R.I.P. Dio

Tomorrow, Sunday 30th May is the funeral of the recently deceased metal star Ronnie James Dio, while I never listened to much of his music he has made a noticeable contribution to metal over the last few decades and as such deserves some credit and respect. Unfortunately his funeral is going to be picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church, a church/hate group who regularly picket events they disagree with, most noticably anything relating to the gay community.

On the up side this organisation is very much a minority, being mostly composed of the minister Fred Phelps and his surprisingly large extended family.

http://www.godhatesfags.com/ The website of the WBC, you don't need to take my word they are unfriendly, check for yourself.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/ronnie_james_dio_baptist_church_to_picket_public_memorial_service.html

An article about the funeral and also quoting a selection of things said by the less than friendly WBC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7dG_m3MsI The Killswitch Engage cover of the Dio song Holy Diver, Everyone should see this, its pure genius.

10 Comandments

Me and some friends were in the pub the other night and somehow we ended up with one of them implying the 10 commandments were a good moral code, I objected stating that half of them were just about how to worship, I was challenged to name them but admittedly couldn't and said id get back to him. So now I have done the research and thought it would make a good blog entry to analyse them.

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'

Who to worship, no moral guidance.

TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'

Technically that sounds like no sculptures but its generally understood as no worsiping idols, either way nothing about morals here.

THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'

No blasphemy, again nothing moral.

FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'

An arbitrary rule, nothing moral about that.

FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'

On the surface reasonable, but on further thought being in a position of power does not immediately mean you deserve respect, even your 'superiors' should have to earn your respect by being both effective in their position and being good people.

SIX: 'You shall not murder.'

Certainly good moral advice, but common sense and under certain extreme circumstances permissible.

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

Another I agree with, good moral guidance but again I suspect most people know it to be wrong without needing a book to tell them, even the people guilty of it.

EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'

Also good on the surface but again I would consider it permissible in rare cases.

NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'

Morally sound, but again it seems obvious, don't try and get people in trouble with there friends/co-workers/the legal system for shits and giggles, it makes you a knob-goblin.

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

Sounds to me like its telling you not to desire or want anything, while it may make you miserable/jealous not actually immoral on its own.

So basically 1-4 are who/how to worship, 5 will come naturally if the targets deserve it, 6-9 on the whole following them will make you a more moral person but the same conclusions can be reached through non religious means 10 good advice, to a degree but not morals.

Out of the 10 commandments only 4 offer moral guidance and an additional 1 is sort of good advice for a happy life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments Where I found them, if your not happy with it find your own source and compare to this article

Draw Muhammad day

There is a fair bit to cover here so this is going to be a long post.

This whole series of events boils down to the fact that in Islam it is blasphemy to depict their prophet Muhammad in any way, and a minority of Muslims think they can enforce this upon the non-Muslim world by making death threats, many people disagree with these premises.

Recently (May 20th) it was draw Muhammad day. This all began with South Park episodes 200-201 which 'featured' Muhammad. The whole point was to play off all the political correctness around not offending extremist Muslims and the character was never actually seen on screen, always being behind a black rectangle labeld censored, there was also no anti Muslim content at all with Muhammad being one of the good guys.

Regardless a minority group called Revolution Muslim got all worked up and started making veiled threats so the 2nd episode also censored out Muhammads name and the standard ending monologue spelling out the episodes political/religious/moral point. After this a cartoonist unrelated to the show jokingly suggested making May 20th draw Muhammad day, several online characters who strongly believe in free speech decided this was actually a good idea and started a campaign to make it happen. The whole point was a show of strength against the extremists to prove that however a few corporations act and no matter what the minority do the west will not surrender free speech to a handful of 3rd world nut jobs. It was never about degrading or insulting Muslims in general, unfortunately due to the nature of the group a sizeable number of racists and bigots were also attracted and there was a lot of hate speech coming from both sides. This campaign ended up causing Pakistan to block Facebook and Youtube amongst other sites but for me its most important impact was one of the Muslim responses it generated.

A Facebook group was set up in response aimed not at demonizing those who took part but at moderate Muslims quoting the more peaceful passages in the Qur'an and showing that on the whole Muslims are good people who don't agree with the well publicised rantings of a minority. I would like to think that the group will be enough to get the ball rolling and get moderate Muslims to help stamp out the extremists and make their religion much less hated than it currently is.

Summing up my views on this whole thing.

Good on South Park for taking on another issue that needs addressing.

Someone get rid of the extremists or preferably talk some sense into them.

Draw Muhammad day was in principal a good idea and hopefully the powers that be will finally grow a pair, but it attracted a lot of asshats that also need removing or an education.

I also support the Muslim response in my Youtube link despite not caring about any religion since it promotes moderation rather than fanaticism.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/10136576.stm A bit on the campaign although they appear to have missed the point somewhat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8691406.stm the Pakistani facebook ban

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ok4njJXI8 the principle of draw Muhammad day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0v3-3yCbr8 a rational muslim response

introduction and all that crap

My name is Neil, I am a physicist, atheist, metal fan, socially functioning geek and plenty of other things I hope give me an interesting and accurate view of life the universe and everything. I am planning on updating this page semi-regularly with several types of content. The plan may change but currently it should be a mix of coherently explained science(physics all the way down the chain to stuff like sociology), hopefully understandable by anyone intelligent regardless of there knowledge of the area. Ranting against various groups (religious or otherwise) detrimental to developed society, with as much evidence as I deem necessary to support my claim(as a scientist it will usually be a lot) and also my observations on interesting news articles or my daily life.

Anyone who disagrees with me is free to object, it might even cause a debate and end with one of us winning the other over. All comments will be allowed, however I may occasionally remove comments that are illiterate trolling, spam or otherwise add no intellectual content, but this will be minimal so play nice.

Yes I am aware setting all that out in my first post is uncharacteristicly optimistic but it puts it in a sensible and easy to find place where the people likely to care can find it...assuming this thing takes off.