There is some truth in magic and myth

OK. OK. This is kind of an unusual topic for me, after all i'm the rock solid science geek who tries to denounce every religion on the planet. Moving on. This post started after I finished reading the book The Alchemyst The secrets of the immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott. Reasonable book by the way. Just something to do when your board. Anyway the book is basicly about the fact that the stories are true and Nicholas Flamel has discovered the secrets to eternal life. Then there's a part of the story about a group called the elder race. They are basicly super powerful magicians and near immortal and the fact that most religions are based off of one or several of them. My point is I started shifting through history and other stories i've read, looking for connections between myth and legend and historic "facts". There are actualy quite a few. In every myth and legend there is generaly a sliver of truth that it's all based off of, even if slightly exagerated. Dragons, for example, were most likely the assumption of someone who happened to stumble across some dino fossils and not know what they were. All legends are like that. Gods and spirits is the explanation of things people don't understand or can't explain and if the people pleased the gods they would grant the people gifts such as fine weather and no disease. Today we know a little bit more about how the world and universe work. We don't need to follow imaginary beings that were created in the human mind to explain the unexplainable at the time. See! Here I am at a familiar topic again. The denouncing of religion. The gods or beings that are worshiped by religious believers are the creation of the human mind to explain the things that man cannot control. The weather for example. If you are an early human being living in the woods hunting for food and shelter. Your life becomes normal. When something abnormal happens, such as you see lightning strike for the first time, you don't know what's happening. Humans I've noticed don't like not knowing what's happening so you try to explain an event such as lightning with the rath of an all powerful being. So next time lightning hits you thing something powerful is angry. After this goes on for a few centuries people start to think up explenations for why the "god" is angry such as they were hunting dear all their lives and then they kill something else like a bear. There's a lightning storm that night. A simple coincidence as to why you would then think that bears are sacred and they shouldn't be killed. After a few centuries a beliefe is developed around simple coincidences and unexplained natural events. People then start worshipping the gods and what is sacred to them to win their favor. Everyone likes praise and so they think that the god will give them something in return thus prayers started. The prayers were intended as worship to the god and you ask for something in return, whatever you were praying for. Some times irational beliefes form from people doing things by accident like say stabbing someone in the chest. What if something good happened later that day. That person might think that stabbing people in the chest is a good thing and that person starts doing it more often. Then they start taking little bits out of the dead persons chest to offer to the gods as proof that they've done it. This is basicly how I think the Myan ritual of human sacrifice and offering the persons still beating heart to the sun started. Anyway, religions generaly branch off of religions. They take stories they've herd and explenations they've come up with and come up with their nature of what they think is the truth. So religions are always developping, falling apart and changing to suit the environment where the people that follow that religion live. Change of time changes the environment. Different technologys develop and more logical explenations are found. The religion doesn't make sense anymore so people adapt, they change the religion to suit the new findings. This happens a few hundred times and religions can't imagine going backwards, can't imagine going back to the time when they thought that bears were sacred and all animals have spirits. Now they believe that only humans have souls or spirits and if anyone would try to tell them other wise they would laugh at them or kill them for not following the "proper" god. Religion is the best explenation a people have at the time but it can become unwieldly I mean look at the crusades. They were absolutely unecessary. They were a religious excuse to go sack some lands and get rich quick. It's time for change. Adapt to new facts and include them. I'm not going to try to tell you that your god is fake and all your beliefs arn't true because you either already believe me or you never will. But please. Accept facts that have been proven and change the religion slightly to suit it. Do that and in one maybe two centuries we won't need religion anymore. Change is the future. It's not always fun. It's not always good but change comes all the time. You can't fight it. Explain what you can and do your best with what you can't.

The declining music industry

Today’s music is awful! Well at least in my opinion. I understand how rock used to be the rebellious teen music. That stage is over. Rock has lost it’s glamour for rebellion. You hear it all the time. These days it’s either old guys yelling about the good old days or new young imitators who are trying to get that same edge and failing. Now don’t get me wrong, I still like some rock, just not the kind where the stupid guy in Goth cloths is yelling in to the microphone about the glory of pain. Honestly if someone is singing about that kind of thing I’m surprised that they haven’t killed themselves in a ceremonial self sacrifice.

Pop is terrible. It’s just basic beat and a little electronics shoved together. The worst part is people like it. You hear it all the time on the radio and it drives me crazy. Pop is today’s teenager’s music. I absolutely hate it. I am a musician. I play piano and acoustic guitar. People around me say I’m pretty good, I still say there are plenty of better musicians than me and I still have a lot to learn. Anyway, being able to play music helps me to tell what’s complex and what’s the result of some garage band member who just picked up a guitar and thought how fun it would be to smash up on stage and happened to get a lucky break. Unfortunately most of the music you here today as “popular” music is the second one. My basic premises about music is that if I can play it right off the bat it’s pretty damn simple. All kinds of talented musicians are booted out because the public is unable to appreciate how good it actually is. They prefer danceable beats that are so easy a child actually can play it. Seriously, I’ve seen it happen. So, the audience is music’s worst enemy.

