Conversation with an Atheist

Below are tweets from my conversation with @thefreedomguy. 

Q: RT @thefreedomguy I have never seen a parent care if the kid doesn't want to take part in mysticism and usually force and coerce 'belief

R: I think you are saying that parents should not force belief on kids and just let them believe what they want. I don't agree. Religion has clear lifetime benefits related to physical and mental health. Denying kids religion denys them these benefits which have been well researched. 

Most people won't be religious if they don't have that experience as a child.   Sometimes kids have to be told to go to church because it is a family event. Children need to be involved in the family, even if they don't want to. After all no person can be "forced" to believe anything.

Q:  @thefreedomguy Which values? Truth? So, you learn truth by your parents lie about an invisible sky ghost who is so all powerful he......cannot even prove his own existence.

R: If it is true that God exists then they are not lying. If parents believe it's true then they are not lying either. It may be false but not a lie.  

Also, I can wiggle my ears, but I don't do it. Not doing something doesn't mean you can't do it. So saying that God can't prove his existence because he hasn't done so to you is not very logical.

Q: @thefreedomguy All "laws" punishing people based on what they ingest are based on religion, being in Utah you should know how strict it is.

R: Guess you mean alcohol and drugs, alcohol & drugs are a problem for public health. Russia, an atheist county, banned drugs. It's not about religion. Many atheist countries have laws that control substances. 

 Q: @thefreedomguy all fine values and lessons if you want to be a delusional sociopath I guess... 

R: I am not familiar with the Christian Sociopath. I am fairly familiar with the atheist sociopath: Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot.

Beet and Orange Salad

Beet and Orange Salad

I want to get my kids to eat more vegetables but every time I cook a vegetable I want to put about a 1/2 pound of butter on it. My problem not theirs.  This was good and easy to make.

Ingredients

• Two 14.5 oz cans of beets.  I used sliced beets but now that I am looking at the picture, maybe cute round beets would have looked better.
• Red Onion - 1/4 large
• Clementine Oranges - 4  I used these because I had them around for neighbor Christmas gifts but I bet you could use the canned Mandarin oranges if they were drained. 
• Rice Wine Vinegar  - 1 tablespoon ( or Sherry Vinegar)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil - 1 tablespoon
• Sugar - 2 teaspoons

Prepare
Onions - Slice very thinly.  I cut them into quarters as you can see in the picture.
Peel clemenine oranges, separate the wedges and cut each in half crosswise to expose the inner lusciousness
Beets - drain


Mix
Stir all together, let sit for about 1/2 hour then serve.   Do not let this sit overnight.  It tasted somewhat bitter the next day.  I think maybe the pith from the orange was the culprit. 

Red Curry Tilapia

I like the idea of serving fish to my kids because it is high in protein and low in fat.  Unfortunately the way they like it is deep fried and covered in batter. This recipe for Red Curry Tilapia turned out great and I happened to have every ingredient in my kitchen already.  This recipe was originally for a fish cake which called for the fish to be blended in a food processor.  No blending for me; my Dad broke my blender and the idea of blended fish makes me think of the SNL skit for the Bass-o-matic.   http://bit.ly/fZRFRz  I cubed the fish and just stir fried it.

Ingredients - I like Tilapia because it is firm, abundant and not too fishy tasting.  Why is fish the only food that people don't want to taste like itself.  Ever hear anyone say their orange was too orangy?

Red Curry Fish
16 oz tilapia fish fillets - I bought mine frozen. Each filet was in an individually vacuum sealed package.
Red Curry Paste from Thai Kitchen  - 2 Tablespoons  http://bit.ly/ejAkG7
2 Eggs
sugar - about 2 teaspoons
green beans - fresh (about 5)
Fish Sauce - 1 tablespoon  http://bit.ly/WbRuk
Garlic - 2 large cloves
green onions - 5 each

Prepare
Chop up the fish into stir fry size pieces (3/4 inch to 1 inch)
Dice the green onions (green only) - you want these very small
Slice the green beans open lengthwise then cut crosswise into 1/2 inch peices
Mince the garlic
Beat egg into a small bowl

Mix
 Mix all of this together in a bowl
Stir fry in vegetable oil of choice. ( I don't recommend Olive oil)

Eat and enjoy.  This is just a little spicy.  My 16 year old and my 9 year old both really liked this recipe.

Hitler proves time travel does not exist

     All of my teen boys were at home the other day, hanging out and waiting for food to appear. Normally we would end up arguing about why invisibility does or does not blow as a superpower. I believe it blows, but that has nothing to do with this blog.  Instead, we started talking about time travel.  I proposed that the existence of Hitler proves that time travel is not possible. Or at least not the type of time travel we would all want to have;  the ability to change past events.

     If time travel were possible, wouldn't anyone want to kill Hitler, or Pol Pot?  Most people would kill these mass murdering dictators.  If time travel were possible then someone at some time in the future would have invented it.  Since we have an infinite amount of time ahead of us in order to invent time travel, if it were possible, then we should have it and Hitler would be dead.

    I can only think of one possible reason why Hitler would still be alive if time travel is possible and we can affect the past.  The reason is actually pretty horrifying.  Maybe something even worse happened to the world and time travelers came back and killed that evil dictator and Hitler happened instead.  This would mean that Hitler was less evil than what ever happened instead.

    Ok, so now you are going to say that I hate the Jews because I am saying that something can be worse than Hitler.  Well, as evil as the planned extermination of an entire people is, there are worse things that I can imagine.  Imagine a Pol Pot type dictator over Europe that succeeded in enslaving and re-educating all of Europe thereby eliminating forever a free Europe.  Or, imagine a Germany that got the atomic bomb before the US. If someone slightly more competent than Hitler rose to power, they could have beaten us to the bomb. A nuclear winter caused by Germany's last gasp at revenge by detonating an atomic bomb would have been very bad for all of humanity.

   If any of these things happened then a future time traveling people could have decided to kill the worse dictator.  Later (if that even has a meaning at this point) they would have discovered that Hitler happened instead.  The question would still remain:  Why they would not come back and kill Hitler once they realized how awful he was.  Perhaps they just wanted to stop the annihilation of the most of the human race and accept how bad Hitler was for fear that further messing with history.

  The existence of a mega-dictator is only speculation and it seems unlikely to have happened.  Therefore, I can only conclude that since Hitler lived and anyone would kill him if given the chance, and with an infinite amount of time available in the future to invent time travel,  time travel that can effect the past is impossible.

Goverments spending causes unemployment

Does this chart say the same thing to you that it does to me?  When Goverment spending increases unemployment increases?

The red line is Federal spending as a % of GDP.  When Federal spending goes down, unemployment also goes down (after the fact).  When government spending goes up, higher unemployment follows.

Unemployement numbers are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics http://bit.ly/EiGZ0
Government spending is from  http://bit.ly/enWEJV