Will McAvoy stole the words right out of my mouth

On Sunday night following this week's episode of "True Blood", HBO launched "The Newsroom" with a one-hour premiere episode. You can watch this pilot for free without subscription on the HBO website.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the man behind this endeavor, Aaron Sorkin, he is the one that gave us the frank and sometimes disturbing movie "The Social Network" and the presidential drama "West Wing".

The opening title montage of the Newsroom is a throwback to nostalgia, looking back on an era of idealistic news broadcasters like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.

The show opens with a tirade from Jeff Daniels who is in quite a departure from the role he played in "Dumb and Dumber". I have to say that I like this new role for Mr. Daniels. Now the afore-mentioned tirade I spoke of is sparked when Jeff in his role as Will McAvoy (in front of a room of journalism students) is asked to answer the question, "why would you consider America to be the greatest country on Earth?"

Here is the transcript of the answer in the form of a tirade. I have to say, that Jeff Daniels stole the words right out of my mouth, because I have been thinking these very same thoughts for some time now.

"And you—sorority girl—yeah—just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt, a member of the WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about?! Yosemite?!!!"

So why would I say I've been feeling this for some time? Well, despite my love for popcorn television, I'm also dismayed by the fact that some of my friends don't know who the vice-president of the United States is. I'm dismayed that Christian fundamentalist textbooks tout the Loch Ness monster as proof of Creationism and that these kids will become adults and believe this hogwash. You can find that article HERE if you don't believe me. I'm dismayed that there is a universal decline in literacy in this country and that we've gone from a country that used to support poor people to one that now attacks them. I'm dismayed at the partisan divide which has grown so wide, it is difficult for me to see how it will ever be fixed. I'm dismayed that we have the best colleges in the world, and Americans can no longer afford to attend them.

I'm looking forward to many more scenes like the opening of Aaron Sorkin's new drama on HBO because he has a proven track record of filming intelligently written dialog that will cause you to reflect upon the narrative piping in over your television every night. He also knows how to pick out and create memorable characters. This cerebral "popcorn" television may do nothing to ease any of the troubles that plague the United States (economy aside), but I can tell Will McAvoy is being written by someone who feels just like me.


Below you will find an embedded video of Neil DeGrasse Tyson expressing perfectly how I feel regarding the state of education within the United States right now. If you have time, please watch.

So...did you watch the Newsroom? And are you as frustrated as I at what is going on in our country right now? I look forward to reading your comments.

Sam Harris

One man's journey down the path of atheism, part 2

Last week, Mr. James Salmonsen spoke of the first part of his journey down the path of atheism. You can find that post HERE.  Now he is ready to talk about part 2 of his journey.

*****

Greetings readers. In my previous article, I told of my first steps toward anti-theism. I left off as I went into college where I identified myself as “spiritual” instead of “religious”.

The next leg of my journey took me a few years of school and study. I had left the LDS church, although I still found myself defending it from some truly IGNORANT people. When I say ignorant, I don't just mean they “just didn't know”. I mean they had a few scoops of dipshit in them too. I had one guy ask me if it were true that when Mormons were married in the temple, doesn't the guy performing the ceremony get to have sex with the woman first?

During this time, I took my first astronomy class. (That's the one without the horoscopes). This was the first time I realized exactly how BIG the universe was.

Big is such an inadequate adjective. We do not have a word that can describe how large the universe is, because with our limited human minds, we cannot even CONCEIVE of how large it is. I could throw a number at you – 28 billion light years in diameter – 300 sextillion stars – a large factor of that number in planets and moons. All of this is irrelevant, because humans are not capable of visualizing such space. And this, my fellow insignificant specks – is just what we can see with our most advanced technology. It is possible there is more. There has been speculation (no proof) of layer upon layer of alternate dimensions. What if our universe is to the whole of reality as a single galaxy is to our known universe? No proof as of yet, but an interesting thought. Suffice to say, what we DO know of the universe is quite enough for my point.

Before you go catatonic thinking of that, I'm going to go into reverse. The same concept of infinite outward space going the other direction. The SMALLEST thing visible to the naked eye is just the start of what we have learned about the (lets call it) microverse. Things we can can only see with an optical microscope are huge compared to things we can see with an electron microscope. We can drill down further to protons and neutrons and make accurate hypothesis toward their nature. And, we have hypothesized things even smaller. But, you get the idea. The normal human brain cannot conceive of these things.

Next, we can talk about other forces. Gravity: force so strong that light can't escape. Temperature: 15 million (estimated) kelvin in the heart of our teeney weeney star we call Sol. (100 degrees Celsius = 373.15 kelvin) Mass: Stars so great they almost equal the diameter of our entire puny solar system. Time: Billions of years (estimated) from the birth of this universe until now. With the possibility that we are simply in a cycle of expansion and contraction of our universe that has been going on infinitely.

