The View from Number 80

God Quest -  ever popular items on the web are the many and various quizzes and polls. Here are a couple on the subject of religious belief - or its absence. This first page is a belief system "selector" with multiple choice questions on such topics as "Number and nature of deity (ie God, gods, higher power) choose one." or "Origins of physical universe and life on Earth choose one" The possible answers range over a wide assortment of religious stances, but 80 found the "none of the above" option to be the most useful. The second of these quizzes, or selectors, is called Nontheistic philosophies/religions and is perhaps more relevant to 80's world view. The purpose is to enable "atheists/agnostics/secularists, etc. who want to find out what nontheistic philosophy or religion is their closest match". The questions are in the nature of "The word "god" used in a naturalistic sense (the universe, awe, etc) is appropriate and usefull(sic)" and "Life isn't meant to be fair, but it can be joyful" and the possible answers are restricted to agree, disagree and no opinion, but interestingly you can assign a high, low or medium priority to your answer. Clicking on the results button when you are done takes you to a list in order of best fit to your answers. 80, unsurprisingly, is tagged as a Secular Humanist. Other possibilities include Transhumanism, Scientific Pantheism and one that was new to 80, Randaism (Objectivism). (Randaism produces only 10 hits from Google, and most of these refer to the selector/quiz page anyway - along with a query asking if the word should be "vandalism". And no, before you ask, it is not idolatrous worship of James Randi). Each result links to a search engine so that you can see sites related to your apparent category. All in all a good way to spend an idle 10 minutes, the second selector being the better of the two, and quite thoughtfully compiled. Unlike this page, devoted to the pursuit of "Bible Quizzing" which describes itself thus "Each year thousands of teens spend hours memorizing a section of the Bible and compete in quizzing competitions both locally and nationally. Like other team competitions, Bible Quizzing teaches teamwork and discipline, but it also teaches teens how to develop a strong relationship with God and provides them with Christian fellowship." And, incidentally, stuffs their young heads full of nonsense, which, let's face it, is the real purpose of the thing.

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Bible Bashing - It is a shame that the Bible Quizzing page does not have a link to the ever useful Skeptic's Bible (now with added Quran!!) to provide a more balanced view of the good book. 80 doubts if any bible quizzing site will have subject categories such as these in their studies, Injustice, Absurdity, Cruelty and Foul Language. Incidentally, if you are plagued by doorstep evangelists keen to share their delusions, and don't wish to use 80's patented technique of gently closing the door while saying with a smile, "No, thank you, I am not superstitious", the Skeptic's Bible is great for choosing some particularly awkward, offensive or daft biblical passage which you can then ask your unwelcome visitors to explain. Hours of harmless fun can be had like this. (Don't forget to ask about the Golden Hemorrhoids and the strange business of God's backside)

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Bone Age - one of life's great pleasures is finding a stimulating writer or journalist of whom you were previously completely unaware. It is even better if they have a web archive - it can be a real treasure trove. One such was Johann Hari, mentioned a short while ago in the Glance (see Clone Arrangers)  Here is another good find from Australia, Pamela Bone, writing in the The Age. She deals with many subjects that are featured in 80's pages, most notably the malign influence of much organized religion. Examples include the role of women in fundamentalist Islam (although her conclusion here looks far too optimistic "The age of religiously fundamentalist old men dictating the lives of women is fading, and the world will be better for it.") the role of the Roman Catholic church in the spread of AIDS, by lying about the ability of condoms to to halt the spread of infection, and is belief in God necessary to be a moral person? Bone's essays are always worth reading, even when they provoke disagreement, for by doing so they encourage you to examine your own assumptions. Recommended.

