Wim Hof: "Wim Hof (born 20 April 1959, in Sittard, Limburg) is a Dutch world record holder, adventurer and daredevil, commonly nicknamed the Iceman for his ability to withstand extreme coldness. He holds nine world records including a world record for longest ice bath. In 2007, he attempted, but failed, to climb Mount Everest wearing nothing but shorts. Hof has been criticized for his stated justifications for this attempt, "Edmund Hillary's ascent of Mount Everest was a testament to human achievement, my climb of Mount Everest in my shorts will be a monument to the frivolous, decadent nature of modern society."

Tags: cool, hero, role model, wim hof

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Tags: bondage, computers, dw, friends, illness, jokes, links, lj, me, psa, random, tv

Professor Alvin Plantinga is one of the foremost philosophers of our age. He is especially well-known for his work in the philosophy of religion. Plantinga is one of the key reasons why there is currently a renaissance of interest in philosophical defences of Christianity. The Centre for Public Christianity recently interviewed him, and have broken that interview up in to four parts. I'll be posting each of those parts here on my journal.

He made an argument in the 1970s, that established that there is no ‘logical’ inconsistency in believing in an all-powerful loving God despite the reality of suffering, which was something of a turning point in Philosophy. He is also well known for an argument which states that if evolutionary theory and naturalism (essentially that there are only physical things - no soul or supernatural stuff) are true then the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable is low. He gives a very high level summary of this argument in this video, and fills in some of the reasons why he, personally, is a Christian.



Reasons for God from CPX on Vimeo.
(Direct MPEG-4 download)

He outlines his argument in a bit more detail in a Veritas talk 'An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism' which is available as an mp3 and a transcript at the link.

Tags: atheism, centre for public christianity, christianity, interesting, naturalism, philosophy, plantinga, religion, theology, videos

That Simon Cowell seems to think he can take entirely for granted that the Christmas number one in the singles chart is his to do with as he pleases strikes me as the height of arrogance, and a symbol of everything that is superficial, nasty and plain distasteful about western consumerism.

I know it's also published by Sony, so we're giving them money anyway, but Killing In The Name's closing lyrics express succinctly how I feel about Cowell and his ilk. I appreciate that the song was written for an entirely different context, and ranting against tacky plastic consumerism might seem a small thing compared to the racism, violence and death that the song is about, but that too seems to me to be a reason to try and make it the Christmas number one. This is a potent message which should be heard again and again.

I'm sure many people enjoyed the X-Factor and I have nothing against Joe McElderry, who sings very nicely. I even bought one of Susan Boyle's singles a few weeks ago, so Mr Cowell already has some of my money, but I still wanted to add my voice to the countrywide chant of, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me". With that in mind, I bought Rage Against The Machine's single today, and so did the_local_echo and zoeimogen.

We might not succeed, but we should at least take number two, and I think that's a positive thing on balance. I also now have an extra bit of musical stress therapy on my iPod out of the deal.

Originally posted at http://auntysarah.dreamwidth.org/218102.html - you can comment here or there.

Some of these are kind of fun.

Substance dualism

QualiaSoup has a new video up, a short argument against substance dualism (the idea that consciousness arises from separate kind of mental substance outside the physical world).
(tags: consciousness philosophy dualism qualia)

Theodicy III: Primo Levi versus Francis Collins

Jerry Coyne has been reading Francis Collins's "The Language of God" as well as Levi's works on Auschwitz. Not surprisingly, he doesn't find Collins's theodicy very convincing.
(tags: theology religion jerry-coyne francis-collins)

Rowan Williams' choice | Andrew Brown | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Andrew Brown kicks some righteous ass: "Under Williams, the church that marries two women who love each other is to be thrown out of the Anglican Communion. The church that would jail them both for life, and would revile and persecute their defenders, stays snugly in his bosom. Not even the Archbishop's remarkable gift for obfuscation can conceal these facts forever."
(tags: homosexuality politics uganda uk religion christianity anglicanism rowan-williams)

