Cop Car's Beat

Ask an Atheist Day

Secular groups are designating today as Ask an Atheist Day to encourage respectful, polite conversations with people of all beliefs.

P.S. Compassionate Atheists have set up a fund to aid victims of the Boston tragedy. For more information: Atheists Giving Aid.

Addition of a few hours later:

An email from Stu has just been opened which contains a link to Big Bang Didn't Need God, Stephen Hawking Says. Thanks, Stu!

Purposes

I started this posting to draw readers' attentions to today's posting at Ronni Bennett's place, Time Goes By. In particular, I wished to draw attention to a couple of videos that she embedded concerning purposes; as in, "What is the real purpose of life?" and "Does the Universe have a purpose?" However, I appreciate the two videos so much that I, too, am embedding them - below. They provide food for thought.

 

Addition of 12/10/2012:

Stu, in a comment below, mentions Douglas Adams. Adams in his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe Galaxy (science fiction comedy) included a super computer that was constructed to figure out the "answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything". While the "Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything" is never defined, the computer arrives at the answer of "42". Somehow, it always struck me as funny that the answer would not be a prime number.

Comments that strike my fancy/funny bone

From: Wanna Do Research on the Afterlife? Here, Have $5,000,000

August 4, 2012 By Hemant Mehta 81 Comments

I’m gonna save the Templeton Foundation and Professor John Martin Fischer a lot of time and money:

There’s no evidence of an afterlife and no amount of research is going to change that.

They won’t listen to me, of course, which is why Fischer just received a $5,000,000 grant (over three years) to study the afterlife:

Comment from: Heidi                     

For $5M I'll study any dumbass thing they want.

 

Comment from: Don Gwinn                     

I would have gotten this done for $4.8 million tops, but I guess they lost my number.  In fact, I'm a simple man with simple needs, and I bet I could have done it for $4.5 million or so.

But you get what you pay for, right?

Comment from: Reginald Selkirk                   

$4.4M, and I'll throw in a sophisticated statistical analysis.

 

Comment from: newavocation                                      

So technically he is looking to confirm that murder isn't really murder and the religious right can abandon their fight against abortion.

 

I got religion

Just read about a new religion (well, the Swedish government does not recognize it as a religion, but I don't really care) with which even I cannot disagree. From slashdot:

Idle: File-Sharing Is Not a Religion, Says Swedish Government 149

Posted by timothy on Saturday July 09, @05:46PM
from the more-of-an-ethos-or-perhaps-a-lifestyle dept.

Dangerous_Minds writes "ZeroPaid is reporting on an attempt in Sweden to recognize filesharing as a religion. The religion's website calls this 'Kopimism' and says that sharing of knowledge is sacred. Apparently, Swedish authorities were not convinced. A recent report shows that the attempt failed to convince the authorities to recognize Kopimism as a religion."

 

And...for you game and movie fans out there...from the same source:

Space Invaders: The Movie 163

 

Posted by timothy on Saturday July 09, @03:45PM
from the they-want-our-unobtanium dept.

Rainmouse writes "Hollywood, clearly after witnessing the staggering success and endless critical acclaim of other computer game adaptations with their typically engrossing story line and deep, believable character development, have now apparently picked up the rights to make a film based upon Space Invaders. 'The classic 1980s arcade game from Taito and Midway, which is ranked as the top arcade game of all time by Guinness World Records, is heading to the big screen courtesy of producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Odd Lot Entertainment's Gigi Pritzker.'" Please help out by providing appropriate plot-lines and character sketches below.