You'd think he'd at least grade on a curve.

Source

This.

Source

Boy I wish I was smart.

Courtesy of Fast Company:

People are living longer than ever, says a report from the World Health Organization (WHO), but smart people live longer yet. People who are, shall we say, less smart die younger than more intelligent folks, and various studies around the world are attempting to find out why. 

IQ affects how long you manage to stick around in this life, with a 15% increase in IQ giving a 21% better chance of not dying. These numbers come from a cohort study by researchers Lawrence Whalley and Ian Deary, using the Scottish Mental Surveys, a historic survey in which almost all 11-year-olds in Scotland got the same IQ test on the same day in 1932. The new study found out which of these subjects were still alive, and at which age others had died. 

Scientific American cites one example, where "a person with an IQ of 115 was 21% more likely to be alive at age 76 than a person with an IQ of 100 (the average for the general population)."

Socrates said that "The unexamined life is not worth living."

And I have ALWAYS believed that to be true.

Perhaps one of the reasons that intelligent people live longer is because we don't want to leave until we have figured out the mysteries of life, witnessed every new creation, and basked in the glow of an enlightened planet.

Or perhaps that is just me.

Stephen Hawking announces project to use 100 million dollars in search for alien life.

Courtesy of The Washington Post: 

On Monday, famed physicist Stephen Hawking and Russian tycoon Yuri Milner held a news conference in London to announce their new project: injecting $100 million and a whole lot of brain power into the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, an endeavor they're calling Breakthrough Listen. 

"We believe that life arose spontaneously on Earth," Hawking said at Monday's news conference, "So in an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life."

Okay while the skeptic inside of me wonders if this one hundred million would not be better spent on education, or feeding the poor, or fighting climate change the twelve year old boy inside of me has a prepubescent chubby at the very thought of discovering life out in space.

I don't think I mention it very often, but on my bucket list is to be around long enough to witness the discovery of life on other planets.

It seems more than logical that it must exist, so all we have to do is locate a few space amoebas and I can die a happy man.  (Well actually it will take a bit more to die completely happy but trust me you don't want to hear about that.)

A little perspective.

Personally I find this somewhat humbling.

However I consider myself lucky to have ever spent time in the top portion of the hourglass, making it harder to regret my eventual tumble into the bottom.

Nicely said.

I found this quote apropos in light of Eric Hovind's assertion that Evolutionists believe that man is nothing more than "bags of molecules."

It is not what gives us life that is so important, but rather what we do with the life that we have been given.

Keira Knightley gets it.

Religious people all seem to think that it is the Atheist who lacks morality and gets to live the hedonistic life without consequence. But the truth is that, without a god or devil to blame, we feel entirely responsible for both our achievements and our mistakes.

We are burdened with the knowledge that we must make the best of what we have in this life, both the good and the bad, as there is no "get out of death free card" awaiting us at the end.

(Source.)

My daughter wanted to share this.

Recently my daughter has become very politically aware, and holy crap!

If you think I get opinionated and strident sometimes trust me when I tell you my kid can verbally work you over and leave you shaking in the fetal position in about five minutes flat.

She now has her own chair in my office where she sits to debate me.

Have to admit, it's kind of fun.

Remembering 2014. There will be tears.

The minute Robin Williams starting speaking I was gone. So many feels.

What an amazing, tragic, and eventful year.

But also immensely satisfying. 

As Maya Angelou so beautifully put it, "I've had rainbows in my clouds."

Stephen Hawking on the afterlife.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he said. 

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he added.

I sometimes find myself struck silent by the musings of seemingly intelligent people about the possibilities of an afterlife.

I think the realization that such a thing was not possible occurred to me quite young, and my research and musings since have only reinforced the obviousness of that realization.

Our consciousness is really only a collection of our memories and experiences, that are contained within the computer housed within our skulls.

Once that amazing machine is rendered inoperable our memories, our consciousness, our soul if you will, are also gone forever.

This would seem as obvious as the realization that once the heart stops pumping blood our bodies no longer function, and yet the opposite is held so dear by so many of us that to suggest the lack of a life following this is considered heretical even by many of those who consider themselves non-religious. 

I often think of it in terms of a USB flash drive.

Though it may be fairly bulging with documents, and pictures, and video of a person's life, if there are no more computers left to read the information it essentially does not exist. And it is as if the life contained within was never lived.

That is why I always stress the importance of experiencing all this life has to offer. Rather than mourn the loss of eternity, instead we should embrace and squeeze joy out of the one life that we have.

Every kiss should be savored, every laugh echoed by our own, and every moment of pain respected for the lesson that it teaches.

In that way we will touch the lives of those around us in a fashion which carries some small part of us forward. And as they touch the lives of others as well, perhaps our brief life will have an impact that lives past our final breath.

(Source)

The real difference between the Atheist and the Theist.

