http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/18/religion-anglicanism
Monthly Archive for December, 2008Page 3 of 7
I was going to comment on the recent statements made by the Bish of Cant regarding the disestablishment of the Church of England when I came across this piece by Terry Sanderson of the NSS. As usual he makes his case better than I can at the following link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/18/religion-anglicanism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/18/religion-anglicanism
Religion has been described as a virus. This is not because it’s ‘bad for you’ necessarily, but rather due to the way it spreads.
It’s not hard to see the parallel: like viruses (and bacteria), religions exist within a population and spread from person to person.
But what about atheism? Is it a viral idea (meme) too?
I will argue that it isn’t. Perhaps it’s more like a cancer, a ‘mutation’ that kills off religious infections.
Cancers are sneaky, because they can occur spontaneously, almost by chance, and are therefore a very statistical phenomenon: your chance of getting cancer is affected by a), your exposure (to carcinogens causing mutation events), and b), your predisposition (genes affecting your ability to cope with the these mutations).
Your chance of becoming an atheist is likewise affected by a), your exposure (to information about how the world works) and b), your predisposition (intelligence, or ability to apply logic to the information).
I.e. atheism differs from religion in the same way that carcinogens differ from viruses.
Can we develop this idea? I think so.
Let’s look at how you ‘get’ atheism…
Picture it: you’ve been brought up in a good god-fearing, church-going family. You went to Sunday school, you know which of Cain and Abel was the baddy and you can explain to people about how there is good evidence for The Flood. You also have a healthy fear of sex and the other sins.
But you go to school and you learn about plate tectonics and see how well South America slots into Africa, and then you learn how European bees are not quite the same as African ones, just like Toyota Corollas aren’t, and one day, while looking at the grille of your step-mother’s 1.3GL, and daydreaming about the A-team, a thought strikes you, like a shot of cancer-causing sunshine on that patch of skin on the back of your right shoulder, that cars evolve differently in different counties and maybe that explains all the animals and perhaps God didn’t make a women out of Adam’s rib after all, cos’ that never did make much sense, because a rib is a pretty silly thing to make a women out of anyway.
Catching a dose of Christianity on the other hand, does not come from inside, as the result of reasoning, it comes from outside, from other people.
Most often you will be born into a house absolutely soaked in the infection, you will be infected soon enough, prayers will be said at mealtimes, the church is so big and grand, and the hymns are so catchy, and then they wheel out Christmas and baby Jesus (or baby ‘cheeses’ as my son says)…
But even if you’re not so lucky, there’s hope. You can drop in at a church any time (though Sundays are best I’m told) and the chances are, even if you are down on your luck, short of friends, and even if you aren’t very nice, the sweet people there are quite likely to help you. That feeling of family, of unquestioning acceptance - brings a special warmth to the cockles of the heart.
Once you’re in the door, religion, having evolved pretty niftily, can now play you like a violin. Your emotions, developed to help promote clan solidarity, are hi-jacked and kick in nicely. Did you know, that if you really listen to what these folks say, and really try to feel God’s love, you will indeed feel something! Now that’s a clever infection…
I hear you guys! Everything isn't okay, but it will be down the road. For the time being, I can't post much. I only want to wish you all a great holiday season! Have a holly jolly one!
I hear you guys! Everything isn't okay, but it will be down the road. For the time being, I can't post much. I only want to wish you all a great holiday season! Have a holly jolly one!
***
Last night I had dinner with them after picking up my sister from the airport. My parents are 78 and 79 but you would not know this to look at them - they both act and look as though they are in their late 50's, early 60's.
During dessert (yeah, that's right - it was a full meal including homemade cookies for dessert. Quite the treat for me since I do not even cook much less provide dessert.) my parents started telling us about their recent volunteer work at the local senior center. My...
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
***
Last night I had dinner with them after picking up my sister from the airport. My parents are 78 and 79 but you would not know this to look at them - they both act and look as though they are in their late 50's, early 60's.
