Friday, September 12, 2008

12 ’Elul 5768: Video Games Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Safer buildings save lives. We can't have another 9/11.”

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:
  1. “Indian girl commits suicide over 'Big Bang' fear” (hat tip to Bad Astronomy): Summary:  Fearing that the Large Hadron Collider will destroy the Earth, a girl in India killed herself by drinking pesticide; thousands of others in India fasted and prayed to avert the alleged coming disaster.  This incident underscores the need for obtaining accurate information and critical thinking.  Anybody smart enough to build a particle collider is not going to be stupid enough to do anything potentially disastrous.  Chances for disaster are further reduced by their being lots of people working on this project, making it more likely that any errors that are made will be caught by someone.  As the late Douglas Adams wrote, don’t panic!
  2. An excellent question is why superstition (such as panic over the Large Hadron Collider) exists in the first place. “Superstitions evolved to help us survive” is a rather intriging answer.
  3. “Dutch Movie”: The movie under discussion is Fitna, which is highly critical of the Qur’an and Islam. Note the Muslim tendency to threaten, attempt to silence, and even murder anyone with good PR skills who criticizes their religion. That trying to supress criticism does not make it any less correct should be obvious. One also has to wonder about what someone is thinking when they threaten someone who claims they are intolerant.
Today’s news and commentary:Today’s weird thing is “The Antikythera mechanism”. Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

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