If adoped, such ideas would make Detroit’s woes worse, but as Wired magazine reports, it’s actually better for the environment to buy a used car than to buy a hybrid.

The basis is that it takes 113 million BTUs of energy to manufacture a new hybrid car – equal to 1,000 gallons of gas. Buy buying a used car, you’re not empowering automakers to keep cranking out more cars when we’ve got lots of used ones already on the road and in used dealer lots. Isn’t “Reuse” one of the Three Rs of conservation?

Perhaps we should go one step further and start actively retrofitting exisiting cars with new technology – biodiesel, hybrid, and so forth.

Here’s hoping that Johnathan Goodwin (with his 100mpg Lincoln Continental and 60mpg Hummer) and other talented and forward-thinking mechanics are the new Henry Fords.

Technorati Tags: mpg, environment, efficiency, hybrid cars

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“A Wall of Separation between Church and State” aka “Separation of Church and State” A phrase so common these days it has become a cliche. It is generally accepted that this statement from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association means that the religion should be kept out of politics.

In the interests of the whole of a nation, this is a proper opinion. However, it is my great fear that the wall of separation has been seen as a semi-permeable wall; that is, it is seen as unbreachable by Church but not by the State.

To give an example, I was advised of a special meeting of the Evesham Townsip Board of Education tonight in Marlton, NJ. A group of parents are planning to attend the meeting to speak out about compulsory education on sexual orientation and transgenderism which is contrary to their religious faith and beliefs. They fear a repeat of a ruling in Massachusetts which stated that such a program was required for children as young as kindergardners, and that parents had no option to opt out.

When the Danbury Baptist Association wrote President Jefferson in October of 1801, they expressed concern: (source)

Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty – That religion is at all times and places a matter between God and Individuals – That no man ought to suffer in Name, person or effects on account of his religious Opinions – That the legitimate Power of Civil Government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor.

To which Jefferson replied:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

If this ruling is any indication, the state of Massachusetts no longer adheres to this idea that an individual is answerable only to his God, and that in matters of their faith they are accountable to no one else, or to the idea that ‘legitimate’ powers of government are limited to actions and not opinions. It has been made clear that no opinion is acceptable save for the opinion to be taught in MA schools regarding sexual orientation, and failure to comply will result in the usual truancy charges which I believe still include prison for the parents.

The nightmare the Danbury Baptists feared – that someone might “suffer in Name, person or effects on account of his religious Opinions” has come true in Massachusetts in a country where the words that were meant to reassure them are repeated ad nausem “separation of Church and State.”

I can only imagine that:

1) The judge in the case saw, as many have, that the wall of separation may be breached by the State to legislate religious opinion, but that religious opinion may not influence the State.

2) That the said judge saw the religious opinions of the parents as accountable to him, and must have some delusion of being a god to whom an founding father thought reckoning of such opinions is due.

Either way, the ruling is blasphemous – which coming from an agnostic church is a pretty severe criticism.

While the Church of Man has no specific teachings on the subject matter to be taught, it is concerned when it comes to the rights of individuals to practice their religious freedom – including the right to hold moral opinions for which they are not answerable to any government representative or body. Therefore, the Church of Man wishes the parents involved at the Board of Education meeting in Marlton tonight the very best wishes in preserving their faith and convictions from the interference of their government.

Tags: Separation between Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Thomas Jefferson, Danbury Baptist Association, religion, politics, Board of Education, education, Religious Liberty, God, Massachusetts, Church, State, moral opinions, Church of Man

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Found this story during my random browsing for something completely different.

For those of you who don’t know about EVE Online (as I did an hour ago) it’s a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game based around exploration, colonization, and conflict in a new galaxy. Kind of like starting over (allusions to Eve and Eden are found in the story background).

So, with real human players having a fresh start in a new galaxy, what happened? According to the Hilmar Petursson, CEO of Crowd Control Productions, the company that developed EVE:

It turned out, in the first few months of EVE that players of different nationalities were banding together in specific areas of space. The Scandinavians in one area, next to the Russians (who had hacked the game so they could chat in Cyrillic script, and no-one else could understand them). The Americans were across the other side of the galaxy and the French were in between The Scandinavians and Americans. All arranged around the pocket of neutral territory known as Empire Space.

Now here’s how it went: The Russians were highly organised and powerful in battle and were attacking the Scandinavians. By rights they should have wiped them out fairly quickly but things descended into a war of attrition lasting for a couple of months. This was because the Americans, whilst protesting their neutrality, were ploughing their considerable production capabilities into supplying the Scandinavians with ships and material. Through some audacious espionage, the Russians figured this out and hired the French to cut off the supply lines from the Americans to the Scandinavians. The Scandinavians quickly folded and the Russians were victorious.

Involved in all this was a combination of political manoeuvring, subterfuge and economics which wasn’t built into the software, having evolved out of the way people played the game. This was even before alot of the mechanics for alliances and other political shenanigans was built into the game.

What a lot we are! I seriously doubt with a fresh start we would b able to avoid the atrocities of our collective past.

Tags: EVE Online, Massively Multiplayer Online, MMO, human, players, political, subterfuge, political shenanigans

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A few of the quotes on rotation under our banner, as well as some things you will find in-post on the Church of Man, come from Switchfoot’s lead singer/songwriter Jon Foreman. I got an email today from Jon that they are now independent, having severed ties with Columbia.

I’ve been following Switchfoot since I played their first album, “Legend of Chin” to death on cassette in a couple of weeks. (Yes folks, that was quite a while before they did about half the soundtrack for “A Walk to Remember“) They’re the only band that I’ve purchased every single album on or about release day.