During dessert (yeah, that's right - it was a full meal including homemade cookies for dessert. Quite the treat for me since I do not even cook much less provide dessert.) my parents started telling us about their recent volunteer work at the local senior center. My...
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
A few days ago, I asked, as an experiment, which of these two statements was more offensive: “there is a god” and “there is no god”. While most of the replies I got were perfectly reasonable (paraphrasing vjack, neither statement is offensive, but one of them is false), the lack of responses by either “normal” theists – especially of the typical, born-again, Protestant kind –, and “non-militant” atheists (the ones who have no belief themselves, but take special care not to offend believers) prevented this experiment from uncovering the kind of replies I wanted: the ones that say that “there is no god” is offensive, but can’t explain why; they just feel that it is. Having atheists say so would have been particularly interesting.
Which just shows that this blog is no Friendly Atheist. 
Still, this doesn’t prevent me from answering my own question, in detail. As others said, neither statement by itself is offensive – much like “2+2=4” and “2+2=5” aren’t. One of them is right and the other is not, but a simple claim shouldn’t be offensive to anyone.
However, these statements aren’t said in a vacuum. When you say either of them, you are probably – even if unconsciously – adding something to it. How much, depends on the individual. Similarly, when you hear one of those statements – especially if it’s the one you disagree with –, you tend to add implications to it.
“There is a god”, when said to an atheist, only has no extra meanings when said by either a deist or an incredibly liberal believer (so liberal he couldn’t possibly be called a “Christian” or similar). If said by virtually every other kind of believer, it includes one or more of the following:
- I’m right and you’re wrong
- I’m saved and you’re not; you’re going to hell
- You’re immoral for not believing, and for having no source of morality
- (if in a Christian community) You’re an outsider; you’re not one of us; you’re not a real American/whatever
- Your life is incomplete; you can’t possibly be happy
- Jesus died for you, you ungrateful monster
- It’s because of people like you that evil exists
- If you don’t believe, you’re just in denial; God’s existence is obvious
- You must allow me to convert you, otherwise you’re screwed.
(note that I said “one or more of”. I don’t mean that every theist believes all of those, or means all of those.)
Meanwhile, and to be fair, when an atheist says “there is no god”, here’s what he can mean, or at least what believers hear:
- I’m right and you’re wrong
- You’re stupid
- You were conned
- You’re brainwashed
- You’re a sheep
- You only have those beliefs because you’ve never thought about them
- You’re irrational
- Your religion is a crutch, because you can’t cope with the real world
- You’ve wasted your life. Time, money, effort, hopes, fears: all of it was for nothing.
The last one is particularly poignant, and I love Dan Dennett’s take on it. When you think about it, that is perhaps the worst thing you can tell a person – which doesn’t mean that it’s not true –, and it’s understandable that many people find it utterly offensive, even if that wasn’t the goal. Incredibly, I think it can hurt people’s feelings even more than, for instance, saying “you’re immoral and you’re going to hell”, because a non-believer knows that those are not true, and that the believer is just speaking from ignorance. But “you’ve wasted your life” is a real, actual, present “threat” – one that must be fought at all costs. Because otherwise you feel like an utter failure, an utter waste of a life.
This explains why there were so many complaints about atheist / secular signs during the past months. Now, granted, some can actually be an attack on belief, and offensive to believers, but some the ones they complained about said something as inoffensive as “Don’t believe in God? You’re not alone”, or, as Ebonmuse put it, “Atheists exist”. And even these were seen as personal offenses, as attacks on their faith, as “liberal Christian-bashing”, and other absurdities. Perhaps, from this angle, I can understand their otherwise incomprehensible anger: the fact that atheists exist and have a voice is a constant threat on their own perceived self-worth. “If atheists exist (and can speak out, and have normal lives), then perhaps, just perhaps, I’ve wasted my life.”
Copyright © 2012 Way of the Mind
Finally a meme I can get behind! This one looks like fun; includes travel and geology!
Top 100 things a geologist should see (from geotripper)
1. See an erupting volcano
2. See a glacier
I've seen glaciers in both Iceland and Patagona.