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Science Made Stupid - is the wonderful name of Tom Weller's website which he writes and illustrates. Here we find a brave attempt to answer the BIG questions of life with often hilarious results, "Since the dawn of time, man has looked to the heavens and wondered: where did the stars come from? He has looked at the great diversity of plants and animals around him and wondered: where did life come from? He has looked at himself and wondered: where did I come from? Later, he began to ask more complicated questions. He looked in his wallet and asked: where did my paycheck go? Am I on the right bus?" You can see how seriously Weller takes the quest for knowledge in this capsule description of Science "Put most simply, science is a way of dealing with the world around us. It is a way of baffling the uninitiated with incomprehensible jargon. It is a way of obtaining fat government grants. It is a way of achieving mastery over the physical world by threatening it with destruction. Science represents mankind's deepest aspirations - aspirations to power, to wealth, to the satisfaction of sheer animal lusts." Not much to argue with there then.............

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Periodic Hilarity - it seems an earlier incarnation of Science Made Stupid was in book form and the content is still divided into chapters. Chapter 5, The Descent of Man, looks at the theory of evolution and at creationism and then performs a neat trick that 80 has not seen elswhere. Weller has managed to fuse the two into a synthesis - which will satisfy just about no one. It is also likely make you laugh out loud, especially when you examine the diagram detailing this amalgamation, which once and for all answers the old biblical puzzle, "Who was Cain's Wife?" by cleverly sidestepping the incest theory (see Keeping It in the Family) by some clever lateral thinking (and perhaps just a touch of bestiality). On the same page is an examination of fossil evidence for early humans and illustrates the incredible ability of paleontologists to paint a convincing picture of our ancestors, based upon small, often tiny, fragments of bone. Weller illustrates "an example (at left) of a fossil found near the famous "Lucy" fossil discovery. It is the skull of an australopithecine male, named "Desi" by its discoverers. Another couple, named Fred and Ethel, were found in a nearby cave, but Desi is the best preserved specimen. Scientists can learn much from a relatively small fragment of skeleton. From this fossil, it was deduced that Desi stood about four-foot seven inches tall, walked with a slight limp, disliked zucchini and was a registered Democrat." (Weller here betrays his age by his knowledge of 1950's television comedy - as does 80 by recognizing this.) Everything here, from a distinctly unusual Periodic Table (featuring elements such as Pandemonium, Velveeta and Linoleum) to the recommended further reading ( The Picture Book of Racial Degenerates - Norman and George Lincoln Rockwell, and Zen, Cocaine & Science: An Incoherent Metaphysical Babble - Wolf T. Swedenborg) are priceless.

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 Antiquity of Man - if you have an interest in real archaeology and little tolerance for the pseudo version relentlessly peddled by Indiana Jones wannabes such as Graham Hancock or David Hatcher Childress then you will dig Doug's Archaeology Site which 80 has mentioned many times before (and will again). Another such resource is the Antiquity of Man site, created and maintained by Mikey Brass. AoM is divided into 3 sections, "Ancient Egypt (covering the Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods, up until the end of the Fourth Dynasty), hominin evolution, and exposing the vacuum of pseudoscience."The site also exists in book form and Brass posts some short excerpts online. Most useful is a huge number of links to essays and articles examining pseudoarchaeology and "alternative" history. Many familiar names and subjects are addressed here, as these subject headings demonstrate - False hype over Ancient Egypt, Creationism, and Ancient maps, crustal displacement and mammoths - this page alone is worth bookmarking for future, and frequent, reference..

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 GRIN - when a website just called GRIN popped up in a Google image search 80 clicked through expecting something humorous, but what turned up was infinitely more engrossing. GRIN is an acronym for Great Images from NASA (a recursive acronym, to boot) and the website is exactly that. "GRIN is a collection of over a thousand images of significant historical interest scanned at high-resolution in several sizes. This collection is intended for the media, publishers, and the general public looking for high-quality photographs." The archive is searchable by keywords, subject or NASA centers. There are Hubble images, Solar System images, Aeronautics images, of all kinds and in different resolutions. For example, clicking on Aeronautics, X-series aircraft brought 80 face to face with an unbelievably young-looking Neil Armstrong, posing in front of his X-15 rocketplane. A great site and a fine example of what government can do on the web to educate and entertain. Recommended.