Please click HERE for a nifty animation demonstrating size. Don't play with this while under the influence of hallucinogens.

I remember explaining this idea to my LDS mother during a visit home from college. This was the same trip where she asked me if my girlfriend thought I was a virgin, and I burst out laughing. (Mother had some revelations that day.)

The sum of all human knowledge in reality is small. It is fragile. It is incomplete. Much of it may be wrong. We have expanded that knowledge and applied it in ways that would have been inconceivable to people even 200 years ago.

Faith had no part in the construction of this marvel, at which I sit to impart
this supreme knowledge to you, instantly, from hundreds of miles away.

Do not tell me that being an atheist means I do not believe in something bigger than myself, or that the world holds no joy or wonder.

At this point in my life, I could no longer believe in a higher power. I was no longer “spiritual” in the sense that I believed in some entity out there watching over us. It makes no sense that an entity so powerful - so impossibly unknowable – cared if any of the billions of human beings:

• Went to church on Sunday.
• Had sex before marriage.
• Stole items from each other.
• Mumbled wishes in the night.
• Believed in one or another of the hundreds of religions on the planet.
• (Insert any religious belief here)

At this point in my life, I was agnostic. But, I still had a way to go.

Thanks for reading.

One man's journey down the path of atheism

James Salmonsen at the Bellagio

Today, I am having a guest post written by my best friend, James Salmonsen. I have known James almost twenty years, and he is a very intelligent, articulate man. He wants to talk about his atheism. But I do want to tell you that James has many facets. Another of them is his cooking which is as good or better than Rachael Ray.

James does not mean to offend with this post (he can be snarky). Merely he seeks to explain his beliefs and the events that occurred in his life that made him believe that there is no God. If you are interested in one man's journey down the path of atheism, please read on and comment below:

* * *

Greetings readers.  My name is James and I am proud to say that I am the source of some inspiration for Mike.  For those of you who have read Mike's blog for some time, you will have undoubtedly read something posted by Mike that we have talked about and it subsequently became a blog post.  Mike is one of the three roots in my life, and he has asked me to guest blog occasionally.  “Go off on an atheist rant” I think were his exact words.  I may guest-blog about other things in the future, but for now.....I shall rant.

To start, I would like to tell the story of my path to anti-theist.

All people on earth are born not knowing and therefore not believing in Gods.  The random chance of what family one is born into usually determines which religion one believes in – if any.  My random chance placed me into an LDS family living in Montana.  I was made to go to church on Sundays, I went to seminary before school and attended different LDS functions up into high school.  

As a Mormon, I grew up knowing that other religions in the US viewed my religion as a cult.  I knew from my study of the Bible and the BoM, that Mormons believed everything that most Christians in America believed in, plus a little bit more.  I remember often wondering why these sweaty evangelical preachers on Sunday TV were so full of hatred towards us when we were so similar.  This thought in retrospect was the first yellow brick down the road to anti-theism.

I do clearly remember when I started to lose faith in my religion.  It was because of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart.  Younger readers will not know those names - but fortunate you! - there is Wikipedia.  Go ahead.  Look them up.  Also – here is a picture of that toxic, crypt keeper look-alike Tammy Faye Bakker (wife of Jim) for your viewing pleasure while we wait.

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

I believe it is quite possible she contracted cancer from all the make-up she wore.

Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart are the #1 and #2 reasons why I left the LDS church.  It certainly wasn't because they had any relevant arguments against the LDS faith.  It wasn't due to fear of their version of the all-mighty sky-father sending me to eternal torment.  It's because both of these religious leaders at the time were caught in sex scandals and Bakker was caught embezzling MILLIONS as well! 

At first, my mind said, “HA!  Take that you hypocritical twats!  You are on TV ranting about the immorality of MY religion, and you are out committing adultery, stealing and lying?  You are the leaders of your churches and you're just a couple of con men!  Mormons believe in the same things you do, and you're supposed to tell us how God wants us to behave?  How dare you try and instruct anyone on how to live right!  Hey.  Wait.  We believe in the same things you do......Hold on just a minute...rewind.”

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is “a mind-blowing sci-fi read from
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now. Begin your journey today.

Before that time, I was too young to realize something.  We are all just people.  All of us.  Preachers and Bishops and Elders aren't special.  They have no special knowledge.  I saw these two con men fall, and that made me look at my own church's leaders.  They were just people too!  Once I realized this fundamental (pun intended) truth, I stopped taking their word as authority and started looking at the ideas they were teaching me instead.  The more I looked, the less I believed, because it simply didn't make sense.  It looked more and more like fairy tales, mythology and fantasy writing.  I started THINKING CRITICALLY – and knowledge is the death of faith.

From this time into my early college years, I had officially in my mind left the LDS church.  I identified myself as “spiritual” and not “religious”. 

The next breakthrough concept I had, cured me of that “spiritual” phase.... and will be the subject of my next guest-blog.

Thanks for reading.