My husband and me at the Perito Merino glacier in Argentina.
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland
In Yellowstone and Iceland.
Me a the original geyser in Iceland. It was a very windy cold day.
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta.
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage
Cedar Creek in my home town, and the Mississippi River (which I live only a couple blocks away from)
6. Explore a limestone cave. Try Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, or the caves of Kentucky or TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia)
My family went to many caves on our driving trips through out the US, but one nice cave near my current home is Crystal Cave. Where I went on geo field trip in college.
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile.
My family took a driving trip out west where we stopped at an open pit mine in Utah. I remember playing in a giant machine tire.
8. Explore a subsurface mine.
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (if on a budget, try the Coast Ranges or Klamath Mountains of California).
I have been near/on the Ballantrae Ophiolite Complex in Scotland but I didn't know it, so I don't think that counts.
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger (there's some anorthosite in southern California too).
11. A slot canyon. Many of these amazing canyons are less than 3 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. They reside on the Colorado Plateau. Among the best are Antelope Canyon, Brimstone Canyon, Spooky Gulch and the Round Valley Draw.
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere.
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada.
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland.
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (check out The Dynamic Earth - The Story of Plate Tectonics - an excellent website). I would assume I have accomplished this - I been on coastlines on both sides of the US, throughout Europe, and in Japan - I just don't know my tectonics well enough to which directions which plates are heading in.
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. One fall I even dressed as a gingko for Halloween using freshly fallen leaves.
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (Glacier National Park is a great place to see fossil stromatolites, while Shark Bay in Australia is the place to see living ones) I have one sitting on my desk that I found in road cut on a college geology field trip in WI.
18. A field of glacial erratics I don't know about a field of them, but I grew up in WI and MN so random giant rocks laying around are kinda common.
19. A caldera
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high The NPS website says the dunes at death valley only reach about 100 feet high - so I'm giving myself .5 for this one.
21. A fjord In Iceland.
22. A recently formed fault scarp
23. A megabreccia
24. An actively accreting river delta
25. A natural bridge
26. A large sinkhole
27. A glacial outwash plain
28. A sea stack
29. A house-sized glacial erratic
30. An underground lake or river
31. The continental divide
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals
33. Petrified trees
34. Lava tubes
Me in a tube in iceland
My husband climbing out the entrance to the above tube. We had to follow cairns to find the entrance which is nearly impossible to see until you are on top of it.
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back.
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world.
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe.
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high
44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing
Its not devils tower, but a waterfall in Iceland with beautiful columnar jointing.
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below.
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck
52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism.
55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows.
I haven't been to the Giants Causeway but I saw polygonally fractured basalt in Iceland - this photo is in a different location than the above waterfall surrounded by columnar joints. I've always thought that columnar jointing and polygonally fractured basaltic flows were the same thing - am I wrong?
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border, to see the classic "horn".
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) observed the classic unconformity
61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone
68. Monument Valley
69. The San Andreas fault
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (an orogeny in progress)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches)
Again - its not Hawaii, but Iceland - the land of geologic bliss
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0.
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil)
85. Find gold, however small the flake
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse
91. Witness a tornado firsthand. (Important rules of this game).
92. Witness a meteor storm, a term used to describe a particularly intense (1000+ per minute) meteor shower
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope.
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.
95. View a great naked-eye comet, an opportunity which occurs only a few times per century
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope
98. Experience a hurricane
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash
Whew - that was a lot of work! I think that puts me at about 36 - more photos to come!
Top 100 things a geologist should see (from geotripper)
1. See an erupting volcano
2. See a glacier
I've seen glaciers in both Iceland and Patagona.
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland
In Yellowstone and Iceland.
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta.
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage
Cedar Creek in my home town, and the Mississippi River (which I live only a couple blocks away from)
6. Explore a limestone cave. Try Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, or the caves of Kentucky or TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia)
My family went to many caves on our driving trips through out the US, but one nice cave near my current home is Crystal Cave. Where I went on geo field trip in college.
