Raven Paradox

I consider myself to be a reasonably tolerant, rational, calm and accepting person; but there is something that has the ability to really get under my skin – the question:

“So what star sign are you?”

My answer is always the same:

“I don’t have one”.

This answer produces a myriad of reactions – from amusement to incomprehension to indignance. If I haven’t already made up my mind about someone prior to them asking such an inane question, their response to my answer certainly seals the deal.

To some, astrology may be “fun to think about”, but to me it is a ludicrous pseudo science with the potential to cause harm in much the same way as religion if taken too seriously.

I believe that there are two types of adherents to astrology – casual newspaper readers and “sun sign” devotees. The boundaries between them can tend to blur however.

Before I forge on however, I will declare my hand.

I became an atheist at about age eight, yet I held on to astrology for some reason for another four or five years. I am not quite sure why that was, religion and astrology share so many common factors:

• neither are backed up by any form of logic, science or rationality
• both involve worship of the sun or suns (as a god or some kind of influential factor)
• both were ideas framed by superstitious peasants not fortunate enough to have access to the reasoning that science has provided us with
• both make assertions that are highly improbable and require a leap of “faith”
• both fill holes in vacuous minds
• both give “hope” to the weak and fragile

There are many more commonalities, but I think that you get the drift.

I fell into the casual newspaper reader category for a short while before exploring it further and even as a young teenager, knew that it even were one to become a devotee, the premise behind it was flawed. Why I didn’t desert it as soon as I became an atheist, I am not quite sure. I suppose that it was “nice to think about”.

The simple fact of the matter is that this pseudo science was created over 4000 years ago, prior to most of the planets and stars we now know exist having been discovered. The “charts” that are used to plot ones life path, “destiny”, future are flawed and incomplete.

Even if there was any rationality behind this trickery, the premise would be flawed for that reason, but also due the fact that the light from the stars upon which this court jestery is based comes to us from several million years past.

Withholding disbelief for a moment, say for example that astrology carries any kind of weight, are you going to tell me that simply because of where some celestial bodies were at the moment I was born, the path of my life has been preordained?

If that is the case, why on earth do we have any crime/misfortune/famine/disease/war etc etc in the world? Surely if this pseudo science had any merit, there would be teams of astrologers working away with the birth records of every one of the 200,000+ children born every single day, plotting their charts and making recommendations of infanticide to the appropriate authorities in various regions throughout the world.

You see were astrology in any way, shape or form; real – it wouldn’t suffer from the paradox of free will and omniscience/omnipotence in the same way that religion does.

Its proponents claim that based upon the date, hour and minute of your birth; your nature can be explicitly defined, with no room for error.

If you are this sign, you are stubborn, if you are that sign, you are loyal, if you are another, you are sexual… fuck me, we are human beings, each subject to completely unique experiences, born with unique abilities and moulded by our unique environments – a person with a modicum of intelligence may just give a moderate amount more weight to such things than the position of the stars and planets when one is born…

What really concerns me though, is the amount of atheists that I have met who continue to afford this charlatanry any kind of credence.

Three of the most devout devotees to astrology I have met were also devout atheists. One would think that their atheism would engender rationality. Sadly, attempting to have a discussion with them about astrology was met with the same kind of response as one would encounter when discussing relgion with a fundamentalist theist. ’twas most perplexing to me to say the least.

I know that that is hardly a scientific sample size, but to me, it illustrated humankinds irrational desire to seek a higher purpose, something other than themselves; almost as if we have an innate desire to abdicate responsibility for our own choices and the path that our life takes.

To me, this makes astrology potentially as dangerous as religion when in the wrong hands and I sincerely believe that the slippery slope principle applies equally.

The only difference is that there is no vengeful deity who will smite you, should you choose not to worship the stars.

Perhaps that is what makes it comforting for “weak” atheists – they want to believe in something, just not an angry bearded guy in the sky who will smite them if they disobey…

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If there is one thing that annoys me more than one of those pathetic “baby on board” signs, or the fucking reindeer antlers and red noses on cars at Xmas time, it is those fucking “my family” stickers.

