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Written by John Rozewicki
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Monday, 14 August 2006 |
What Atheism Means
I am an atheist, and atheism means exactly what the definition says it means; a belief that god does not exist. It is a negative statement. It states mostly what a person does not belive, and says very little about what a person actually does believe.
Atheism is not nihilism; a belief in meaninglessness. It's certainly not satanism, because we don't believe in supreme beings. It doesn't necessarily mean we're against religion, or have no morals. All it means is that we reject the current popular belief in a supreme being. It says nothing more.
Religion
I do happen to be against religion, philosophically. Religion is a ready-made belief structure, and as such means that it is inherently telling people what to believe. It is wrong to ask someone to believe things that they have not personally found to be true in their own lives. Yet, many religions indoctrinate children and ask them to do specifically this. This makes religion just a set of rules to be followed, and usually with no reason given.
Spirituality
Again, just as being an atheist doesn't mean a person doesn't have beliefs, being against religion doesn't mean that I am against personal spirituality. In fact, the reason I am against religion is because it interferes with an individual's personal spirituality. People should believe whatever they have found to be true in their own lives. Personal spirituality can almost never be argued with.
What I Have Found to Be True
I believe that people are fundamentally good. Very few people go out of their way to harm other people, and most people, in my experience, have been more than accomodating in whatever things you could reasonably ask them to do. The fact that our society can exist proves that people are fundamentally good.
We put our trust in a lot of other people every day for things we don't really think about. Every time we pass a car going in the opposite direction, we have trusted that person to not swerve their car and plow into ours. Every time we leave our home unlocked, we trust that unwanted people will not come in and do us harm.
The tiny amount of bad deeds done every day are completely obliterated by the number of bad deeds that could have easily been done, but people were trusted not to do.
I believe that the world will exist even if I am not there to experience it, that other people exist, and are fully realized separate people whose wants and needs are as important to them as my own are to me. Because other people are just as valid as myself, I find it hard to justify doing harm to them and putting my needs above theirs to their detriment.
I didn't need an ancient book to tell me not to steal, kill, or otherwise abuse my neighbors. And if that is all that's stopping the majority of the United States from not stealing, killing, or otherwise abusing their neighbors then I should be one scared individual.
Defensive
I am not a morally bankrupt atheist. I resent the implication by the religious right that I must be. I am clearly not trying to make myself god in my belief structure. The fact that I talk about the necessity of trust in other individuals shows that I do not believe I am all-powerful.
I find it ridiculous that while the religious showdown is happening in the middle east, they're all still so focused on attacking the atheists. As I see it, we've not really done anything to deserve it. How many maximum security prisoners and death row inmates are atheists?
If anything, atheists should be damn scared of the religious. We run the risk of getting nuked because those assholes want to fight out their ancient god damn holy war. It's amazing how profanity and blasphemy make everything cut to the bone so much more; it's a good thing I have no qualms about doing it.
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Saturday, 12 August 2006 |
Hybrid Cars Aren't Worth It
Electric-gasoline hybrid cars have been in vogue now for a few years. They provide excellent gas mileage, and they make people feel like they're doing something good for the environment. It's just too bad they're completely worthless.
Hybrid cars still have emissions and require gasoline. I've not heard of one that allows for direct charging of the system. Which means that you're still a slave to the pump, but since their mileage is okay you're more of an intern to the pump. Either way, you're not being compensated.
Just Okay, Not Spectacular
I'm being generous here by saying the mileage is okay. The Honda CRX, internal combustion non-hybrid, got 52 MPG in 1989. Technology has progressed leaps and bounds since then. Yet, the best we can do is a Toyota Prius, in 2005, that gets 55 MPG. What gives?
Hybrid cars are a worthless stop-gap measure. Their mileage is not as good as the amount of technology involved might dictate, and they still burn gasoline. They are not an acceptable solution.
