The First Church of Free Speech

Someone posted a comment to my post about the Battlestar Galactica Season 2 premiere. I thought I’d address these concerns so there is no confusion.

I’ve read through a good chunk of your blog and an old website of yours. I didn’t find anywhere therein a description of your time in the military. I assume, since you state in this posting that “the military is portrayed very believably” that you have first-hand experience?

No, I have never served in the military. But the show exerts a very realistic feel, and people I know in the military seem to approve of its portrayal. For example, the [i]Galactica[/i] has a small-arms locker that’s housed in a vault, something which is standard on US Navy vessels. I can’t think of any other popular sci-fi show which actually has something similar on their vessels. (Star Trek certainly never did.)

Other interesting points:

• The [i]Galactica[/i] has a “ball”, which is used to assist pilots in landing on carriers. Pilots will “call the ball” to indicate that they are on the right approach. (Or at least that’s how I understand it.) This is how it works on a real carrier.
• The crew always preface their communications with their locations or names, so if the deck chief needs to talk to the bridge, he’ll start with “Bridge, Hangar”, wait for a response and then proceed with his message. Also standard protocol in real militaries.
• They still use bullets. (In one episode, the chief carries an M4A1 carbine, which is starting to replace the M16 in the US Armed Forces.) Halle-fucking-lujah! I’ve about had it with the sci-fi wanking over lasers, phasers and the like. There’s nothing inherently inferior about throwing a lead slug at someone as opposed to zapping them with a death ray. Bullets are cheap and can be mass-produced very easily. Ammunition for a laser-based weapon would consist of gas that would need to be stored in compressed containers.

  The big advantage of a laser is that it goes in a straight line. Even at relatively short distances, a bullet will experience gravitational drop, wind resistance and random course deviations resulting from moisture in the air. Professional snipers have to take all of these factors into account when setting up their shots. It’s not as simple as sighting the guy in your crosshairs. A laser would basically eliminate all of that and be quieter. But this advantage isn’t really worth it for small arms or even carbines, since people can be easily trained to compensate for the inaccuracies inherent to bullets. Just ask a soldier.

But Battlestar Galactica isn’t perfect, of course. It has a good track record of realism in the military, but like just about every show on TV, their writers don’t really understand computation. Maybe I’ll rant about that some other time.

Don’t let the title mislead you. I’m not referring to making an argument for the existence of God, I’m referring to the implications of various possibilities, as in “In the case that God exists …” What’s brought this on? Hurricane Katrina. There’s some 11 September stuff driving it as well, and also a bit of Bill Maher’s on his show “Real Time” last night.

Maher referred to Bush’s mea culpa in regards to the poor federal response to the hurricane damage indicating that the American public can be described as battered wives who keep taking their asshole husbands back. And he’s right. The American public has put up with Bush’s idiocy for so long, and now that we’ve seen nothing has changed in terms of our disaster response since 11 September, his poll numbers are in free fall.

So what does this have to do with God? Well I’ve often thought that religious people display the same behavior. The 16th of this month was declared as a “National Day of Prayer”. And my question is … WHY? Aside from the fact that prayer is about the equivalent to “Think Happy Thoughts”, let’s pretend for a second that there really is a God. Let’s examine this National Day of Prayer practice that the American government seems to have a hard-on for in light of that assumption and the various possibilities it brings.

• Case: God exists and exerts influence on the natural universe.
  So God exists, and he influences the natural world … does that mean he sent Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans? Okay, so let’s just assume that the hurricane was a result of natural mechanisms, but that means that God had the power to stop it but didn’t. That means he wanted it to happen. This is a God who exerts influence in the universe when he feels like it, and lets things go their way when he doesn’t. So why the fuck would we think it’s reasonable to implore his help in our disaster relief efforts when he just sat by and let it happen in the first place? This attitude doesn’t make any fucking sense at all.
• Case: God exists but does not influence the natural universe in any way. (But if he wanted to, he could.)
  So if God wanted to, he could have dispelled the hurricane. But he didn’t because he has a rule or something. So again, why would we pray to this guy? He’s not going to help us out anyway. We’re on our own with this guy. He’s fucking useless.
• Case: God exists but does not influence the natural universe in any way because he is incapable of it.
  Wonderful. This guy’s even more useless than the above guy. While this means that God isn’t necessarily malicious because he couldn’t prevent the hurricane, it also means that he’s totally worthless. So why pray to him? And what kind of a god is he anyway?
• God exists and actively punishes and rewards humanity for its transgressions.
  So this asshole sends a hurricane to a city with the intent of killing people as a means of punishment … and we’re going to pray to him in the hopes that he’ll help us clean up the chaos? What the fuck sense does this make? Well some might say that he’s punishing us because we don’t pray enough. Well if that’s the case, why does this guy need our attention so much? Is he insecure? Paying him homage is one thing, but insisting that he’s merciful in the same breath is batshit-insane. This God is a pure asshole. Fuck him.

So there are your choices for prayer. Take your pick from malicious or inept. Religious people in situations like this are the embodiment of battered wives. “God sent the hurricane because we’re too promiscuous.” How’s this different from “John beats me because I talk too much”, again?

I have a lot of religious friends, and I don’t mean to insult them. But Christ, someone please explain this to me, because it makes no sense at all. If you’re religious and do feel insulted, I’m sorry, but try and look at this from my point of view. I have this shit shoved down my throat every fucking time something bad happens, and everyone expects something to happen as a result. When nothing happens, everyone just ignores it. Some religious people might say that prayer helps them feel better or relaxes them or something. So why not just declare a National Day of Relaxation? If you want to relax with prayer, great! If you want to relax by trying to con your girlfriend into giving you a blow job in the name of this National Day of Relaxation, even better! Jerking off to porn all day would fall somewhere between those two.

But we haven’t covered one possibility, which happens to be the most likely one: That God does not exist. He’s a fable, like Santa Clause. Only instead of leaving a coal in your stocking, he’ll drown you in a hurricane and send you to Hell where you’ll be tortured for all eternity. But you know, basically the same thing. So why pray at all?

No, prayer and a belief in God aren’t rational. But if you want to do it, fine. Only do it by yourself in the privacy of your own home. Don’t use your political position to issue an edict to your country that they should dedicate a day in their lives to it. Even Jesus Christ said that you should keep your prayer and good works out of public view.

But let’s drop this idea that prayer will somehow get electricity in New Orleans running again. Let’s stop pretending that the flood waters will recede after a certain number of Our Fathers. If you want to help those people, donate money to them. Or vote the incompetent assholes who crippled FEMA out of office. Time to wake up to reality. We elected a “good God-fearing president”, we’ve passed anti-gay-marriage amendments in our most bigoted states and “under God” is still in the Pledge of Allegiance. And yet God still sends a hurricane our way. Either we’re doing something totally wrong, or God just doesn’t exist. After 11 September, everyone prayed. Did that magically get rid of all the terrorists? No. After a devastating hurricane strikes our coasts, we prayed … and the place is still a flooded disaster zone. The only miracle going on here is the massive amounts of money that Congress is pulling from thin air to help in the relief effort. You know what, maybe Jesus did come back, but he was snatched up by Republicans and holed away in the federal reserve changing red lines into black ones. Or was that Arthur Anderson?

Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So is America insane?