Rap. I’m struggling to say the word. Rap is the worst form of music I’ve ever seen. Old fashion classical music is better. Classical music requires a lot of talent, just nobody cares about it anymore. Rock, there is to much junk, imitations and gothic yelling when the singer and the band is just in it for the money but among all that there is still some talent among the bad. Examples being the Beetles, Pink Floyd, Rush and Led Zeppelin. Pop is bad music used solely for dancing and no talent whatsoever but it can be good for what it’s designed for, dancing, it’s just it’s so plain common. But rap. Rap is pure evil to the ears. It’s just beat, nothing else. All of the actual music comes from the singing which doesn’t do very much and the words. The words kill everything. Rap used to be bad musically. Nowadays they just sing about the worst possible things in society, and they promote it. Current rap goes against all the things rap used to stand for. They tell kids “ It’s fun to take drugs!” or “ It’s OK to get dirty!” absolutely not when this is aimed at a 12 to 17 audience. So. I’ve established that rap sucks musically and that the words are terrible and make no sense. So what are the redeeming quality’s? None. There are no redeeming qualities. That’s why I hate rap.

I’m going to rate the music industry in a scale of 1 to 100 talent wise, meaning wise and how much I like it (How much talent was required, if the music means anything to people and if I think that the music’s any good). In my opinion, the music industry has done as follows, 1 being the lowest and 100 being the highest.
I’m starting when music started which as far as we know, was tribal music. Basic beat and singing with spiritual significance. 20 for talent, 92 for meaning and 40 for personal rating.
Next we move into when music was developing in the Roman and Greek era. It was still used in spiritual scenarios but was also used in show, for fun. They were also starting to develop new musical instruments such as the lyre. 45 for talent, 76 for meaning and 36 for personal rating.
After that we move on to the middle ages. People are starting into classical music by Bach and Beethoven. It was stilled used in churches but music had now taken on a more personal, amusement directed form. 81 for talent, 70 for meaning and 20 for personal rating.
After that came the era of rock and rebellion from one’s parental units. You get in to heavy metal and electric guitars. No religious significance whatsoever minus a few Christian rock groups here and there. 4 for talent except for about 12% of actually talented successes which I give an 82, 3 for meaning and 14 for personal rating except for that 12% which I give a 90.
Now we come to the development of the all too evil rap. Basic beat and meaningless lyrics. I think you now basically what I’m going to say. 1 for talent, 1 for meaning and -94 for personal rating (I realy don't like rap).
And now for pop. The most recent addition to the musical collection. Dancing music. Common to an extreme and basic. It is directed at teens for parties with almost no religious connections. Altogether it isn’t as “bad” as rap. 5 for talent, 8 for meaning and a personal rating of 4.

Why is the majority of the human population so plain stupid?

The truth is that I don't know for sure. Part of it is probably the fact that with all of these developing technologies younger people, the new generation, is taking everything for granted. They think that everything is so plain easy. That with a few key strokes and the click of a mouse they can have anything they want. Plus, most parents over indulge kids with TV, video games and enough money so that they can get those things so ofter that the kids don't realy appreciate them. What happened to saving for the future? What happened to living within your means? As soon as most kids leave the home at the end of high school they think that they can get an easy job, slack off, still get payed and live life the way they always have. COMPLETELY INCORECT! News flash youngsters. Life is hard. You'll have to start working hard sooner or later. Now being a kid or young adult as some say, or is it just plain teen ager? Hard to say. Anyway, being a kid I see this all the time. Parents want what's best for their kids. Over indulgence is not the right path. Wake up your kids and teach them how life is actualy going to be. Just don't be to tough. Kids are still kids. Let them enjoy youth.

Now your probably wondering how all of this ties in to my whole evolution blog perspective. Well, if you've noticed, I support evolution and environmentalism. Over indulging kids or the next generation as we'll call them, teaches them to take stuff for granted. You're telling them that their allowed to go around driving the car for no reason and put co2 in to the air. Their allowed to have parties and friends over whenever they feel like it and be sluggish at work the next day. Your telling them to take everything for granted all because a lot of parents let their kids do whatever they want to often. I'm not one for heavy diciplin but, turn off the TV, it wasts electricity when it's on and no one's watching it. And tell your kids. No not yelling at them. Tell your kids about what life is like. What it's realy like. Get them started on something interesting like. "So Jimmy you want to get that kind of car when you grow up, that realy, extremly expensive car. Well i'll tell you what. You've got to start saving those pennies." Get them started like that and they'll listen. Even if they don't act like it their listning. Not many people ignore info about their futures. Teach kids to enjoy what they have and not to abuse it. We all ready have the generation of couch potatoes and lazy bums. Let's try to make kids see the truth in life. Even if it isn't all that pleasent at times.