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile.
My family took a driving trip out west where we stopped at an open pit mine in Utah. I remember playing in a giant machine tire.
8. Explore a subsurface mine.
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (if on a budget, try the Coast Ranges or Klamath Mountains of California).
I have been near/on the Ballantrae Ophiolite Complex in Scotland but I didn't know it, so I don't think that counts.
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger (there's some anorthosite in southern California too).
11. A slot canyon. Many of these amazing canyons are less than 3 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. They reside on the Colorado Plateau. Among the best are Antelope Canyon, Brimstone Canyon, Spooky Gulch and the Round Valley Draw.
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere.
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada.
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland.
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (check out The Dynamic Earth - The Story of Plate Tectonics - an excellent website). I would assume I have accomplished this - I been on coastlines on both sides of the US, throughout Europe, and in Japan - I just don't know my tectonics well enough to which directions which plates are heading in.
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. One fall I even dressed as a gingko for Halloween using freshly fallen leaves.
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (Glacier National Park is a great place to see fossil stromatolites, while Shark Bay in Australia is the place to see living ones) I have one sitting on my desk that I found in road cut on a college geology field trip in WI.
18. A field of glacial erratics I don't know about a field of them, but I grew up in WI and MN so random giant rocks laying around are kinda common.
19. A caldera
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high The NPS website says the dunes at death valley only reach about 100 feet high - so I'm giving myself .5 for this one.
21. A fjord In Iceland.
22. A recently formed fault scarp
23. A megabreccia
24. An actively accreting river delta
25. A natural bridge
26. A large sinkhole
27. A glacial outwash plain
28. A sea stack
29. A house-sized glacial erratic
30. An underground lake or river
31. The continental divide
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals
33. Petrified trees
34. Lava tubes
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back.
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world.
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe.
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high
44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below.
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck
52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism.
55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows.
I haven't been to the Giants Causeway but I saw polygonally fractured basalt in Iceland - this photo is in a different location than the above waterfall surrounded by columnar joints. I've always thought that columnar jointing and polygonally fractured basaltic flows were the same thing - am I wrong?
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border, to see the classic "horn".
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) observed the classic unconformity
61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone
68. Monument Valley
69. The San Andreas fault
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (an orogeny in progress)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches)
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0.
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil)
85. Find gold, however small the flake
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse
91. Witness a tornado firsthand. (Important rules of this game).
92. Witness a meteor storm, a term used to describe a particularly intense (1000+ per minute) meteor shower
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope.
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.
95. View a great naked-eye comet, an opportunity which occurs only a few times per century
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope
98. Experience a hurricane
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash
Whew - that was a lot of work! I think that puts me at about 36 - more photos to come!
Finally a meme I can get behind! This one looks like fun; includes travel and geology!
Top 100 things a geologist should see (from geotripper)
1. See an erupting volcano
2. See a glacier
I've seen glaciers in both Iceland and Patagona.
My husband and me at the Perito Merino glacier in Argentina.
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland
In Yellowstone and Iceland.
Me a the original geyser in Iceland. It was a very windy cold day.
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta.
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage
Cedar Creek in my home town, and the Mississippi River (which I live only a couple blocks away from)
6. Explore a limestone cave. Try Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, or the caves of Kentucky or TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia)
My family went to many caves on our driving trips through out the US, but one nice cave near my current home is Crystal Cave. Where I went on geo field trip in college.
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile.
My family took a driving trip out west where we stopped at an open pit mine in Utah. I remember playing in a giant machine tire.
8. Explore a subsurface mine.
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (if on a budget, try the Coast Ranges or Klamath Mountains of California).
I have been near/on the Ballantrae Ophiolite Complex in Scotland but I didn't know it, so I don't think that counts.
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger (there's some anorthosite in southern California too).
11. A slot canyon. Many of these amazing canyons are less than 3 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. They reside on the Colorado Plateau. Among the best are Antelope Canyon, Brimstone Canyon, Spooky Gulch and the Round Valley Draw.
