Think Outside the Box, For the Box is Too Small to Exist

So here we are, yet another religion versus atheism episode. It all started as a facebook status update, all the way up to a lot, lot more. Some might fail to get the whole point of this atheism-religion fray, and it's indeed a morally infallible and credible side to take. One of the participants in this debate didn't adhere to calling religious people deluded lunatics in dreamland with mystical sky daddies to protect them.

This philosophy would indeed make a lot of sense if and only if everyone held firm to it, which is, undeniably, the world we don't live in. The situation is further polarized by the forced implication of creationism on science. Let creationists call atheists immoral idiots, deluded bastards, blah and blah and blah: tolerable, to some extent. Let creationists call methodological analysis and deductions from nature an 'illusion' in favor of some ancient, mystical text: not tolerable. Radioactive Carbon Dating: illusion. Evolution: illusion. Big Bang: illusion. [enter any scientific theory with which religious texts are not compatible]: illusion.

Why do atheists fight back? To prevent an intellectual apocalypse: similar to the ones only a few centuries back. As the matter of fact, the whole religion versus atheism debate would have been alien had there been nothing of the creationism-in-science-class sort. Say this to a creationist, he/she'd recite a whole list of prominent scientists who had been religious. No one seems to remember the relatively primitive world they lived in. Newton didn't have a GPS to guide him.

In accordance with the general religious consensus, life is just an examination. It is to test you if you make the right use of the 'soul' god has given you. In a nutshell, you should believe in what is dictated on you, with no proofs, logic, and evidence. If you fail to, god(s) will book your one-way ticket to hell (sarcasm might be the lowest form of wit, but it helps to hit the point through). God is benevolent, as well as omnipotent. So instead of preventing evil, he created some, to test his own creations. After all, he's just an examiner, who, just like a teacher, tests his creation.

Back to argument: why would a perfect watchmaker make imperfect watches, only to test if they're perfect? Moreover, if he were perfect, we could expect him to know if the watch he's about to create is perfect. So why would he want to create imperfect watches, only to have them incinerated and to soil his brand? If he does create imperfect watches, he's the only one responsible for imperfections, for had he created perfect watches instead, none would exist. So why worship him? If he's an omnipotent examiner, he could make sure all his pupils pass out, displaying his eternal benevolence. God would make some disabled and some poor, so we can all be good to them. So, why didn't He bother being nice to them in the first place? Are we asking too much? This codes the line of arguments of one of the participants, and myself (although I did not participate).

Yet another, 'interesting' aspect of religion is, life is an illusion. We're living in an illusion, and we have no way of knowing what the reality is. So, if there is a fire a few steps away, beneath the worldliness of our illusive life, we're screwed. Okay, so if there's a fire right in front of us, we can walk right through it. Life is a happy illusion, remember? So if we're within the fire, life is still a happy illusion. It's pretty much like a blind man thinking of all the things that would happen if the orange is blue, needless to say he has not a clue to what 'blue' means. The moral of the story is, if all we feel is illusion, there's no point in reality: for reality becomes the illusion and the illusion is the realized reality. It might take some their whole lives to realize this.

But, then again, we would have creationists crawling up our faces, asking about all the good things god asked us to do. Do it, or go to hell. So there, religion is cool.

Such arguments are certainly pejorative to conscience. If you are good, you'd do good: it doesn't really matter if there is no god to nag you. If you're curious, you don't need the teacher behind your life, to read. If you do need, you're just not curious. If you do need a god to force you to do good, you're just not good, for if you were, you wouldn't have cared if he asked you to, or even if he exists. If you don't think you're good enough, don't, don't ever try on a religion: we all know what Al Qaeda, Mujahideen, etc did for us. (I am not, whatsoever, explicitly accusing Islam of violence.)

Picking-any-religious-person-and-calling-him-a-retard is not my intention. Picking-any-irrational-person-and-calling-him-a-retard is. I am not attacking any religion: I'm just attacking ignorance. I'm not asking you to believe in what I say: I'm just asking you to think. Think outside the box, for the box is too small to exist.

Welcome to your Augmented Reality

Remember those Sc-Fi movies you used to reckon? The cool guy always had the cool stuff and the cool chicks, everything else was just beating around the bush. Probably a night or two of fancy dreams, and then you're back. What you're about to read is straight from your fantasies, right before your eyes. *drum roll*

Scientists and engineers gathered at Augmented Human International Conference, Megeve have gone cutting edge. They're working to pump your reality with instant data from the internet. Think about this: you stand somewhere lost in a foreign skyline, when someone whispers the phone number of a swish restaurant right at the top floor of the skyscraper you're gazing at. Or even, you close your eyes to know everything you could about the bridge or monument you were looking at just 2 seconds ago. Or just think of just seeing a phone number to have it keyed in your contacts without you doing anything else. Or even a foreign language translated live as it happens. Yep, this is cutting edge.

