It was not too long ago I was speaking to a friend about how awesome it would be to be able to use an application like Google Earth to look around our solar system with.

It seems the guys at Google are way ahead of me. Have a look at how to use the recent version of Google Earth to explore the universe around you.

Click on this link to download the latest version of Google earth for both Linux and Microsoft: http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

I really wish Christian fundamentalists would try be more honest. The more I find out about these people, the more sick I get in my stomach at their just outright dishonesty and their method of using slimy dirty tactics to try push their point of view onto the unsuspecting.

Their latest form of deception involves buying Google ads on topics that they know nothing about. Let me give you an example. Go to http://www.google.com and start a search for the phrase, "evolution". Have a look at the sponsored links that pop up!

Clearly that tithe that God.. or more correctly... his "followers", tell you to pay (we all know how short on cash a God can be) ...is being terribly spent. Apparently paying out of Church coffers to push your own information dishonesty agenda is allowed in some circles in Christendom. How sick.

What is it with Christian fundamentalists and their lack of honesty? Surely such deception should also upset the intelligent and moderate Christians as much as it has upset me? One of the smartest people I know in the Christian world (also one of the smartest people I know all round) Francis Collins, said that people who push this type of information dishonesty... "make faith look foolish".(1)

It was people like these Christian fundamentalists that where the first to push me away from Christianity. I grew up with a pretty conservative background so I was dropped in the deep end, but being the person I am, I don't take "facts" at face value and usually end up researching things I am told. When I found out I was being lied to constantly by Christian fundamentalists I started loosing a lot of my faith. If they are lying about this simple concept to me.. what else are they lying to me about?

I could not accept that God wanted me to push a lie to make himself look better. It is also these Christian fundamentalists that are either by design or stupidity... upsetting a lot of intelligent people out there and forcing a schism between Christianity and secular society.

Since I am really annoyed at the moment by what these Christian fundamentalists are doing, I thought I would clear up a few things, so I would like to educate you on the most common lies and dirty tactics that Christian fundamentalists practice:

1) You cant believe in the theory of evolution and be a Christian.

Well that's a whopper of note but lets have a look at their reasoning to making a daft statement like that. Since they are absolutely convinced that the Bible is the infallible word of God, they believe that the theory of evolution contradicts the Moses books of Genesis, and step on Gods toes in the matter of Creation.

However to be more clear, Genesis conflicts with most modern science, including and not limited to; biology, geology, anthropology, archaeology, cosmology, astronomy and countless others. However, Genesis only conflicts with those areas of study if you have a literal interpretation of it. Yes, there are actually some people who believe that Genesis should be taken literally and not as the metaphorical explanation of Creation it is.

You can very much be a Christian and believe in evolution. As a matter of fact, more Christians believe in evolution than those who do not.

2) Evolution is a theory, not a fact.

When you hear this lie you should instantly know you are dealing with someone who has absolutely know idea on how science works and therefore should not pretend to debate it with any type of authority. As I have explained in previous posts, a theory does not become a fact. A theory explains a fact. Fact.. things fall, the theory of gravity explains how and why they fall. Fact.. life changes and is different, the theory of evolution tries to explain why life changes and why their is diversity.

Also, a theory in science is not used in the same way that the word theory is thrown around in normal day to day speak. So I have taken this bit of information straight out of wiki for you to digest:

"In common usage, people often use the word theory to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality. True descriptions of reality are more reflectively understood as statements which would be true independently of what people think about them. In this usage, the word is synonymous with hypothesis.

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behaviour are Newton's theory of universal gravitation, and general relativity." (2)

Christian fundamentalists love warping the English language to suite their needs so watch out for this.

3) The theory of evolution can not be proved

There are many proofs to the theory of evolution. Since this is a pretty silly lie, I will give you a couple of links to research the proofs behind the theory of evolution yourself:

- http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/essays/courtenay1.htm (The short proof of evolution)
- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ (29 evidences for evolution)

I would also like to counter this argument with the following statement. YOU CANT PROOVE THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION WRONG. Yup, and if you know someone who says they can, be sure to drop me an email so I can get them nominated for a Nobel Prize. They would surely rock the academic world and would definitely deserve it.