The Only Sensible Smart Solution
The real solution to our oil-dependency problems are fully electric cars. It's not new technology. The EV1 was released in 1996, but killed off prematurely. General Motors released the vehicles as lease-only with no option to buy. People who wanted to buy the cars outright at the end of the leases were not given an opportunity to do that.
You couldn't have kept an EV1 if you had wanted to. I think that's a market failure. The cars were already produced. They were on the roads. Many drivers were happy with them. Yet the company specifically denied the sale of the product, and in the majority of cases junked them!
Sustainable, But Not Perfect
Pundits say that the battery technology wasn't up to snuff; that they didn't have the range of gasoline cars. I don't understand how that could be. There were many happy owners of EV1's in 1996. Battery technology has progressed since then just as everything else has. There's no reason why many many more people wouldn't be happy driving electric cars a full decade later.
Electric cars are not, in and of themselves, a perfect solution. It is true that we're simply moving the source of energy out of the automobile and into the power station. That is a separate issue, and in fact, I think is one of the positives of the electric vehicle concept. Not being reliant on any one source of energy means that electric cars are the only sustainable, super long-term, solution.
In this way we can fix our energy problem at the power station, instead of in the driveway of every American home. According to the co-founder of GreenPeace, Patrick Moore, only about 22% of power in the US comes from nuclear sources. The overwhelming majority of the remainder comes from antiquated solutions such as fossil fuels.
Nuclear Power Failure
Nuclear power is as close to a perpetual motion machine as we can manufacture on such grand a scale. It can provide stable energy right now and into the future because the nuclear "waste" products still have 95% of the energy left in them. Yes, nuclear waste can be recycled just like almost every other form of waste. That is also information courtesy of Patrick Moore, a professional environmentalist.
It took 3 things for this country to turn its back on nuclear power. First, the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. Second, the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. Third, and most importantly, a reactionary angry hippie movement that convinced the nation that nuclear power was dangerous.
Three Mile Island was not a disaster. There was only a partial meltdown of the core, all safety and emergency systems functioned properly, and people living in that area were not exposed to any more radiation than a chest x-ray for a very short period of time. The important thing that Three Mile Island showed us is that the plans we had put in place worked!
Chernobyl, on the other hand, was a disaster. Chernobyl was a nuclear reactor setup in an airplane hanger located in a horrible, technologically gimped nation. It's amazing the project didn't kill everyone involved before it produced any power. If anything, it shows us how bad things have to be before there is a disaster that affects people in a major way.
It's shocking to me that we don't use this today, and I think it's because I'm so young. I haven't been wrapped up in the controversy. I can look back, weigh the options, and be appalled that we're not doing the easy things we could be doing to solve our problems. Three Mile Island happened in 1979. It would take a great deal to convince me that the technology isn't better and safer today, 30 years later.
In With The New, Out With The Old and The Problems
Fuel cell technology is great, but still years off. Battery technology was here 10 years ago, and is even better today. Technology marches on. Let's use it. Locomotives have been electric for a century because it's more efficient. Why are we still relying on antiquated internal combustion technology that is inherently antiquated.
Internal combustion is direct power. You explode the fuel in the cylinder and have to use all that power right then. It's wasteful! It's just logically better to get as much energy as you can out of a fuel, store it for later, and use it as you need it. The only thing you're using the leftover energy for, in most cars, is the cd player; never the movement itself.
Between nuclear power and electric cars, we have the technology and know-how to completely kick the ass of our energy problems. It saddens me that we're not really using any of it. Hopefully hybrid plug-in conversion kits will take off.
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Thursday, 10 August 2006 |
Pop Criticism
Recently, it has become fashionable for skeptics to attack 12 Step programs from philosophical angles that don't really hold up to closer inspection of how such programs work.
Episode 9x14 of South Park explores the issue of alcholism and picks mainly at 2 things. The first being that 12-Step programs require the belief in god. The second being that alcoholism is all about a person's discipline or will, and that the disease analogy for alcoholism is inaccurate. Episode 2x10 of Bullshit! makes some of these same arguments.