It works on eye-tracking: your smartphone sees what you see, and then sends it to a remotely accessed computer. The computer runs through the web database and relays information back. This also includes an integrated global positioning system hooked right up with your eyes and ears, so you never miss that turn. The one thing I predict: Google with services like Earth, Maps, Translate, Latitude, Picasa, Blogger, blah and blah and blah and blah, is about to turn into a lot more. And I have a good hunch on the iPhone living a part of our life.

Here's a little peek into the First AH Conference:

Thanks for reading, this is Nasim.

(source)

Doomsday 2012

This title would perhaps invite a lot more attention than anything like "2012: Scientifically Debunked" or "Lies of 2012". And why wouldn't it? Didn't the good guys get away on a cool made-in-china boat? I shall leave the tirade for another time, but Mr. Emmerich had done a bad, bad thing with the script.

Below is a list of all so called 'scientific explanations' to the 'fact' that there would be no Christmas '12. First up, 'spontaneous geomagnetic reversal'.

This is perhaps the most popular and ridiculous claim, I believe. It abuses the principle that earth's magnetic field may well be 'reversed', to say, the north magnetic poles would become south and the vice versa. Put in another way, the compasses would show the south, north and the north, south. This, coupled with a strong solar outburst (which is, in a way, the sun in a bad mood, spewing out streams of charged particles on earth. When it's not doomsday, the earth's magnetic field deflects these particles to make us at home, but the geomagnetic reversal may weaken the magnetic field, leaving us to the wrath of charged particles from the sun) would cause a terrible catastrophe which would spell doom for life on planet earth.
There seems to be a strong evidence of a due geomagnetic reversal. According to Wikipedia, the last time this happened was 780,000 years back, and it has to happen sometime soon, probably for the 26^th time. This is the general consensus, given these reversals are assumed to be random.

Moreover, the solar maximum (which is an element in sun's periodic activity cycle when solar activity is considered maximum) of 2013 (and not 2012) will be fairly weak (weaker than average, in fact), as forecasted by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And there had been no scientific links between geomagnetic reversals and solar activity cycle, the latter being an 11 year cycle, and the former being, as mentioned afore, random.

But that hardly is a part of the whole story. The reversal takes a colossal amount of time to complete, and it's pretty much impossible to score when it begins. The timescales involved are of the order of 5000 years. Had it already begun, we had eons to figure things out (which we would have indeed done had it been something to worry about). If it is just to begin on 21^st of December 2012, we still have an eon to figure it out. More up, it won't be much of a problem if earth's geomagnetic field is reversed. It happened several times in the past, and we still seem to live.

Geomagnetic reversals are relatively less understood, but it doesn't buy 2012 'prophecies' a scientific basis.

Planet X, Niburu is yet another idea of the big day, according to which a mystical and invisible planet is on a collision course with planet earth which would of course spell the last doom for everyone alive. Ludicrous as it sounds, Niburu is perhaps not interested in planets like Jupiter and Saturn (with far more beefy gravitational influence) but instead, the fourth of the smallest planets of the solar system. Moreover, the orbital trajectory must exactly be synchronized with that of earth, and it must successfully dodge all obstacles which include the asteroid belt and 8 whole planets, in turn implying planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus should exert no gravitational influence whatsoever. Had he been alive, Newton would have committed suicide.

Next up, the galactic alignment. The earth goes around the sun, the sun goes around the center of our galaxy, or the galactic center. According to John Major Jenkins, 2012 will have the sun aligned with the galactic center, where a colossal black hole is presumed to exist. This would cause 'havoc on earth', in some mysterious way.

As the matter of fact, such an alignment occurred back in 1998. And if it happens on 21^st of December 2012, the sun would be quite above the galactic plane (which can be envisaged as the 'blade' of our Milky Way galaxy. An alignment with the galactic plane 'appears' to be disastrous, given it would invite a larger flux of comets from the still hypothetical Oort Cloud, crashing down on earth. But such alignments take tens of millions of years to occur, and the last time it happened was 3 million years ago, according to evidence. The sun is, in fact, moving above, or away from the galactic plane). Let's ignore all this for a while, and assume the sun is exactly aligned with the black hole, exactly on the galactic plane. How hard would the black hole pull? According to very basic calculations, the black hole must be at least 9,461,000,000,000,000 kilometers from the sun before we begin to realize something's wrong. Right now, it's at 283,800,000,000,000,000 kilometers.

A galactic alignment is hence the last thing one should worry about.

Speaking of prophecies, there are atleast a total of 200 past doomsdays as predicted: let's just add one to the list. And, ironically, the end of Mayan long count calendar (which is one of the proposed basis) is an event of celebration. There's absolutely no scientific evidence for doomsday 2012.

Thank you for reading, this is Nasim.

Recommended links and references:
http://www.starrynighteducation.com/sntimes/2008/06/#art1
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=511
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon
http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/galaxies/galactic-plane/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v316/n6030/pdf/316706a0.pdf (PDF file)