Essentially at its core the difference is that the religious are concerned with life after death, while the non-religious are focused on the one before.

We live our lives as if it is our only one, because it is.

Therefore we enjoy it for the opportunity that it provides to live, laugh, and love without the fear that living too fully, laughing too long, or loving too much will deny us access to the more rewarding life that some have convinced themselves follows this.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

The purpose of life is to nurture and protect those that follow our own.

Neil deGrasse Tyson challenges Abrahamic religions head on.

For some time I have been under the impression that Professor Tyson is subtly trolling the Creationists, with the stories he tells, and research he reveals, on the show Cosmos.

He has rubbed Fundamentalist noses in evolution in the second episode, helped to explain the workings of the universe in an episode aptly named "When Knowledge Conquered Fear," and last night he took on one of the most famous of all Biblical stories.

Noah's Ark.

Only Tyson does not relate the version we are all most familiar with, he shares the one related in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a thousand years earlier. 

Of course those of you who are fans of IM, know that we dealt with the stories that proceeded Noah earlier this year. Of course that is the kind of thing I like to explore here on this blog.

However having the story transmitted into American households by such a popular new show is definitely going to cause bigger shock waves than anything we do here.

And if suggesting that one of the most famous Biblical stories was the result of plagiarism were not enough, then Professor Tyson went on to suggest that life on this planet may not have been the result of a supreme being suddenly snapping his fingers but instead simply the result of microbes hitching a ride on an asteroid.

In other words he opened the door for Panspermia, the idea that life on this planet originated elsewhere and then hitched a ride here on meteorites.

I think there is very little doubt that the producers of Cosmos and Professor Tyson are purposefully goading the Fundamentalists and Creationists into responding, and that they are prepared to continue challenging Christian mythologies moving forward, in what I would assume is an attempt to address the attacks on science, and public education, in this country by religious zealots. 

So far I have found no response online from the Creationists. But since they have demonstrated an overwhelming need to refute the facts shared on this show in the past, I have to imagine they are typing their fingers to the bone in response to this one.

Have I mentioned before how much I love this show? Because I most certainly do!

The View of Life. A matter of perspective.

I am interested in your feedback to this brilliant graphic.

I read it the first time from the top to the bottom, and did not think too much of it, but after rereading it the other direction I was struck by how deftly it represents the two disparate views of God.

Humility.

I always find it laughable when religious people refer to Atheists as arrogant.

We are anything but. We openly admit how little we know and how willing we are to have our minds changed by new information.

All that we know for certain is that the answer to the great mysteries of life were absolutely not answered thousands of years ago by primitive desert dwellers.

And finally some words of wisdom from our friend Neil deGrasse Tyson.

It would be such a better world if people were to take this message to heart.

Neil Degrasse Tyson answers mankind's most pressing question.

One of my pet peeves in life is the idea that we must find purpose with why things exist, and by definition why WE exist.

This idea irritates me to no end.

Only a true megalomaniac feels the need to have their existence justified.

As far as you are aware, leaving Descartes out of this, you do exist. To be honest that should be good enough.

However I know that for most people it is not, so here let me help you.

To be brutally honest, as far as the planet is concerned, you really have only one purpose. To procreate. To pass along your genetic material onto the next generation.

That is what all who came before you in your ancestral lineage managed to do, and now they have passed the procreation baton to you. So don't just stand there start fucking!

This is referred to as your biological imperative, and seriously as far as the planet and universe is concerned you can die just as soon as you have raised your kids and your job has been accomplished. If you need a further purpose beyond that you need to find it for yourself.

The universe owes you nothing.

And yet it gave you the chance to exist. So don't waste it worshiping false deities, worrying about your mortality, or following rules that strip all of the fun out of life's journey.

Now that is NOT to say that you cannot create a purpose for your life without asking God or the universe to do it for you. Personally I have always been grateful that I was born and have tried to give back at least as much as I have been given. My goal before I get to the last chapter of my story is to have had a lot of fun, loved a lot of people, and made the most positive impact possible for a grumpy old fart like me.

And then I get to die. And even THAT is gift, because before one gets to die, one gets to live.

So thank you universe. I'll take it from here.

Why I wish Woody Allen was in charge. Update!

Man that is SO much better than the order that things happen now.

Update: Well this is embarrassing. 

So I guess my next question is does the quote seem more palatable now that we know it is NOT attributed to Woody Allen?

My favorite Catholic priest Father Guido Sarducci explains life and heaven, and for the first time it actually makes sense to me.

Okay now this almost makes me wish there was a heaven. I totally understand the whole pay your own way system.

I am just happy the penalty for masturbation seems so reasonable.

Final thought for the day.

I often think about how incredible our existence is, and then of course how miraculous it is that I am here as well. If you think about that long enough you feel overwhelmed, but if you think about it even longer you become inspired.

P,S, In case it does not enlarge enough for you to read it, click here.