As a member of one such program myself, I feel obligated to step up and defend something I feel is very important. I think that these criticisms of the 12 steps make assumptions that stem from misunderstandings of the literature of such programs.
12 Step is Alcoholics Anonymous?
South Park tends not to make this assumption as much, the show tends to stay on the topic of alcoholism but I wouldn't be surprised if the show's creators intended to criticisize all such programs.
Bullshit, on the other hand, makes this assumption early on and then runs with it. The title of 2x10 is '12 Step', but they draw many of their examples, including one that's kind of below the belt, from Alcoholics Anonymous.
It's important to point out that each of these 12 Step programs is a separate organization. Alcoholics Anonymous is not affiliated with Narcotics Anonymous or Al-Anon. If one is to set about debunking 12 Step programs then one needs to stick to the source material they all have in common; the 12 Steps.
A Belief in God
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
It is unfortunate that Bill W. chose the words God and Him when writing the 12 Steps. People's minds tend to fixate on these two words, and then ignore the most important part of step 3, "...as we understood..." Those 3 words pretty much vanquish any argument that 12 Step programs are religion.
Those 3 words means that you can believe in whatever the hell you like, as long as you believe you are not in control of that thing. You can even be an atheist. I know, because I am an atheist who practices the 12 Steps; a position supported specifically in the section about steps 2 and 3 in the Al-Anon book Survival to Recovery.
A wonderful analogy for the role of the higher power in the 12 Steps is this:
The higher power can be anything greater than you; a toilet for example. You can write things down on pieces of paper and flush them to turn them over to that higher power. I can almost guarantee you won't be compelled to, nor able to, take things back from it. Things flushed down the toilet are outside your grasp; not in your control.
My higher power is, put simply, the world. I am ultimately powerless to control anything outside of my own actions. I will admit that it can be difficult to participate at meetings as an atheist. There is a definite unspoken rule within many groups that the God of the 12 Steps does in fact mean the one true God of the Bible.
This doesn't change the fact that it is the official position of the 12 Steps themselves and all literature that it can be any higher power of your understanding. All it takes is a little perserverance to find a group that actually follows the steps and traditions as they were written, the way they were meant to be followed.
This is why the example from Bullshit! is below the belt. They take a camera to the offices of Alcoholics Anonymous and find evidence of religion. This only proves that Alcoholics Anonymous may be violating the steps and traditions. It doesn't prove anything about the 12 Steps themselves, or about any of the other 12 Step programs in existence.
Alcoholism as a Symptom of a Disease
Alcoholism and things like it are symptoms of a larger problem. This is why addiction is not defined by the amount of use. Addictions are defined as the ongoing use in the face of serious consequences; losing jobs, family, etc. People who drink so much that they have these consequences obviously have larger problems than just the alcoholism.
The problem with the will power argument is that it assumes that the drinking is the entirety of the problem. If the people quit drinking, they will magically become better. If all alcoholics needed was to stop drinking then the will power argument would work. Anyone who has done any 12 Step work will tell you that Alcoholics are, for the most part, very very unpleasant right after they quit drinking.
This is because addicts fundamentally have trouble coping. They seek out unhealthy methods of managing unpleasant feelings. Alcoholics drink alcohol. Bulimics purge. When they quit drinking, they quit the only coping mechanism they have. This is where the program comes in. It helps build coping skills so that the alcoholic no longer needs to drink to feel better.
Dr. Drew Pinsky, a board certified addiction medicine specialist, has said numerous times that nobody is happier than heroine addicts at the onset of their addiction. Addicts do what they do because it comforts them in ways they are unable to do otherwise. Their normal coping skills are broken; usually by trauma in their early childhood.
People speaking about the disease of alcoholism are doing so as an analogy for reasons that are important to those people who need help. People have trouble understanding psychological disorders.