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere.
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada.
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland.
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (check out The Dynamic Earth - The Story of Plate Tectonics - an excellent website). I would assume I have accomplished this - I been on coastlines on both sides of the US, throughout Europe, and in Japan - I just don't know my tectonics well enough to which directions which plates are heading in.
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. One fall I even dressed as a gingko for Halloween using freshly fallen leaves.
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (Glacier National Park is a great place to see fossil stromatolites, while Shark Bay in Australia is the place to see living ones) I have one sitting on my desk that I found in road cut on a college geology field trip in WI.
18. A field of glacial erratics I don't know about a field of them, but I grew up in WI and MN so random giant rocks laying around are kinda common.
19. A caldera
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high The NPS website says the dunes at death valley only reach about 100 feet high - so I'm giving myself .5 for this one.
21. A fjord In Iceland.
22. A recently formed fault scarp
23. A megabreccia
24. An actively accreting river delta
25. A natural bridge
26. A large sinkhole
27. A glacial outwash plain
28. A sea stack
29. A house-sized glacial erratic
30. An underground lake or river
31. The continental divide
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals
33. Petrified trees
34. Lava tubes
Me in a tube in iceland
My husband climbing out the entrance to the above tube. We had to follow cairns to find the entrance which is nearly impossible to see until you are on top of it.
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back.
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world.
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe.
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high
44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing
Its not devils tower, but a waterfall in Iceland with beautiful columnar jointing.
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below.
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck
52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism.
55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows.
I haven't been to the Giants Causeway but I saw polygonally fractured basalt in Iceland - this photo is in a different location than the above waterfall surrounded by columnar joints. I've always thought that columnar jointing and polygonally fractured basaltic flows were the same thing - am I wrong?
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border, to see the classic "horn".
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) observed the classic unconformity
61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone
68. Monument Valley
69. The San Andreas fault
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (an orogeny in progress)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches)
Again - its not Hawaii, but Iceland - the land of geologic bliss
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0.
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil)
85. Find gold, however small the flake
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse
91. Witness a tornado firsthand. (Important rules of this game).
92. Witness a meteor storm, a term used to describe a particularly intense (1000+ per minute) meteor shower
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope.
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.
95. View a great naked-eye comet, an opportunity which occurs only a few times per century
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope
98. Experience a hurricane
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash
Whew - that was a lot of work! I think that puts me at about 36 - more photos to come!
Top 100 things a geologist should see (from geotripper)
1. See an erupting volcano
2. See a glacier
I've seen glaciers in both Iceland and Patagona.
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland
In Yellowstone and Iceland.
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta.
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage
Cedar Creek in my home town, and the Mississippi River (which I live only a couple blocks away from)
6. Explore a limestone cave. Try Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, or the caves of Kentucky or TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia)
My family went to many caves on our driving trips through out the US, but one nice cave near my current home is Crystal Cave. Where I went on geo field trip in college.
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile.
My family took a driving trip out west where we stopped at an open pit mine in Utah. I remember playing in a giant machine tire.
8. Explore a subsurface mine.
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (if on a budget, try the Coast Ranges or Klamath Mountains of California).
I have been near/on the Ballantrae Ophiolite Complex in Scotland but I didn't know it, so I don't think that counts.
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger (there's some anorthosite in southern California too).
11. A slot canyon. Many of these amazing canyons are less than 3 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. They reside on the Colorado Plateau. Among the best are Antelope Canyon, Brimstone Canyon, Spooky Gulch and the Round Valley Draw.
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere.
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada.
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland.
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (check out The Dynamic Earth - The Story of Plate Tectonics - an excellent website). I would assume I have accomplished this - I been on coastlines on both sides of the US, throughout Europe, and in Japan - I just don't know my tectonics well enough to which directions which plates are heading in.
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. One fall I even dressed as a gingko for Halloween using freshly fallen leaves.