4) Darwin said we evolved from monkeys and chimps

Darwin said no such thing. If anyone could show me a single peer reviewed scientific article that says such a thing I will personally print out an apology on this side. The truth of the matter is Darwin did not say we evolved from monkeys. He said monkeys and humans evolved from the same ancestral primate. I believe our genetic lines split around seven million years ago.

5) Darwin recanted on his death bed (yes Rudy.. you told me this one.. I wont forget)

I'm going to quote directly from a source for this one as it deals with this lie pretty nicely;

"This is completely fabricated and has no foundation in truth whatsoever. A woman named “Lady Hope” spoke to a church group shortly after the death of Charles Darwin. She claimed that she was at Darwin’s bedside on the day of his death. She also claimed that Darwin recanted on evolution and accepted Jesus on his deathbed. Her claims are not only unsupported, but are directly opposed by Darwin’s daughter, Henrietta. Henrietta stated “I was present at his deathbed, Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. My father never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. I am upset that the U.S. Christians have fabricated this conversion nonsense. The whole story has no foundation whatever.” February 23, 1922."

6) Evolution is about the origins of life and the universe

This is about the biggest whopper of a misconception in the theory of evolution. Its also one of the favorite lies used by fundamentalists, because the whole "primordial ooze" concept is pretty hard for a lot of people to understand and get their heads around.. but this has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution has NOTHING to do with either the origin of life.. or the creation of the universe.

The origin of life is covered by a hypothesis called abiogenesis. Evolution simply assumes that there was a life form, and from there it takes over. It does not cover the origin of life on any level.

I will stop at those for now, there are a real lot more, but those are by far the most common Christian fundamentalist lies I have come across while researching and talking about the theory of evolution. Before I leave the topic of Darwin and evolution though I thought I would just share this bit of trivia with you. Darwin did not use the word, "evolution" once in his book on natural selection called, "Origin of the species". The theory had being around long before Darwin got onto the scene and was even being discussed back in the days of ancient Greece. Darwin was able to identify and document the important process of natural selection.

To the Christian fundamentalists who read this I would like to close off with the ninth commandment:

Exodus 20:16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Now I am sure that if you are a Christian fundamentalist, and have a literal interpretation of the Bible (I really hope you truly do follow ALL the laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy), that at the very least.. you can obey God and those all important commandments. Otherwise you are simply just your every day bigot and hypocrite.

1 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1553986-1,00.html
2- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

In the last couple of months I have spent a lot of my time researching philosophy and theology, and having (sometimes) educated debates so I can learn more, from all sides. However, I have noticed a large group of religious people who seem to have some seriously inaccurate information on the sciences.

Listen to the scientists!

What I have found is that in the religious world, such as Christianity... Creationists go out of their way to lie and to distort the facts. I was honestly shocked at how some people who claim to be "for God", could be such a bunch of liars.

This is not just misinformed ignorance, this is active perversion of the truth. A chap on a local forum I hang out in... lets call him, "Prom Queen"... claims to be this big cheese in the name of God. We have had countless debates about the theory of evolution, and many times I have corrected one of his cliches (explaining to him the information is false, and why so), and yet he will carry on using it.

I will give you an example. He will use that common Christian lie that we evolved from Apes. Creationists love this one, because of course... no one wants to come from an ape do they?!? (especially in a country with hectic racial motivation). Well the truth of the matter is that we do not come from apes. Evolution teaches us that apes and humans evolved from that same primate ancestor.

I will correct this slip up, and a couple of days later he is using the same argument with another person. When confronted by me in regards to his.. he just fails to respond. Now don't get me wrong... this is not an individual thing. Almost all the hardcore creationist I debate with will tell a lie to defend their point of view. Apparently lying for God is better than finding out some metaphorical story in the Bible is not literal.

Another common lie I hear is that evolution is only a theory. Another bit of false information I have to constantly correct. Evolution is both a fact.. and a theory. Fact - Things evolve (they change) ; Theory - How they evolve (change). A common misconception amongst the ignorant, is that a fact is better than a theory. Their argument, that "evolution is only a theory", is rather naive. Firstly... theory's do not become facts. They are not different levels on a hierarchy of correctness. A fact is an observation. A theory explains the observation.