For me, it’s the lyrics that make Switchfoot worth coming back too time and again.

A choice few words from their latest album, “Oh Gravity!”

So a spark ignites
In time and space
To make it through this human race
You fight and crawl your way back home
But you’re running the wrong way

If we only got one try
If we’ve only got one life
If time was never on our side
Before I die I want to burn out bright
-Burn Out Bright

Congrats to Jon and the band.

Tags: Jon Foreman, independent, Switchfoot, human race

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According to Discovery Channel’s website (and the Associated Press), scientists are optimistically expecting that they can create artificial life in the next 3-5 years.

Of course, they have some “minor” issues to contend with, such as membranes, nucleotides, and genetic information – in short, once they figure out how to get the cells to have a container, nervous system, ability to metabolize (eat), and reproduce, they will have become like god. Personally, I’m a bit bewildered by what they HAVE achieved in order to be so optimistic.

Sure, Dr. Frankenstein is well on the way of animating the inanimate – he only need to figure out the nervous, digestive, and reproductive systems – oh, and skin too. But he’s almost done!

I’m sure Creationists and Intelligent Design evangelists will love the idea of top researchers spending years to create artificial life to try to prove that all life was just an “accident” and that the idea of Intelligent Design is a ridiculous fairy tale. The only way such mockery would hold water is if the scientists laboring on this project accept the fact that they are not intelligent…

At the same time, reading this article does raise rather pertinent questions. (After all, the origin, being a non-repeatable, un-observed event means there is little we can do to examine it scientifically, and it is therefore of little importance or use to the Church of Man.)

What is the definition of life, and can it really be “artificial?” Even these “synthetic” organisms that will be called artificial draw heavily from existing genetic codes and DNA. When Luther Burbank crossed a potato and a tomato he engineered a “synthetic” sort of genetically-altered food (now known as the Beefsteak Tomato), but that is still considered a “natural” food.

Rather, is life something that we cannot instill, create, or control any more than Dr. Frankenstein? Is it really possible that we, whether products of evolution or creation, can in turn truly re-create the processes that brought us into being?

Tags: scientists, artificial life, Frankenstein, Intelligent Design, life, evolution

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Discovered this through Stones Cry Out (complete with pictures!) and verified through TruthorFiction.com and Snopes.

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.

HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home.
This house is not in a northern or Midwestern “snow belt,” either. It’s in the South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the are! a blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville,Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as “the Texas White House,” it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.
- from TruthorFiction.com

Now, I’m not looking to get into any kind of political quagmire here, but the lesson is simple: Walk the walk, if you want people to be listen when you talk the talk.

Back in 2005, the BBC commissioned a poll on what the new “cardinal sins,” aka “deadly” sins ought to be. Hypocrisy was one of them, with 6% of respondents choosing it as the one they would add.

I’m really not sure that Hypocrisyfits in as a “sin” in the Church of Man, though. Sure, it is discrediting, humiliating, and annoying – even infuriating. But I’m not sure its so serious an act as to cut oneself off from one’s fellow man. It can be unintentional, or an area in one’s personal life that, while inconsistent with your preaching, gets overlooked by yourself.

After all, not everyone’s hypocrisy is quite as big as Mr. Gore’s.

I believe hypocrisy ultimately falls better under the heading of “dishonesty” as a sin, which happened to have come in just above hypocrisy at 7%. This would include intentional (or intentionally ignored) aspects of one’s life that do not meet the standards that you set in judging others.

Tags: HOUSES, ENVIRONMENTALIST, green, George W. Bush, cardinal sins, Hypocrisy, sin, Gore

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In the Washington Times this week there came a report of a climber who was left to die on the slopes of Everest.

Mark Inglis, an amputee on atrificial legs, defended his group’s decision to leave David Sharp, a man they found dying on the side of the mountain.

“At 28,000 feet it’s hard to stay alive yourself. He was in a very poor condition, near death. We talked about [what to do for him] for quite a lot at the time and it was a very hard decision,” said Inglis.

The group moved on, after some of the group’s leaders shared oxygen with Sharp.

“About 40 people passed him that day, and no one else helped him apart from our expedition,” added Inglis.

This is a simply amazing story. Perhaps while the party “talked … for quite a lot of time” and shared oxygen they should have returned, with Sharp, to save his life.

Indeed, thought that way the sharing of oxygen seems almost cruel, prolonging but not preventing David’s death.

But perhaps it was too much for the party to risk, since the $35,000 trip to the summit might be endangered. But then again, on a strictly monetary basis, a human body is worth approximately $45 million.

I do not pretend to know much about climbing Everest, or climbing in general. But Sir Edmund Hillary does, and he criticized Inglis’ group and others, saying:

“Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.” (according to the New Zealand Press Association).

Ah, the importance of a human life. I do not think the 40 climbers that passed Sharp realized the potential of a human life. It seems that the world, at times, has pivoted on the accomplishments of a single human being. Who was it that they stepped over, the next Pasteur, the next Mozart? Certainly, they stepped over someone’s son during their pursuit of their own goals.

The lesson here is not just for the mountain – we must look to ourselves, and realize how many times – even in a single day – our own goals are set well above the needs of others. It may not appear as clear a choice and Inglis’, but we do make the choice every day.

In sorting out this question of moral ethics, one could simply use the maxim, “Do not do unto others what you would not want done to you.”

Perhaps Mr. Inglis, whose legs were amputated due to frostbite from a 1982 expedition, should have understood that.

Tags: climber, Everest, dying, mountain, Sir Edmund Hillary, human life

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