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (Glacier National Park is a great place to see fossil stromatolites, while Shark Bay in Australia is the place to see living ones) I have one sitting on my desk that I found in road cut on a college geology field trip in WI.
18. A field of glacial erratics I don't know about a field of them, but I grew up in WI and MN so random giant rocks laying around are kinda common.
19. A caldera
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high The NPS website says the dunes at death valley only reach about 100 feet high - so I'm giving myself .5 for this one.
21. A fjord In Iceland.
22. A recently formed fault scarp
23. A megabreccia
24. An actively accreting river delta
25. A natural bridge
26. A large sinkhole
27. A glacial outwash plain
28. A sea stack
29. A house-sized glacial erratic
30. An underground lake or river
31. The continental divide
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals
33. Petrified trees
34. Lava tubes
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back.
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world.
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe.
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high
44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below.
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck
52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism.
55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows.
I haven't been to the Giants Causeway but I saw polygonally fractured basalt in Iceland - this photo is in a different location than the above waterfall surrounded by columnar joints. I've always thought that columnar jointing and polygonally fractured basaltic flows were the same thing - am I wrong?
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border, to see the classic "horn".
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) observed the classic unconformity
61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone
68. Monument Valley
69. The San Andreas fault
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (an orogeny in progress)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches)
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0.
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil)
85. Find gold, however small the flake
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse
91. Witness a tornado firsthand. (Important rules of this game).
92. Witness a meteor storm, a term used to describe a particularly intense (1000+ per minute) meteor shower
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope.
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.
95. View a great naked-eye comet, an opportunity which occurs only a few times per century
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope
98. Experience a hurricane
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash
Whew - that was a lot of work! I think that puts me at about 36 - more photos to come!
If you go to the web address
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Darwins-day/
you can add your name to the petition requesting that 12th February, which is Charles Darwin's birthday, be made into a Bank Holiday.
For some time the government has been seeking an additional bank holiday to give to the public.
The memory of Charles Darwin deserves as much.
Isaac Newton already has a day which atheists celebrate, and that is Isaac's birthday on 25th December. [The man that christians 'celebrate' was not even born on that day, but Isaac Newton really was].
Deadline for signing up is 24 January 2009
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Darwins-day/
you can add your name to the petition requesting that 12th February, which is Charles Darwin's birthday, be made into a Bank Holiday.
For some time the government has been seeking an additional bank holiday to give to the public.
The memory of Charles Darwin deserves as much.
Isaac Newton already has a day which atheists celebrate, and that is Isaac's birthday on 25th December. [The man that christians 'celebrate' was not even born on that day, but Isaac Newton really was].
Deadline for signing up is 24 January 2009
If you go to the web address
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Darwins-day/
you can add your name to the petition requesting that 12th February, which is Charles Darwin's birthday, be made into a Bank Holiday.
For some time the government has been seeking an additional bank holiday to give to the public.
The memory of Charles Darwin deserves as much.
Isaac Newton already has a day which atheists celebrate, and that is Isaac's birthday on 25th December. [The man that christians 'celebrate' was not even born on that day, but Isaac Newton really was].
Deadline for signing up is 24 January 2009
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Darwins-day/
you can add your name to the petition requesting that 12th February, which is Charles Darwin's birthday, be made into a Bank Holiday.
For some time the government has been seeking an additional bank holiday to give to the public.
The memory of Charles Darwin deserves as much.
Isaac Newton already has a day which atheists celebrate, and that is Isaac's birthday on 25th December. [The man that christians 'celebrate' was not even born on that day, but Isaac Newton really was].
Deadline for signing up is 24 January 2009
Here are a few images created by people with aura migranes (from The New York Times):
There are more here.
And here's the accompanying article by Oliver Sacks.
Thanks to Tim Boyle for the links.
There are more here.
And here's the accompanying article by Oliver Sacks.
Thanks to Tim Boyle for the links.
Here are a few images created by people with aura migranes (from The New York Times):
There are more here.
And here's the accompanying article by Oliver Sacks.
Thanks to Tim Boyle for the links.
There are more here.