Homo sapiens have, without help, just like all other species, been breeding for about 200,000 years, and, that unlike most other species, have begun to devolve rather than evolve (I mean, any drunken bogan can slam its cock into the cunt of a drunken boganette and produce a rat tailed, pathetic oxygen thief who will be forever dependent on welfare or crime to get through life). Why do people feel the need to display the fact that they have managed to somehow fumble their way through the process of conception and child birth?

Despite the fact that these stickers are inane, conform to the herd mentality, are mass produced by Chinese child labour and are indisputably moronic, let’s take a look at what the above rendition illustrates.

A beer gutted alcoholic who is only good for slapping slabs of cow onto a burning furnace, two retarded, precocious children and a person of no specific gender attempting to electrocute a fish with some kind of magical powers.

I suppose that that is better than the usual stickers that you see, the man cooking the barbie, the woman going shopping, both kids are either cricket or tennis champions – the fucking Aussie stereotype.

That said, what kind or moron has any desire to emblazon their petrol guzzling four wheel drive (that’s right, they *aren’t* SUVs); for that is predominantly the kind of vehicle you see them on, with an indication of not only that they were somehow able to achieve what comes naturally to even the most unevolved forms of life, but that they are indeed proud of the fact that the father of the family is a drunk who beats his wife?

That is what I take from the above.

Fuck you, fuck your family, and a fatwa on the cunts who created the stickers.

Let’s get it straight – any moron can breed. Your family and friends know you have children – the rest of us don’t give a flying fuck.

You aren’t original for having a fictitious depiction of your “happy family” on the back of your car, you are a fucking sheep.

What I’d like to see were real representations of family life – Fritzl style.

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I have had enough, so it is time for a rant.

I hate people – loathe them in fact, always wanting something from you like knowledge about how your day has been, how you are, what is happening in your world… when all that they really want is to steal some precious oxygen and prompt you to query them on things of vast importance to them but which have absolutely no merit to you (or anyone else for that matter).

The rhetorical questions that we ask one another in our daily lives, as if by rote, have been amplified through “social media phenomenons” like facebook and twitter.

Whilst I am a self confessed user of both – it makes sense in the industry that pays me to laze about drinking wine on the weekends; I loathe the new cretinous sub class of humanity that has been given birth by these tools.

The common variety facebook whore will have between 200-300 friends.

If they are using it for business purposes – well and good, however if, as was the case with one oxygen thief that I knew, one of these virtual parasites has, lets say 372 friends and then comes crying when “two people have deleted me from facebook”, expecting sympathy; then they may as well neck themselves and do us all a favour.

Fuck me… this, well, to put it bluntly, piece of human waste honestly expected me to care that she had lost two “friends” from her cast of hundreds – and, more to the point, was indignant when I asked her who they were.

“Well, um, I don’t know, but the point is that I am upset and my other friends cared but you don’t”

Indeed I don’t, and you had better wake the fuck up to yourself if you think that the measure of your worth is gauged by a number next to your name on an insidious marketing tool like facebook.

Who cares how many friends you have in the virtual world?

I have decided that enough is enough.

In the “real world” – the place that I choose to go about my daily life – you know, the one that requires effort, engagement on a real level, getting the fuck up out of bed in the morning even when you really can’t be arsed facing the world yet again, I probably have what I would consider 10-20 friends if one doesn’t count family and colleagues.

I got to the outrageous point whereby I had 120+ “friends” on facebook. Yes, I was guilty of allowing virtual friendless social parasites to befriend me, no doubt feeding their burgeoning friend lists with the arrogant fuel that their narcissistic desires fed merrily upon – but it was fun for me to imagine their horror and despair when they scanned their “friends” list only to discover that it had been reduced by one when I evilly deleted them.