Another common mistake made by the simple folk, is that a scientific theory is simply a guess. Wrong again of course. In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from and/or is supported by experimental evidence. In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable.

Another common mistake made by Creationist`s, is that evolution is trying to answer the question on the origins of life. The theory of evolution does no such thing. Its simply explains the variety in life, and how it came to be... not from whence it came.

Creationist`s often confuse the theory of evolution with the hypothesis, Abiogenisis. Abiogenisis is the whole primordial soup story... not the theory of evolution. However Creationist`s use the same type of argument as with the ape as they do with the theory of evolution. They say that, "evolution teaches us that we are made from goo that just came to life one day". This of course, as I have mentioned.. is false, and merely one of their deceptive tactics to make the theory of evolution sound uninviting.

Over the next couple of months I am going to be writing a lot about science and religion. There's a lot I need to learn and a lot I need to talk about and share. There is a lot of bull out there, and I hope I will be able to broaden your scope on some of these important issues.

This is a theory I have been thinking about for a couple of years now... and I think I am right. I'm just putting this here so one day I can go, "I told you so". Humanity seems insistent on its need to destroy itself by not socially evolving quick enough. Stop fighting about all your imaginary friends and rubbish invisible lines in the ground, and start concentrating on the stuff that needs to be thought about.

Well, any ways, that rant over, back to my theory:

For those of you that don't know, I have this theory (that I honestly think is correct!!!), as to what is happening in the world at the moment. I will try type this theory out as simply as possible, so everyone can understand it to either agree or disagree with me.

1) I believe that there is a massive climate change happening. I believe this climate change is going to be a type of "ice age"
2) This climate change is been caused by by a flip of the earth magnetic poles. Evidence for this can be found here:

* http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/RevScience.html
* http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/03/20/north.pole/
* http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/13/1516234

3) This has caused fluctuations and weakening of the Earths Magnetosphere. The earths magnetosphere protects us from solar wind blasts from the sun. The earths sun blasts reach out to end of our solar system in an area known as the Heliosphere.

* http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/12/12/magnetic.poles.ap/index.html

4) This decrease in the Magnetosphere is allowing more and more "radiation and sun dirt" into the atmosphere which is causing a short period of global heating. Since the polar caps are on the move, and there is more of this interference in the atmosphere, the heating/movement of the polar caps is letting more fresh water into the ocean which is changing the direction of the major ocean currents. These NOW! are causing massive climate changes.

* http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/11/30/climate.study/index.html

5) I also believe the speed of our suns magnetic reversal is going to increase the speed of our reversal

* http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast15feb_1.htm

6) If you are still not convinced, please read the following links to get a more deeper view of what is happening:

* http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/
* http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/global/planetophysical2.html
* http://www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/sunspmax.html
* http://istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/reversal.htm
* http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/vostok.html

There's a lot of information that is in those links, so if you want to know whats happening, I suggest you read them if you want to work with me on this theory, or become better acquainted with what I believe is happening. A lot is going to happen to the earth over the next couple of years, so if you notice anything funny or interesting in the news that seems to point in this direction, please leave a comment in this thread. There's going to be a lot of geothermal activity, solar activity and weather activity, so please post all interesting information to help us track whats really happening.

Just an example of a good weather link would be:

* http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/

And a good example of a geo link would be:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake

I know there are a bunch of you out there who read this blog from time to time, and whom have also switched their desktops to kubuntu, and who really miss Dreamweaver MX 2004, and all its cool features. So are a bunch of research I was able to find the relevant information, and I even made my first HOW-TO in the Ubuntu Forums

The application seems to (mostly) run safely on the newer versions of wine, and I know there is a lot of attention being put into it by the devs that side. Big up to Clint Christopher from Canada for some great research there. *kof*_what_about_battlefield_2_*kof*. I really hope, that the ability to run Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 on an already extreme desktop, will make you think a little bit more in your choice of OS.