Here today, gone tomorrow

It's time to write my next book, "The Worlds". As a consequence, I won't be blogging very much in the coming months. Sorry about that.

Consider this post an open thread. If there's anything you've been dying to tell me, here's your chance. And if any "Xmas Carol" readers happen by, I hope you'll let us know what you thought of the book.

If you do leave a comment, I'll be aware of it. It's not like I'm going to Mars. And my email address isn't a secret. Reach out and touch me. I won't bite.

See you later.

PZ, defending Hitchens, tells it like it is

An atheist apologist (a contradiction in terms, but the fellow doesn't know this) wrote dismissively about Christopher Hitchens. Apparently Hitchens didn't bow down sufficiently to religious nitwits. PZ dismisses the apologist with dispatch in a blog post today, and adds the following gem. He's speaking about religious apologists here:

It’s a red herring: when we ask for evidence of a god, the apologists point to a whole bunch of people wrangling at daunting length about the interpretation of holy writ and say, “See? There. They couldn’t possibly be arguing about nothing at all, now could they?” I wish this would sink in, that someone making an intricate paean to the ineffability of nothing is not evidence of anything other than the human brain’s immense capacity for masturbatory self-reference.

Hear, hear.

PS: Republished because I got my signals crossed. I thought I found this on Jerry Coyne's blog, but it was PZ's. Duh.

Way too much light

So the longest day of the year was followed by the biggest, brightest moon of the year. That's just grandstanding, if you ask me. It's rude and unseemly.

But I'm happy to note that we are now moving in a more sophisticated direction, toward early darkness. Each day will be shorter than the one that precedes it.

Can you feel the glamour rushing back? It's subtle at this point but if you're very quiet at twilight, you can sense the promise of increasing comfort as night falls.

Take a deep breath. Summer will soon be over. And before you know it, it will be Xmas. Now, if you only had a good book to go with that. Oh, I know!

How they get here

People usually arrive at a blog via Google. They pump in their search terms, cross their fingers and hope.

Blogger stats tell me the top three search terms that landed people here this week were:

1. Why are religious people so mean?
2. Is religion a scheme?
3. He who shall so shall he who

I love the first two. The third is a Jerry Lewis quote, of all things. Well, however readers get here, I hope they stick around.

Mixed-sex marriage an affront to dog

Women are full of salad.
Men are full of beef.
And that is the root of the problem.

You can't mix salad and beef, beef and salad. It goes against dog's plan for humanity. It's just wrong.

This is why an immediate ban must be placed on mixed-sex marriages. Dog never intended that we engage in such a sinful practice. He thought surely we'd know not to mix salad and beef.

Alas, people have strayed from dog's message. They've lost their way in this age of celebrities and drones and high fructose corn syrup. The message is this: Come home to dog. You know dog will always love you, completely and unconditionally -- even if you're a complete boob. So don't piss him off by marrying someone of the opposite gender.

It's just sick, and you know it. Arf!

Irrationality, ghosts and gods

Thousands of workers at a garment factory in Bangladesh stopped working and rioted earlier this week, demanding that a ghost be removed from their building. The problem began when a female worker said she felt sick and attributed her condition to "an attack by a ghost" inside a toilet in the women's washroom.

According to news reports, more than 3,000 frightened workers at a plant in the city of Gazipur protested, with dozens of them vandalizing the factory before police used tear gas to quell the riot. 

Whereas American ghosts aren't typically thought of as spending a lot of time in the bathroom, in the Middle East and Asia, the idea of a ghost or spirit haunting a toilet is not uncommon. For example, genies and other spirits are said to dwell in many places, including toilets and sewers, and Japanese folklore tells of Hanako-san, a spirit that resides in women's bathrooms.

So, does belief in gods have something to do with all this irrationality? Why, yes it does!

The belief in ghosts is widespread among the largely Muslim Bangladeshi population, and it is not uncommon for accidents and illnesses to be blamed on evil spirits.

There are no gods, there are no ghosts. But there are a lot of ignorant people. Funny thing, though. If you just wipe the idea of gods out of your minds, all the demons, ghosts and witches disappear too. Imagine that! I wonder if there's a connection. Nah.

The phrase "straight and narrow"

Surely, you've heard the expression. People say things like "Stick to the straight and narrow, and you'll be safe!" I wondered where the phrase came from and ferreted around on the internet to learn the answer. It comes from the bible. (Horrors!) The following appears in the King James version:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Kinda kills the urge to use the phrase. But it's always good to know where a phrase comes from -- if only to avoid it in future. While we're at it, I guess it should be spelled "strait" rather than "straight". It refers to a strait, a relatively short waterway that connects two bodies of water.

Come to think of it, "Strait is the Gate", the book by Andre Gide, is spelled that way. I loved this book when I was a teenager. Anyway, phrase origin solved. We can put it up on the shelf now and let it get dusty.