On a happier note. A few million years ago the earth was ruled by birds. Yes that crow or pigeon outside your window is decended from the former king of the earth. Show them some respect! But seriously. Thank you for your time.

Is going to mars a good thing?

We as humans are the dominant species on earth. In fact we are so dominant that we just keep growing and growing and growing and we need more space, so we just walk in and destroy another animals habitat thus adding to the "humans have murdered" list. Although I admit that going to mars might help with some over population problems, are we realy willing to do the same thing we're already doing here on earth but on a planet wide scail? And what about all of the plants and animals that need to go there. By forcing certain animals to breed in a completely new environment you'll be altering the actual species. Just imagine, a few thousand years from now when we've colonized mars there'll be the same problem of over population and polution there was before plus we'll have recked another perfectly good planet. Through evolution we might end up with key differences between species. Natural selection is based on the environment. You've just drasticly changed the environment. We might end up with two different species. Earth cows and mars cows. Everyone always assums that someone in the near future is going to clean up this mess that we've all made. We were saying that 10 years ago too. I don't realy believe that someone is going to clean this up quickly and easily. If they are they'd better come along quick to match everyone's demands. Honestly. We all think that dumping the world's problems on someone elses shoulders who's slightly smarter than you is going to solve everything. We need to preserve the planet until we find the proper slow and practical way to fix this. Save the environment. I know you've herd it thousands of times before but now you know some of the reasons behind it.

Exams don't help anyone!

Hi! I'm a student in the middle of exams and I'm just going to say right off the bat that I hate them. As you know from reading the rest of my blog I am all about evolution and natural selection. Right now I'm going to focus on the second bit. Exams are like natural selection except with a way lower student survival rate. There is way to much at risk based on exams. Their a pointless risk to the mental health of the students by over stressing them, not to mention the teachers. I have a fealing no teacher looks forward to those long hours of correcting after the exam week/weeks are over. So why over stress everyone? Because the school board thinks it's fun! Maybe they'd look at it differently if they were part of it but Noooooo! They just sit back and watch as everyone else beneath them works themselves to death. Good for you school board! Nex't you'll be telling students to jump off cliffs and say we're learning about air resistance. Ha! Ha! Ha! See you later students!

History is delicate. Don't touch anything!

It's been a commun dream of writers to imagine what would happen if humans had time travel. If you ever have the oportunity to time travel, don't touch anything! If even the slightest thing was changed, all of history is altered. I'll use the extinction of the dinosaurs as an example. Supposedly the dinosaurs became extinct when an asteroid hit the earth and whiped out almost all life. After that there was an era of small creatures including the future dominant species, mammals. That extinction gives you the principle example of natural selection, the strong ones of the small ones survive. But it was also the survival of the lucky. The lucky in this case were smaller animals. If that asteroid hadn't hit earth or if it had been smaller the earth might be ruled by the descendants of dinosaurs and human's might not have evolved. Things in history happen by chance just as much as anything else. If you were time traveling and happend to touch somehting that changes that, however small, you would alter reality. Even if we all wish we could go back and change things from time to time, trust me, time is delicate, it can easily be riped apart. Do something in the past. Possibly even save someone. And you might prevent yourself from being born. That in turn would prevent anyone from changing reality back and history would procede on a totaly new course. You would create a chain reaction that would become irreversable since you hadn't been born, you couldn't change anything. Congratulations! You've ruined everything! I hope I've gotten my point through. Whatever it is, no matter how embarassing it was, get over it. It's not worth it to change anything. Live life in the present. It's not worth it to wish you can change the past. You don't want to.

Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

If you believe in creation you believe that the chicken (along with everything else in the world) was created in seven days. But as I have said before I am a darwinist and here to denounce every religion in the world. I wouldn't be honest if I said that the chicken came first. Species evolve to adapt to an environment so they have a higher chance of survival. The stronger ones live. They live on to create a new breed of that animal. The ones with the adaptation outlive the ones without. Millions of years there's another adaptation and the same thing happens. The strong ones survive. Eventually somewhere along this chain a creature was born that was very much like a chicken. It had an adaptation that allowed it to outlive others of it's kind. Millions of years later after that particular species has taken over, another adaptation occurs. The first chicken is born from an egg that came from a chicken like bird. The chicken then took over from the chicken like bird thanks to it's adaptation. The strong ones survive.