Depressed people resist taking medication to compensate for the brain imbalance that causes their depression. People with diabetes less commonly resist taking medication because they understand the mechanics of it. Saying that alcoholism is a disease sends a message to those people who have it that they need treatment.
Relinquishing Control
Alcoholics and addicts are by definition narcissists who believe they are in control of a world that revolves around them. This is why the theme of reqlinquishing control is so important in recovery. These people are unable to control their lives; as evidenced by them losing jobs, family, etc.
By relinquishing control and asking for help from people around them, AA, they can begin to recover from their disorder. The sponsor relationship, which I never hear talked about in criticism, is actually one of the big reasons why 12 Step recovery works as well as it does. People do a lot of talking about asking their higher power for help, but what they actually do most often is ask for an honest 3rd party perspective, their sponsor.
The sponsor provides the honesty that's needed for people early on in recovery. It is very important later in recovery for that same person to become a sponsor themselves so that they can apply the tools they have learned and also get experience so they may more easily apply them to their own lives.
Erroneous Complaints
Q: If 12 Step isn't religious then why do they meet in churches?
A: Church rooms are available for rent. 12 Step groups are fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions(tradition 7). They must rent from churches. Also, the situation is very similar to other charitable things churches may do; like run battered womens' shelters.
Q: Isn't it cult-like?
A: If 12 Step is a cult it's unlike any cult I've ever seen. They decline outside contributions(tradition 7), and their public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion(tradition 9). There is group autonomy(tradition 4), their members are anonymous(tradition 12), and leaders are trusted servants who do not govern(tradition 2). Also, as groups, they have no opinion on outside issues(tradition 6).
Conclusion
12 Step recovery is about teaching people to honestly look at their lives and behavior patterns, ask for help, and realize that a person is ultimately powerless over everything but their own actions. It teaches people who are out of control to live more simply, and with more clearly defined boundaries.
I can see why people who are not alcoholics or codependants themselves would have trouble seeing what 12 Step is really about. I know that my intro psychology class didn't cover any of the specifics of 12 Step. Not suprisingly, most of the people in recovery don't actually know how any of it works. They just know that it does. I know that it does.
I would suggest anyone who has a beef with AA or 12 Step programs actually take the time to at least read the steps and traditions. If they do, I think they will find that many of their fears are answered explicitly in either of those places. There is no hidden meaning. They mean exactly what they say.
Finally, this article is not in any way condoning mandatory attendance of such meetings by the state. I do believe that that is wrong. People need to be in recovery because they want to be, otherwise it probably won't work.
People who want to know more about the extent to which psychological disorders are misportrayed in the media should read this article here; Acceptance Through Denial: Eating Disorders, Alcoholism, and Dr. Phil.
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Wednesday, 09 August 2006 |
My Choice: Juggling
A few months ago I taught myself to juggle. It wasn't particularly hard, it just took some time and a little research. I perservered through the initial stages and after about a week of practicing I was comfortably able to perform a 3-ball cascade; the simplest juggling move.
Juggling is a very dumb, interesting, but also very impressive skill to have. It's not hard to learn, but it feels very impressive to people. Anyone can learn it.
The initial learning curve is what puts people off. Beginners toss the balls up in the air and feel too overwhelmed to follow the pattern and move their hands the right way. It takes about 3 hours of practice before you get anywhere remotely impressive. Another 5 hours are spent getting comfortable and making sure your pattern is as regular as possible.
Unintended Consequences
Juggling was a skill I never really planned to use very much. I just like cool coordination things, and I have some progressed ADD that requires me to keep physically busy while sitting skill.
I twitch my leg incessantly when sitting in chairs. Juggling is a slightly more productive and distracting version of the leg twitching. I can do it while listening to the radio, waiting to meet people for lunch, or watching television(juggling is mostly peripheral vision).