And here's the accompanying article by Oliver Sacks.
Thanks to Tim Boyle for the links.
Hemant Mehta asks:
How serious do you take your atheism?
Let’s find out.
Copy and paste the list below on your own site, boldfacing the things you’ve done. (Feel free to add your own elaboration and commentary to each item!)
My comments are in that burnt-orange color that's such a favorite of mine.
- Participated in the Blasphemy Challenge.
- Met at least one of the “Four Horsemen” (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris) in person.
- Created an atheist blog. Duh.
- Used the Flying Spaghetti Monster in a religious debate with someone.
- Gotten offended when someone called you an agnostic. Not offended, per se, but I corrected them.
- Been unable to watch Growing Pains reruns because of Kirk Cameron.
- Own more Bibles than most Christians you know.
- Have at least one Bible with your personal annotations regarding contradictions, disturbing parts, etc. I don't have a hard copy, simply because I use the skeptic's annotated bible.
- Have come out as an atheist to your family.
- Attended a campus or off-campus atheist gathering.
- Are a member of an organized atheist/Humanist/etc. organization.
- Had a Humanist wedding ceremony.
- Donated money to an atheist organization.
- Have a bookshelf dedicated solely to Richard Dawkins. Not solely to Dawkins. There's room for Sam and Chris (haven't gotten around to buying Dennet yet).
- Lost the friendship of someone you know because of your non-theism.
- Tried to argue or have a discussion with someone who stopped you on the street to proselytize.
- Hid your atheist beliefs on a first date because you didn’t want to scare him/her away.
- Own a stockpile of atheist paraphernalia (bumper stickers, buttons, shirts, etc).
- Attended a protest that involved religion.
- Attended an atheist conference.
- Subscribe to Pat Condell’s YouTube channel.
- Started an atheist group in your area or school.
- Successfully “de-converted” someone to atheism.
- Have already made plans to donate your body to science after you die.
- Told someone you’re an atheist only because you wanted to see the person’s reaction.
- Had to think twice before screaming “Oh God!” during sex. Or you said something else in its place.
- Lost a job because of your atheism.
- Formed a bond with someone specifically because of your mutual atheism (meeting this person at a local gathering or conference doesn’t count).
- Have crossed “In God We Trust” off of — or put a pro-church-state-separation stamp on — dollar bills.
- Refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
- Said “Gesundheit!” (or nothing at all) after someone sneezed because you didn’t want to say “Bless you!”
- Have ever chosen not to clasp your hands together out of fear someone might think you’re praying.
- Have turned on Christian TV because you need something entertaining to watch.
- Are a 2nd or 3rd (or more) generation atheist.
- Have “atheism” listed on your Facebook or dating profile — and not a euphemistic variant.
- Attended an atheist’s funeral (i.e. a non-religious service).
- Subscribe to an freethought magazine (e.g. Free Inquiry, Skeptic)
- Have been interviewed by a reporter because of your atheism.
- Written a letter-to-the-editor about an issue related to your non-belief in God.
- Gave a friend or acquaintance a New Atheist book as a gift.
- Wear pro-atheist clothing in public.
- Have invited Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses into your house specifically becauseyou wanted to argue with them.
- Have been physically threatened (or beaten up) because you didn’t believe in God.
- Receive Google Alerts on “atheism” (or variants).
- Received fewer Christmas presents than expected because people assumed you didn’t celebrate it.
- Visited The Creation Museum or saw Ben Stein’s Expelled just so you could keep tabs on the “enemy.”
- Refuse to tell anyone what your “sign” is… because it doesn’t matter at all.
- Are on a mailing list for a Christian organization just so you can see what they’re up to…
- Have kept your eyes open while you watched others around you pray.
- Avoid even Unitarian churches because they’re too close to religion for you.
So I'm a solid 22. There are more that were kinda... 'close to target' but not quite, so I left them off. Some items I left off, and having done so could be considered more hardcore atheist than doing the thing listed. Anyway, it's all good in the 'hood.
Catch you guys again next month!
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