If you live in the south you’ll hear that phrase before you die or a variation of it.  Perhaps it will come when you expect it, say when someone realizes your conclusions don’t include a belief system predicated on faith or it may come when someone, assuming you believe what they do, offers it as an act of kindness.  This can be a difficult to hear in some situations because to an atheist, hearing someone say “I’ll pray for you” is tantamount to saying “I’ll consult my magic eight-ball for you” or “I’ll rub my lucky rabbits foot for you”.  In other words, it can seem insulting when indeed the phrase is meant to be reassuring and there might be a very good chance that this person will devote some of their ceiling time to talking about your plight.  However, there is something to be learned here.  As human beings we should be concerned for our fellow man and offer to help them in times of need.  You have to give credit to religion in that it is a kind gesture of respect and empathy to tell someone you’ll ask the highest power you can conceive of to be merciful to you during your time of need, never mind the fact that it’s likely that same deity that supposedly put you in the position to begin with.  I think as reasonable people we should feel called to do more.  Ultimately, talking to your ceiling doesn’t help anybody.  Wish-thinking is unproductive and really does more to boost the ego of the person giving the prayer than the one who is receiving it.  Indeed, it’s been shown in clinical studies that patients who are prayed for (and know they’re being prayed for) do worse because they get a sort of performance anxiety and when improvements don’t manifest they panic that perhaps they’re doomed by the lord himself.

But I digress… My point is that we should feel called do something.  If someone of faith says they’ll pray for you we should respond that we’ll do more than that.  We’ll give our actual personal time to helping that person.  We’ll elect responsible government officials that will look out for that person’s well-being.  We’ll contribute to society; we’ll not needlessly send soldiers to war, etc.  As rational people we should know that these sort of actions are what really count.  I can’t argue with religious people that give their time to helping the needy.  It’s sad that there’s the potential they’ll use the opportunity to sell the person on their faith of choice while they’re in a vulnerable position but at least the person felt cared for and perhaps had their needs met.  I think we need to be mindful that we’re all citizens on the same planet and should do more than just look out for ourselves.

This comic points out something that I honestly never thought about much before and I don’t think many people of faith do.

I’m watching a video of Dawkins interviewing Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America and I’m amazed at Dawkins’ composure.  To be a well respected and educated scientist yet still find it within yourself to listen to someone spout off about a subject they know nothing about would be a true test of patience for me.  I don’t think people understand that just because you think that something isn’t true doesn’t entitle you to pollute the truth for everyone else.  Case in point, Wendy doesn’t understand science so she leans on primitive beliefs and then demands that they be given respect when to everyone else those thoughts are ancient history.  It’s as if she crashed an advanced mathematics class and started ranting that long division was a lie and that division by zero was possible.

I’m glad we’ve got people like Dawkins around to bring these things to light, however embarrassing it may be for people like Wendy (whom I’m sure is truly a very nice person, however quite delusional).

I couldn’t finish the video series by the way.  Her ignorance and refusal to accept any points that Dawkins was making started to eat away at me until I couldn’t take it anymore.  Just goes to show you how people can have evidence staring them in the face and they will choose to look the other way out of fear.

I thought this was a fairly interesting video on YouTube regarding the peer pressure associated with belief.

Enjoy.

That’s where we exist – on a thin slab of habitable land on the only habitable planet in our solar system.  As far as we know, the only habitable planet in our galaxy.  In a few billion years we’ll collide with another galaxy and be wiped out of existence, that is if our sun doesn’t decide to evolve into a red giant and consume us all in it’s expansion.

It’s unbelievable but it’s true and its wonderful.  It excites me to think that we’re part of something larger; insignificant yes, but still a minor citizen in a larger reality that we’ve only begun to understand yet continue to grasp in a way never dreamed of by our forefathers. When you look up at the night sky and see the stars shining back at you remember that the light you see traveled millions of years just to reach your eyes.  Remember that right now, miles above us, the Hubble is being readied to bring us even more pictures than what we’ve seen already; pictures that reveal thousands of galaxies beyond ours.

Think of that, and then let your mind drift down to where you are right now, the moment that you’re in as you read this.  You are surrounded by a reality that is equally as wonderful but is just a small slice of the total reality that exists in the universe around us.  Focus your thoughts on making this the best world we can make it for everyone that’s on board.  Remember that while we’re surrounded by diversity we’re all still very much alike.  In the end, the decisions we make will decide if we thrive and escape this rock or if we’re snuffed out and forgotten forever.

I waited for almost 30 years just to realize I was talking to myself.

So the other day I found out that DSL was finally available in my area.  Ripe with dreams of 6meg downloads and static IPs, I signed up.

Wow.  Their service is totally useless.

Granted, I may be what you consider a “power user” but I think my experience can be related by the following metaphor.

Imagine you hired someone to put a new door in your house.  You’ve chose this person because they said their door was better than every other door and that it would beat your current door hands down.  So you hire them.

The install the door.  It looks great. You go to open it and its padlocked.  After a call to the contractor’s office you’re able to figure out that while you’ve got the best damn door money can buy, its locked and you can never go through it.

Such is my experience with Bellsouth. They might provide the best web service you can get for the money in terms of speed, but try to do something trivial like dial into your home office from an outside connection and you might as well beat your head against a wall.

Again, I might be the exception, not the norm, but if you’re a software developer like I am and you need to expose systems hosted at your house for development and demonstration purposes, you’re better off sticking with cable.

Overall, total DSL time for me was about 4 days before I got it installed and managed to catch on to what they were trying to pull.

I’ll leave out the story where the connection was originally operating at a fraction of the speed I paid for (only noticed because I ran a speed test and sat with tech support for an hour).

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/elektra/

Ok, so Safari sucks (see previous post, plus its download options blow and it doesn’t remember what tabs you had open from session to session, and you can’t get the Google toolbar), why am I still using it?

It all boils down to the fonts.  I’m a confessed font-o-file.  I love fonts.  Every so often I’ll scour the web for the best fonts and then spend an hour or two trying them all out until I hit the precise combination I need for work and chat.

So what does this have to do with Safari?  Well, check this out and get back to me.  Basically, when it comes to fonts I like Apple’s philosophy better; not because it’s more accurate, but because I think it looks better on screen.  I don’t own a Mac and I don’t plan to for a while, so Safari is the only way I get Apple’s font rendering on a PC. Lately, when I have the option, I’ve been using Safari for my general web browsing over my traditional choices of Firefox or IE.  Its kinda got me thinking, maybe I should give Opera a try.  Could it be the best combination of looks, compatibility and versatility?

So I’m writing this using Safari, Apple’s browser that was shoved down my throat by their auto-update software.

So its actually kinda sweet, I dig how the fonts render, very Mac-ish.  My only gripe is that while FireFox 3 takes up about 80mb, Safari gobbles up twice that.  I like the look, but I don’t think I can bring myself to pay the memory penalty.  Maybe they’ll fix it in a future release and I can give it another go.