I was at a weekend retreat recently where there was quite a bit of such downtime. I'm not a person that purposefully strolls over to people for the express purpose of striking conversation, and so I opted for juggling. Because of this I ended up talking to a few people I wouldn't have ordinarily talked to.
I get nervous in social situations, but this time around the juggling made me less nervous for 2 key reasons. Firstly, juggling put the social load on other people in that situation. It was up to them to come up to me because I was juggling. I knew that if they came up to me that they were legitimately interested in talking to me.
Secondly, juggling while I talked had a calming effect. I compared juggling before to other nervous habits I exhibit such as the leg twitching. They serve the same function; to blow off steam in stressful situations.
Choosing a Skill
I picked juggling, but you can choose any skill you find interesting. It's important to choose a skill that takes almost no talent, looks impressive, and takes less than 10 hours to learn.
It just so happens that many parlor and carnival tricks fall in this category. There's innumerable little magic tricks you can do with ordinary household objects, and the internet is a great place to learn a nearly infinite number of them.
The reddit response to this trick, here, was the inspiration for this article, and JuggleWiki is the best place to start for juggling information.
Go To It
Go hit up Google. Learn that stupid thing you've been wanting to know how to do since you were 5. Use it as a fallback at parties, dates, etc. You'll look impressive to people around you, and I can guarantee it will make almost any awkward social situation a great deal easier.
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Tuesday, 08 August 2006 |
Religous Jealousy
I grew up as a Catholic. I went to a private Catholic school for 4 years in grade school. I've been to numerous church services and functions. Unfortunately, I've never believed in the one singular anthropomorphic god that is so popular as of late. Sure I have personal spirituality, but I am unable to buy into any of the organized religions.
I don't hold anything inherently against them. I admire their ability to believe so easily. I imagine that having the answers to the fundamental questions in the universe must be the most secure and protected feeling you could ever have. But like I said, I'm an atheist. The part of my brain responsible for believing we're all just puppets being controlled in this magical fairy tale called the universe is not functioning properly.
My being an atheist doesn't stop me from having a religious preference. I shop around for religions like many people would sports teams or indoor carpeting. I weigh all the options and I've made my decision finally; Judaism.
Why Judaism?
Judaism is the original monotheistic religion of persecuted peoples, and I'm a sucker for purity. They have their own language which is essentially a secret handshake; Hebrew. Sure the Catholics have Latin, but Hebrew has been dead longer. That sort of thing is very very important to me.
Judaism has beautiful and elaborate insults involving peoples' heads growing in the ground as onions and teeth growing in as hair. Their sabbath is on Saturday which means I wouldn't miss very much, if any, of the football season provided that I actually had an interest in sporting events.
They follow the rules to the letter. They don't arbitrarily group the commandments into different categories to be misunderstood and rewritten. Each line is a rule to be followed. You have to admire that dedication. All in all it's a very sensible religion.
Finally, I have Jewish heritage. I could probably join up and be counted if I wanted to. Nothing beats actually being able to join the club you're a fan of.
Religion Battle Royale
The pros and cons of each religion can and should be weighed out. Everybody should have a favorite religion just as they do a favorite sports team. There would be some accountability and credibility among the religions. They're already pitted against each other in the middle east. Shouldn't we maybe try to do it in a more peaceful way; throw them all on Survivor?
Most religions are pretty absurd. The most absurd, by far, being scientology. Having a favorite one just sort of stacks absurdity on absurdity to prove the point that it doesn't really matter. We're all people, and we all have to set some differences aside in order to peacefully interact with people in the world.
Something to Be Set Aside
I have to do a little soul searching as it is when I find out someone's a fan of something I consider to be schlocky crap. I can't imagine the soul searching I'd have to do if someone believed something that was not only different from my core belief structure, but specifically at odds with it in many cases.