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Holy Miscellany - here are some assorted items from the wacky world of religion. This site sells all sorts of things for the discerning Catholic, including some of 80's pet hates - angels. These folk have them for all occasions, healing, prayer, learning, but they seem to have one missing from the set - the Angel of Death, that killed the Egyptian first born. He may not look quite so cute, what with carrying a flaming sword and having a dead infant at his feet, but surely any angel collection is incomplete without him? While waiting for Catholic Family Gifts to remedy this omission, you can always enjoy a game of Catholic-opoly. Still with the little feathered frauds in mind, this site marries angels with wishy-washy New Age sentimentality - and hard business sense. The aim is to sell you angel merchandise, including "Tarot-sized Angel cards for divination" - which are unlikely to sit well with more orthodox Christians. The Beginners Guide to Angels has all manner of information and advice such as "Believing in angels can be a bit like believing in UFOs in that unless you have actually seen one how can you be sure they exist?" It seems constant contact with angels can eventually lead to mental derangement, although 80 may be misinterpreting this sentence "For most of us angels are a matter of faith. Do we believe in them? We may have experiences in our lives that lead us strongly or even with certainty to believe in their existence and as we develop spiritually and personally over time we may become more sensitive to their subtle energies." More sensitive to subtle energies over time, perhaps -  less rationaland lucid, definitely.

The world owes the Rev Brendan Powell Smith a debt of gratitude for making the Bible accessible to the young folk of today with the Brick Testament. This site illustrates famous stories from the Old and New Testament - by the ingenious use of Lego blocks. The Reverend has thoughtfully given the stories content ratings - N for Nudity, S for Sexual content, V for Violence and C for Cursing. It would seem the basis for the selection of stories is to have as many of these ratings as possible - or can it be that the good book is really stuffed full of nudity, sex, violence and cursing? Perhaps Rev Powell Smith has spent too much time searching the Skeptic's Bible for inspiration. 80 finds his powerful depictation of the Passion of the Christ surpasses Mel Gibson's recent effort in its stark authenticity.

If Christianity palls why not try a different faith - such as Brianism? Here you will find much wisdom, for example, "If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia". Brianism is described as "a system that provides all of the positive aspects of organized religion, but without any of the mumbo-jumbo or irrationality. There is nothing in Brianism that atheists, skeptics or scientific rationalists would find in any way offensive or incompatible with their beliefs. Followers of traditional religion or pseudo-science are likely to be offended. Tough." Brianism accepts that many humans cannot do without a religion and for those who find the regular kind unpalatable there is always Brianism.

It seems there is little that Christianity will not do to appeal to young people, desperately trying to appear still relevant to life in the 21st century. CPPA stands for - wait for it - the Christian Paintball Players Association. This is the chance for young, active Christians to gather together in groups and shoot the hell out of each other. The stated aim is "to advance the Kingdom of God by taking the Gospel to the paintball community by being a living example of God's word and sharing Jesus with others as they are presented with opportunities to do so. CPPA players also strive to help paintball return to being a wholesome atmosphere. CPPA members believe that the industry driven mindset that you have to be offensive to be extreme is incorrect. CPPA members do not approve of cursing or vulgar gestures in paintball media. CPPA members believe paintball products should not be named after dark religions or the devil." Unbelievably, this all seems to be quite serious and genuine - let's face it, you can't make this kind of stuff up. The FAQ page makes for fascinating reading and gives a glimpse into a very strange world indeed. "Jesus is the ONLY way to have a correctly restored relationship with God. We believe Jesus shall return again and we look forward to the glory of spending eternity in the presence of God. Think of what paintball is going to be like in Heaven. Wooo Hooo!" The CPPA certainly seem to have come up with something pretty special - an idea so irredeemably daft that it defies parody.   

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Quotes

"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."
W. C. Fields

"No democratic delusion is more fatuous than that which holds that all men are capable of reason, and hence susceptible to conversion by evidence."
H.L. Mencken

"The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own. And if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious." John Stuart Mill