Basically my new strategy with facebook is thus:

• if I like you, you are in
• if I work with you, to avoid complications and uneasy lunchroom conversation and you don’t have a direct line to HR or the exec com team, you are in
• if there is some kind of mutual benefit to us being linked virtually (say, you can get me backstage at Cradle of Filth) you are in
• if I would have a beer/wine or selected spirit with you without having to put my mind into neutral, you are in
• if we have shared a night of drunken debauchery that doesn’t bear repeating here, you are probably in
• if you were to tell me that your mother/father/brother/sister/cat/significant other had suffered a hideous disfigurement and I envisage that I couldn’t care less, you are out.
• if I really don’t give a fuck what you are having for dinner, what time you are going to work, what your kids are doing, what household chores you are performing, what illness you are currently suffering, what you are doing on the weekend, how miserable you are feeling or what the fuck is going on with you and the love of your fucking life – you are out.
• If you are a grade A oxygen thief – then that is my fault, you should never have been on the list in the first place.

Call me arrogant – I don’t give a fuck, but the time has come people – time to take a stand.

Who really cares if:

• “Jemima really wishes that she didn’t have to work today” – toughen up bitch, the rest of us are dragging our arses out of bed
• “Johnny is pissed off that he missed out on tix for Vibes” – get a fuckin Visa debit you moaning fuck
• “George is devastated that Chloe left him for the pool boy” – should have learned how to fuck George – and waxed your back
• “Matilda is drunk” – gee, thanks for that pearl of wisdom you sad fuck
• “Cleopatra is hunting for Antony” – there are dating sites for that.

What I want to read are things like:

• “Nathan is really pleased with the quality of his new midget butler”
• “Harold has mastered the Pakistani Drill Press”
• “Lethal was not amused by the Angry Pirate that she had received”
• “Clint was devastated that he only had a handful more weeks of Warhawk left”

Get creative people – noone really gives a fuck if you are downtrodden, oppressed or bitter – that is what the news is for.

Harden up and cull people, cull until you can cull no more – even if it means culling me.

Time to commit some more congregaticide (faux latin for social networking culling)

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Why are people such pricks?

Yesterday I went out the back to check on the wonderful little organic vegetable garden. It is a small 10m x 80cm plot at the back of our property at the end of a common lane way.

Lovingly nurtured in this vegie garden are:

• Several types of chilli including the Habanero, Cayenne and Bulgarian Carrot varieties
• Black Russian tomatoes
• Capsicums
• Beans
• Rockmellon
• Normal tomatoes

Upon arriving at the garden I was shocked and more than a little pissed off to find that some inconsiderate arsehole had decided that it would be a good idea to rip up a couple of plants, tear the branches off a few others (including one with 12 new, unripened habanero on it – I was really looking forward to sampling them) and rip up a couple of the stakes holding up the tomatoes.

As it is a private laneway, it could only have been one of the co-users or their guests – which pisses me off even more because I had planned to deliver everyone a parcel of the fresh goods once they had ripened.

After this, my charitable instincts have been somewhat dulled. Yes, the majority of the garden has survived but why would someone do such a thing in the first place?

It is nothing but vandalism and will sadly mean that I have to install some kind of security device – be it a fence or a camera – to prevent it from happening again.

Picture by André Karwath.

Technorati Tags: vandals, vegetables, organic, arseholes, chilli, habanero, cayenne, tomato, black russian, garden

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Who is this well fed moron?

For some reason, his face appears on the back of cabs, on television promotions, on billboards, in newspapers…

It would seem that this overweight tool is some kind of e-grade Australian celebrity.

Granted, I don’t watch a lot of commercial television and I certainly don’t listen to commercial radio. The only station worth listening to in this country is JJJ – but surely someone with as much exposure as this clown seems to be getting can’t simply have snuck past my radar completely unnoticed…

Who is he and why is his god-awful head peering at me everywhere I seem to turn?

How the hell did he become “famous”?

Somebody, please fill me in.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20438286-601,00.html

He can’t help himself can he?

Pell – supposedly the leader of this countries catholic population shows yet again how tenuous his grasp on both reality and history are.

This is not the first time that he has displayed a startling ignorance of the facts, nor the first time he has deliberately made inflammatory comments about a sensitive issue.

One wonders why, or indeed how, an obviously educated man – he has a PhD in History from Oxford – could continually get things so very wrong.

The answer is simple – it is because he is quite an intelligent, educated man that he appears to be so ignorant.

(more…)

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