27 Tishri 5769: International Dadaism Month/Mother-in-Law Day

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: “Protect Patient Privacy” and “Leaders of WOZA at risk of torture and ill treatment”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “For Nonbelievers, Reassurance on Wheels”: Thus is written:

   British atheists announced Tuesday a high-profile advertising campaign to put posters on London buses that say: "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

   An advertising poster is not much room to put up a decent and readable theological argument, and so the argument made is entirely emotional. This ad seems to imply a malevolent view of whatever god might exist, that any god that might exist wants to make our lives miserable or behaves in such a way as to cause us to worry. Naturally such an implication falls on deaf ears among people who believe in a loving god. Furthermore, if there is probably no god, there is plenty of reason to worry. No god means no one looking out for us, no safety net whatsoever against human stupidity and insanity. Crazy governments or terrorists could launch a nuclear war or plague of smallpox and succeed without any higher power to stop them. We might succeed in letting global warming wrecking civilization. We might succeed in turning the planet into a toxic wasteland. No god means our fate is totally in our own hands, and if there is no free will either, not even that. And no god also means probably no afterlife, which means that death is really the end and we get to drive ourselves crazy with the irrational obsession of trying to imagine what nonexistence is like. In short, no god means plenty to worry about. Thank you, militant atheists, for your efforts to ruin everyone’s day.
   
2. “Afghan student gets 20 years instead of death for blasphemy”: General rule: Suppression of criticism is not an effective way to prove one is correct.
   
3. “Palin hair big with partygoers, NY's Orthodox Jews”: I have no clue what to make of this.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Science Friction: An X-Ray Machine Energized by Adhesive Tape”
  
• “No rest for dead at foreclosed Mich. funeral home”
  
• “Planets Thought Dead Might Be Habitable ”
  
• “Lightning strikes only once — but kills 52 cows”
  
• “Walking house can escape floods or unruly neighbours”
  
• “We Know You”
  
  

Today’s weird thing is a horoscope according to this blog’s fictional characters, Rupert Hippo and company, included below. It is about as accurate as anyone else’s horoscope. Enjoy and share the hippopotamus-themed weirdness.

Aaron

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Aries: You will be eaten by a gang of hungry crocodiles.

Taurus: All of your parasite-eating birds will abandon you.

Gemini: A gang of evil rhinoceroses will kick you out of your territory.

Cancer: A gang of elephants will get the water in your territory all muddy.

Leo: You will be eaten by a pride of hungry lions.

Virgo: You will stay out on the beach too long and wrinkle up like a prune.

Libra: You will run out of underwater vegetation and have to go to the supermarket for more.

Scorpio: You will meet someone with bigger tusks than yours who will kick you out of your territory.

Ophiuchus: All day the astronomically ignorant will insist that there’s no constellation of Ophiuchus in the Zodiac.

Sagittarius: An idiot will mistake your pink-hued sweat for blood and call 911.

Capricornus: An idiot will mistake your blood for for pink-hued sweat and fail to call 911.

Aquarius: Wildebeest will sue you over alleged water access rights violations.

Pisces: Human tourists will not leave you alone and insist you smile for their photographs.