A Pleasantly Heretical Weekend

Premise
   This past weekend, Thursday the 25th through Sunday the 27th, the Reverend Kris Fricke¹ may have been at the eleventh annual convention of the Atheist Alliance International. Then again he may not have been there (after all, if he WAS there, it could realistically be anticipated to open him up to religious persecution before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee some day), but pictures have surfaced of him with several famous people who happened to be there as well. This entry will suppose that he was there however.

A Theological Disclaimer
   There seems to be universal revulsion to the concept of atheism. Many essentially atheist organizations avoid the name completely, for example many of the affiliated organizations go by other names like "freethinkers," "skeptics," "humanists," "secular humanists" and "secularists," among others. Many of these names I think slightly misrepresent the point, and as to "freethinkers" and other such names, I don't think a name is going to succeed that is composed of words with a wide degree of superior connotation; only a word made of latin or greek roots that accurately describe the philosophy will succeed.
   But why does the current negative connotation exist? Fricke's own parents, fairly liberal and agnostic individuals themselves, reacted with "thats disgusting!" upon learning Kris was to attend the convention -- reacting possibly with more revulsion than they did to his mohawk. I can only imagine that the image is that atheists all sit around "hating god," not unlike the Grinch. That atheists are a people filled with bitterness, resentment, hatred and a concoction of other deplorable emotions. In fact however, its a belief with appreciably less acrimony than other religions, that simply does not include a god. Its "holy texts" are all those scientific reports that are supported by reproducable experiments and scientific method. That they "hate god" of course is patently false for obvious reasons; and whereas other religions believe that those who don't believe in their religion aren't merely wrong but have developed defective souls; atheists certainly go no further than believing that the theistic hold incorrect ideas.
   Kris Fricke incidently does not consider himself to be an atheist however, but agnostic. Moreover, he sometimes claims to be an agnostotheist, a term he may have coined himself, which holds that not only is it unknowable as to whether or not God exists, but if God were to exist, supposing God was supremely enlightened, and having given man free will and extensive powers of reasoning, God would prefer that man did not commit himself to so narrow and arbitrary a belief system as most religion. If God intended to test mankind to determine which of us is Worthy and which is not, the test is not rigorous adherence to arbitrary religious tenets, but that those who submit to severe religious conviction are the ones God actually finds deficient. But this is just Kris' idea of the most likely scenario if God exists at all, as usual Kris prefers to remain unaffiliated.
   But this entry is not intended to be a theological thesis. The above is given merely in an endeavor to dissuade the reader from thinking that attendance at an atheist convention is tantamount to being part of a vast atheist conspiracy of grinch-like hatred.


Narrative
   After the usual intellectual overload of finals, Fricke was taking everything one step at a time. He took the train back to Orange County (a 13 hour adventure!) without anyone to pick him up in Irvine (coming in two hours later than scheduled though his father was able to pick him up), and the next day drove down to the convention at the Crowne Plaza hotel next to LAX without knowing where he was going to sleep that night. As luck would have it, the presidential suite had been booked as a command and control post for the convention, but no one official was scheduled to sleep there (perhaps lest it appear convention funds were being used to put top officials in the presidential suite?), so the ten or so college students present occupied the room both nights.
   This college faction consisted of Fricke and another girl from Davis (one Jessica), and eight people from Cal Poly Pomona, led by none other than Misha Novini an individual Kris had gone to junior high and high school together. The second day they were joined by a contingent of about five persons consisting of one from Davis and her friends from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, who were also easily accomodated by the luxurious presidential suite.
   The convention consisted of a number of prestigious speakers interspersed between various discussion groups. The speakers included renowned scientist Richard Dawkins, as well as the man behind the lawsuit over the presence of "under God" in the pledge of allegiance (Dr Newdow, whom Kris got his picture taken with), and actress Julia Sweeney, among others. Also appearing, though not presenting, were the famous magicians Penn & Teller, whom Kris also had his picture taken with.

   One noteable speech was by one Dr. Robert Price, a former fundamentalist Christian scholar, who essentially studied the bible and its origins so extensively that even coming from the perspective that it was true he convinced himself that it was not. Aside from the extensive inconsistencies, he found that nearly every story in it was suspiciously close to existant myths and legends at the approximate time of its origin, in particular the story of the resurrection closely mirrors myths about Dionysis and Osiris that were popular at the time.

   In his speech, Michael Newdow mentioned that he tries to use the word "interlard" in all his legal briefs because it is an excellent word, and also that "spatchcock" is the verb form of interlard. Also he mentioned to me that he would be speaking at Davis sometime soon (the 20th of next month?) and I intended to find the particulars of this event on the internet but have been unable.