Discovery Institute: The Mask Falls Away

The IDers at the DI go bonkers about the Climategate emails: "A cabal of leading scientists, politicians, and media concubines have conspired to lie about global warming. The reasons are obvious: power and money. … I’m not sure that the scientific community can or will respond to this debacle in a courageous or ethical way. The ID-Darwinism debate clearly demonstrates that venality and shameless self-interest, as well as a toxic leftist-atheist ideology, runs very deep in the scientific community." I'm adding "toxic" to my standard "neo-sceptical strident fundamentalist neo-atheist" spiel.
(tags: lolxians climate global-warming intelligent-design discovery-institute)

Tags: christianity, consciousness, francis collins, intelligent design, jerry coyne, link blog, philosophy, politics, religion, rowan williams, theodicy

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Tags: astronomy, classics, geekery, news, psa, random, science

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/11/dr-peter-watts-canad.html
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=932

Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario’s first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.

The news spread to several sci-fi and other blogs, and there are calls for a defence fund.

( Read more... )

You can also comment at http://jack.dreamwidth.org/605796.html using OpenID. comments so far.

Tags: news

Tags: frivolity, memes, silly
Current Music: Wolfstone - Ballavanich

So I don't do memes, but I've seen a few people doing a brief summary of their notable points of the 2000s, so I figured I'd do the same. Here we go:

	2000: Bought house, moved in with the_local_echo, for the second time. Got into digital photography. Believe it or not, that's me in the picture.
	2001: Visited India. Spent far too much time in Silicon Valley. Got married to the_local_echo. Got our first snake. Came out to most of my friends as trans. The photo is of a wild monkey in Goa demonstrating no fear of humans.
	2002: Got more snakes. Had a weekend break in Seattle (seriously). Saw Venice for the first time, went hiking in the Dolomites. Found out about Via Ferratas, decided anyone doing one was probably insane beyond redemption. I now want to do one. The photo is Venice (well, Burano).
	2003: Started living part time as female, mostly in private. Started laser hair removal. Went to Utah for the second time, got to the top of Angels' Landing for the first time, conquering my fear of heights. Became decidedly genderqueer, although I didn't know the word at the time. The photo is the top of Angels' Landing.
	2004: Learned to water-ski, in Wisconsin! Consolidated my genderqueerness. Resigned my job of 9 years and went to work for a startup. The photo is of me swimming in the River Cam, and holding on to a punt pole.
	2005: What a year! After 6 months working for the startup, I started working for myself as a contractor. Went to Utah for the third time, got introduced to the idea of canyoneering. Thought it all a bit hardcore. Returned to the US to spend a week in Wisconsin again (more water-skiing), had a bit of a "moment of clarity" there when I realised the genderqueer thing really wasn't doing what I needed. Returned to the UK, sulked for a couple of months, transitioned, saw a gender specialist, started psychotherapy. Started blogging. The photo is me water-skiing.
	2006: The year of my so-called "Real Life Experience". Started HRT in January, had a rollercoaster ride in all sorts of ways. Met loads of amazing new people, visited Venezuela where my brother got married, and where my father disowned me (apparently because I told him to "fuck off" - I think he deserved it). Became good friends with zoeimogen, got referral for SRS, stopped taking hormones, spent the run up to Christmas feeling mostly dead. Was the photographer at two weddings. The photo is one I took of Angel Falls.
	2007: Had sex reassignment surgery. Dilated. Visited a BDSM club for the first time. Dilated. Went on my first Pride march. Dilated. Had revision surgery. Dilated. Visited Barcelona, didn't have energy to do much. Dilated. The photograph, well - I had to really.
	2008: Became polyamorous by accident. Went to Utah for the 4th time, learned how to abseil, descended my first canyon. Met parmonster. Had nasal polyp surgery. Helped organise S'onewall demo and had a Guardian journalist vaguely threaten me with a libel lawyer. The photo is me abseiling in Zion's Subway.
	2009: Joined a political party. Got married to the_local_echo for the second time. Took up climbing after gentle prodding by paradox_puree. Went back to Utah and did some serious canyoneering. The photo - me, Sylvia and Zoe one day in April.

Originally posted at http://auntysarah.dreamwidth.org/217798.html - you can comment here or there.