We should set aside religious preference just as we do musical preferences. The net affect is the same. None of it really matters. It's not real. It's words in some books somewhere. You can be a fan of a religion just as you can be a fan of any other piece of art. Let's all just treat it that way instead of treating it like any of it actually means something to anyone but the people practicing it.
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Written by John Rozewicki
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Monday, 07 August 2006 |
Movie Lust
I love going to the theatre to watch a movie. There's not too many other situations that can cause me to become as excited while spending only $10. It's the waiting that really gets me; the feeling of sitting in the theatre waiting for the movie to start.
I constantly check my watch while nervously twitching my foot. This causes the very loving people I attend movies with to grab my leg so I'll stop making noise and shaking their seat.
Television Love
As much as I love going to the theatre I find myself staying home more often and watching television. Television isn't what it used to be. No longer does the watching of television require the annoyance of commercials. Most of the television I watch comes on DVD. However, the excitement when watching television isn't with the waiting. It is with the knowledge that there's 17.2 hours of content to watch, and I'm only an hour in.
It wasn't always this way. I used to hate television. I could never seem to clear the specific hours each week when the interesting-looking shows aired. And even if I could, at the time there weren't any real compelling shows on television.
Changes
It changed for me about 6 years ago with the show Gilmore Girls. This was one of those touching family shows on the WB network, but the difference was that this WB show actually contained some decent comedy. The scripts were long, tight, and delivered at breakneck speed. That is actually one of the more common criticisms of the show; nobody talks that fast. But I beg to differ, I talk that fast and so do most of my friends.
Speed of delivery aside, it was the show that pulled me in. I was hooked from the first minute I saw and for a long time it was the only show I would watch on television. Nothing could match it for quality. The characters were interesting, the humor was quirky and dark, and the character dynamics were over-the-top but understandable.
The show was well-produced. The actors who have worked on WB series' will tell you that the shooting schedule is closer to how movies are done. The shoots are just as rigorous but with one important difference, the pace has to be kept up for 8 solid months out of the year.
Peak Performance
Last year my television watching hit a peak. It's not that I have more time to spend. I was the busiest I had ever been, but I also watched more television than I ever had before. I followed 4 series last year on the major networks; Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, and Veronica Mars. All of them were interesting, stable, funny, well-produced shows.
I don't buy this 'golden age' garbage. Television was ridiculously horrible until a few years ago, but people watched because they didn't have many other options for video entertainment. It wasn't lack of talent or creativity that kept television down for so many years it was lack of budget. Television studios could simply not match the dollar-per-minute ratio of the film studios at a time when such production was very expensive.
Why Television is Better Now
Advances in digital video production have been the reason for the surge in television quality over the past 8 years. Television studios don't need as many film prints laying around, and many don't have need of film at all if they make use of digital video cameras. Digital editing means less money spent on the physical labor of cutting together video allowing more time to be spent on the creative portions.
Television will never be able to match the dollar-per-minute ratio of film, but we're at the point now where they don't need to. There are diminishing returns to video production. The economics for television have finally evened out enough for television studios to create something very close to film for a fraction of the per-minute budget.
When television's bad; nothing's worse. When television's good; nothing's better.
This adage has never been more applicable than right now. Now that television quality is finally able to compete with film we are going to see more and more just how good television can be.
Better than Film?
I hesitate to say that television is better than film. Television and film are different formats. Film is better at telling specific stories or stories that are told in a more experimental way. Not every story needs 17 hours to tell, but the longer format of television allows more intricate stories to be played out and better character development.
Lost is an excellent example. It is one of the first times outside of lengthy novels that we've gotten to intimately know a cast of 10 or 12 characters. They're all so developed that each of them feels like a main character. We really do feel like we know these people.
Cred Confusion
It's foolish to say that across the board one format is better than the other, but it is my opinion that nothing beats good television. As a video production student I feel conflicted. Film gets all the credit, but television is a more rewarding experience for me in every way. I feel like I should really want to work in the movie industry, but I'm unable to feel that way when such stellar programming is available on television.
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