¹Yes Kris is a legally recognized reverend of the Universal Life Church


Other Encounters
   One of the Davis people I didn't know said she had read this livejournal before; One of the Pomona kids noted this livejournal's name looked familiar; three of the pomona kids indicated they had livejournals; one of the other affiliate group leaders, a professor at Stanford, in the meeting of affiliate group representatives, said he intended to create a wiki for his group, in response to which several others in the room demonstrated understanding of the concept, and at the mention of wikipedia significantly more indicated recognition; Kris later wikivangelized to the Stanford professor on the sublime creation that is Daviswiki.
   In addition to seeing Misha Novini, Kris ventured forth from the hotel Saturday evening to visit his friend Marianna Kotcharian who attends to Occidental College in LA; back in MV Kris randomly ran into elementry through high school acquantance Geoffrey Nicholson outside of Diedrichs off La Paz and then later had an extensive conversation with high school friend Nadia Ahmed, who attends UCI and as it turns out knows Chonchol Gupta.

Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today: The Kyrgyz Flag - As you ought to know, protestors recently overthrew the corrupt Kyrgyz government. This strongly contrasts the Ukrainian government overthrow, despite the parallels the newspapers like make, in that wheras in the Ukrainian case the protestors accomplished their goals through protesting, in the instant case the protestors accomplished their goals by physically storming the capitol building. What ho! Guess who's next and win a twinkie: Turkmenistan or Kasakhstan?
   Year Ago Today: Showdown in Corona - Quality adventures with Oi Kelly and Alex.

Rights of the Undead

Zombie Rights
   So something occured to me in reference to this Schiavo fiasco; if one is going to define "life" in a divinely recognized sense as merely breathing, then that would certainly include zombies¹.
   Now this sounds silly, but I think it has serious implications. And before I go on I will note that not all religious persons believe the unliving corpse of Schiavo should be continually fed, and not all religious persons have in the past believed in zombies. But in times past the religious community overwhelmingly allowed for the existence of zombies and the like (and certain official bodies officially speculate on exorcisms for example). Now at the very least, the belief in zombies was so widespread that if it was against religious doctrine to terminate them, it without a doubt would have been noted. Thus I think there is really compelling reason to believe that most religious doctrine up until extremely recently would have held that the Schiavo body is not alive, we have no obligation to maintain its existence, and in fact it may well be an abomination which should have a stake placed through its heart.
   And for that matter, how is Schiavo different from a zombie? I mean, presumably she doesn't want to eat our brains and her bite won't infect the living with her condition, but I think otherwise she is arguably undead at this point. And as previously noted I'm not an adherent of religion in the traditional sense, but if I was all up in arms about the sanctity of our souls, I would say the continued support of the Schiavo corpse is more an insult and abomination to the sanctity of our souls than the contrary. After all, it holds that our souls ARE inextricably linked to our body rather than that they are something separate. I really think the religious people who are for zombie rights in this case have seriously got their theology in a mix up.

See Also: Yasser Arafat Declared Undead - Arafat, now fighting for the rights of the "un-alive" may well have some things to say about the Schiavo case.
          Comic on this Subject - that actually inspired me to these thoughts.

¹Do zombies breath?! Even if they don't, their muscles clearly function in other similar ways to achieve locomotion and biting.


Hot or Not, Statue Addition
   Once again contention has has been broached in Daviswiki as to whether or not what is currently referred to as The Ugliest Statue [in Davis] is in fact ugly. As usual, we here at Emosnail are eager to resolve this through polling. In fact, renowned naysayer Saul Sugarman also maintains that "those who have not visited Davis or the Davis Wiki have not been able to vouch for themselves on whether or not they like the statue" and therefore we shouldn't prejudice them. As such its of particular note that those readers who have not seen the statue for themselves take a quick gander at it and then weigh in.
   The numbers shall be defined as more or less: 1 it is divine; 2-3 its beautiful; 4 it is pleasant; 5 average; 6 rather unattractive; 7 it is quite ugly; 8-9 it is probably the most ugly statue in Davis; 10 it is possibly one of the ugliest statues I have ever seen. This is discounting the gaudy neon peice of archetecture in Drew Circle (nothing to link to? )= )
[Poll #464328]


Picture of the Day

   I took this about two weeks ago when I went for a long walk. Its a hallway in what appears to be an abandoned fire station next to the UC Davis Airport.

Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today: Not Skanking
   Year Ago Today: AA Meeting