are more or less moot.  All the bad crap I was afraid might happen did anyway, without anybody finding my blog.  So, what the fuck.  Hope I haven’t lost too many readers.  Well, ok I didn’t have that many to start with, so I guess it’s more accurate to say I hope I still have readers.  Meh.

Occasionally I wish there were a God

So I could flip the fucker off. 

It would be so easy.  Blame all of this shit on God.  Everything in my life that’s going wrong, wrong job, wrong wife, God’s fault.  Losing my son to the fringe fundamentalists; watching him heading down a path that will waste all the talent and brains he has until it’s too late… so much like me… why would God do this to me?  To him?

Spent the best years of my life trying to be somebody I’m not.  Spent my few healthy years living somebody else’s dream while my own slipped away… why God why?  Why would you let this happen to me? 

But alas, the answer is all too clear.  I did it to myself.  My rage and anger is properly placed on myself.  I saw the direction things were going at work over a year ago.  I did nothing.  I saw my wife’s penchant for fringe fundamentalists over a decade ago when she involved me in a cult.  I let it go.  I saw the increasing insanity of her new fringe religion over a year ago, maybe more.  I’ve done nothing.  I objected to homeschooling five years ago but she did it anyway.  I let it happen. 

I’ve completely and utterly failed myself and my children.  The crushing weight of this guilt would be so easy to schluff off on an imaginary supernatural being who was supposed to watch out for me.

Oh how easy it would be to weasel out of my guilt that way.  I suppose that’s the last of the God Virus in me, like that cough you have for a week or so after a bad cold.  I find myself wanting to blame somebody else for my own failures, and a God would be such an easy target.  After all, he wouldn’t fight back now, would he?

So I sigh and resign myself to the fact if anybody is to blame, it’s myself.  I take a deep breath and set about fixing all the things I’ve let fall to shit.  Here we go.

Going offline

Dear readers,

I regret to inform you that due to personal reasons, Another Idiot with a Blog will need to become unavailable for a while.  I do not intend to delete it, but I will need to make it unavailable to the causal reader, just in case.  I’m not sure how long this will be for, but given the normal speed of the legal system, it could be a while.  I promise to bring it back as soon as I can.  Thanks for sticking with me, and The Cowboy will return.  I’ll leave the blog up until Sunday night, at which time it will become unavailable for the foreseeable future. 

This made my day

I’m still working on my first science post.  It’s hard to do.  This stuff is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to put into layman’s terms, especially when you don’t understand it much better than in layman’s terms.  Be patient.

Every once in a while I look at the stats for my blog, just to see if anything interesting is going on traffic-wise.  Usually there’s not, but today I saw something which made me laugh: the first two results for keyword searches which have led to a page on my blog:

Capture

The Evolution of the Cowboy

As I write this, I’m sitting here watching Cosmos on Netflix on my XBox.  Coolest XBox feature EVAR.  I’m reminded of this video I watched the other night.

I know what he’s talking about.  It’s the oddest feeling when you’ve learned enough science that suddenly everything starts to fit together.  I’m reminded of the common Christian claim that Atheism or Science is a religion.  The stupidity of that claim aside, I’ve realized something: These kinds of moments are not unique to religion.  Religion has these kinds of epiphany moments.  So does music.  I remember my first musical “Moment” during a performance of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.  It was amazing.  I think I’d like to call it a Musicgasm.  You simply can’t imagine it until you’ve had one, it’s unreal.  They’re far too few and far between. 

Religion can have the same kind of moments.  I had one in the cult.  A Godgasm, if you will.  I know the allure of it.  People believe they’re feeling the presence of God.   It can be very hard to reason with someone who has had a Godgasm.

This is a Sciencegasm.  It’s totally unique, yet familiar.  I’ve had one.  Apparently that’s all you get.  It’s that moment when you realize that the Universe is glorious and amazing, awe inspiring if you will.  Everything clicks, and you realize just how awesome it is to be a part of the Universe and to understand it as we do, and it doesn’t require a supernatural being to appreciate it. 

What’s cool is that it only gets better.  We actually understand very little about our Universe, but we learn more every day.  A hundred, a thousand years from now, we’ll know so much more, but still not everything.  There’s always another amazing, awe-inspiring discovery to make. 

I can’t explain the unbelievable feeling of understanding how the pieces fit together, how we fit into our world, our Universe, and how even though we’re a small seemingly insignificant part of it, we’re still a part of it.  Atheism is just as, no, more gratifying than Religion.  I wish everybody could see this, but Atheists don’t proselytize.  I’m not recruiting for the Atheist cause.  None of us do.  The only reason we’re in a fight with Religion is frankly because they started it.  At some point teaching science became blasphemy.  At some point realizing that we don’t need a god to be good became a threat.   At some point no longer needing an imaginary Master became an affront.  When we fight back we have reason and science on our side, but facts are meaningless to people who have already made up their minds. 

It seems every Fall I undergo some kind of mental change.  I evolve into a newer, better being.  Well, sometimes it’s better.  This blog has chronicled my evolution over the past few years.  It’s time for another change. 

On this blog I’ve made some friends.  I’ve realized that conservatives, or at least Republicans, do not represent my values as a human being.  I’ve advocated Henry Rollins for President.  I’ve argued against voting party lines, and I’ve voted straight Democratic tickets.  I’ve espoused the virtues of Taoism, and I’ve abandoned it because of the value it places on ignorance.  I’ve ranted.  A lot.  I’ve geeked out.  I’ve complained about religious intolerance, I’ve been intolerant of religion, and I’ve abandoned religion altogether, although I’m pretty sure that actually happened a very long time ago.  I’ve really only just recently admitted it to myself.  I’ve cussed, and blasphemed, I’ve hoped, and I’ve wondered.  I’ve deleted the whole thing in a moment of anger, and I’ve painstakingly restored it after regretting my actions.  I’ve had spiritual epiphanies, and I’ve despaired for the entire human race.  I’ve grown as a human being, and it wasn’t always pretty.

I’ve discovered a lot about myself over the past few years.  Anybody who reads this blog regularly probably has too. 

I’ve been thinking about a new direction for several days now, and I think I’m going to do it.  Hopefully I don’t lose what little audience I may have acquired spewing vitriol over the interwebs for the past few years.  I’m absolutely in love with science right now, and I think I’m going to begin posting about this.  For one, just so that I’m not just bitching all the time.  For two, hopefully somebody will begin to see just what is so amazing about all of this.  For three, it’s a nice convenient place to keep track of the things I’ve learned.  Crap I wish I’d paid more attention in school!

With any luck the tone here will change.  With any luck I’ll open a few minds.  Mostly, I just don’t want to forget this stuff.  I would love nothing more than to return to college right now and rack up several doctorate degrees in various fields of science, but that’s simply not reality given the cost of living and the cost of college.  I’m also desperately trying to save for my children’s college, and sending myself back to school doesn’t help that cause. 

Well, here we go…