The concept of God is, for most believers, an aggregate of other beliefs. There is no silver bullet, single argument, that will disavow a believer of the God concept. For the author, his belief was built upon

1. logical arguments (exemplified by Schroeder’s The Science of God).
2. answered prayers.
3. God as the source of morality.
4. Life as a testament to the creator.
5. The Bible as the divine word, full of wisdom.
6. The supporting testimony of other Christians.
7. The personal relationship with God, and personal experiences of God.

The big issue with prayer is that the likelihood of having a prayer answered is proportional to the likelihood of that event occurring even without supernatural intercession. Prayer, in a sense, puts a person in the driving seat with respect to an omniscient God. It should be better to figure out what God’s will is directly, rather than plead for what we’d like to have happen. Scientific evidence points out that prayer has no positive effect on patients recovery. [Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer American Heart Journal, Volume 151, Issue 4, Pages 934-942 H. Benson, J. Dusek, J. Sherwood, P. Lam, C. Bethea, W. Carpenter, S. Levitsky, P. Hill, D. Clem, Jr., M. Jain] The traditional dichotomy of “yes”, “no” and “wait” responses that can be received from God in answer to prayer, is entirely psychological.

How can the Bible contain all of God’s Possible Knowledge, if it can’t answer very specific questions such as those regarding dating or personal life objectives. The Holy Spirit, helps by stepping in and filling those gaps. A university class in Professional Ethics, however, completely changed his mind. A text for the class included Being Good, by Simon Blackburn. The professor focused more on ‘how do we make good decisions’, and didn’t reveal his biases during the presentation of dilemmas. In regards to God, he raised the Euthyphro Dilemma, taking the position that Divine Command Theory is bankrupt, because it would allow obviously bad things (rape, murder, pillaging) to ‘become’ good by God’s command. Thus, morality is separate from God, and not a derivative of His command. Do you do good things because you want to be good, or to get into heaven? If you want to be good for its own sake, then you must do the moral footwork, and not delegate this responsibility to God, be threatened by eternal punishment in Hell, or bribed by eternal salvation in Heaven.

There is a discord between the Bible and Science. Genesis is debunked by Big Bang Theory, age of the Earth, Theory of Evolution, Rainbows after the Flood, etc. Schroeder initially offered a reasonable time-frame that allowed compatibility between these magisteria. A post about the book on Amazon was responded to by a professor, claiming that none of the scientific evidences above, are solved by a relativistic time shift. The professor had changed his own mind about God after using the personal library of Ramon Menendez Pidal to vet that the Bible was the result of construction of several previous sources. [Who Wrote the New Testament: The Making of the Christian Myth by Burton L. Mack, and A History of God by Karen Armstrong both provide good layman references to this fact.] Schroeder’s book is an example of extrallusory intelligence.

The professor alerts our author to the tactic of reverse terminology, and shows that “The doctrinal underpinnings of the Bible have been known to be mythological for centuries.” (as shown by Some Mistakes of Moses by Robert Ingersoll, who recounts the conflict between historical linguistics and the Tower of Babel). This conversation evolves, and the professor moves to remove himself from the conversation to avoid inevitable disenchantment, advising not to worry about religious details too much. The author reflects that many of his congregation are not on the path to Truth, and likely fear the dark waters and questions in which he travels, turning their backs on Truth (but he has nevertheless learned spiritual lessons from them).

The Bible clearly offers explanations for why educated people reject god (Romans 1:22). He kept many verses as guidance through his life, but hadn’t actually read the Book from cover to cover. In Genesis, he encountered stories with immoral behavior by God’s characters, and inconsistent punishment for such actions. Hardening Pharaoh’s heart and killing all the firstborn sons violates both freedom and justice. Exodus and Leviticus are found to be full of incredibly detailed rules about sacrifice and offerings, no longer necessary since Jesus’s death. Numbers and Deuteronomy are also full of tedious details, and legalistic jumbo, that Christians with the Holy Spirit don’t need. Some details are fond to be inconsistent: in particular, God’s wrath concerning Judas in Acts is now an account of remorseful self-infliction in Matt). Apologetics is found to be somewhat contorted logic to rescue these inconsistencies.

Our author is now well on his way to using secular learnings as his moral and ethical guide, rather than lessons from the Bible. The Amazon professor, holds the position that many of these stories are incredibly preposterous (Order of Creation, Two different accounts, Noah’s Ark vs actual number of species, God’s command to kill children (Deut 20:16)) Questioning God’s word is still very uncomfortable for our author, as the Bible was communicated directly from God, and comes to us, unedited. But translation is not the problem, for the Bible was written by various authors each with political aims to reconstruct (edit) history. This is the Documentary Hypothesis (The Bible with Sources Revealed by Richard Friedman). The Bible is now no longer an infallible source of Truth.

The author reveals that God is attributed, fortuitous coincidence, beauty, numinous experience, etc, and given credit for all that is good. The Holy Spirit is recognized as a voice different from his own, providing guidance and inspiration unlike his own conscience. Religion is the metaphor through which he understands his personal experiences. Failure in daily activities guide our author to a stronger devotion to his faith, yet in college the material is now found to be unsurmountable, even with stronger devotion. Speaking with atheists becomes his new motivation, for it alone now brings feelings of God’s will.

Even if the Bible is not the word of God, having directly communicated reveals that God exists. The Amazon Professor, in respectful observance, neither denies the authors sincerity, nor agrees. Persistence leads our author to continue the the conversation. The logical arguments are battered back and forth, and the professor begins teaching: given what we know, God is just a concept, and personal interaction with Him is a simulacrum. The God concept gives the believer a surrogate parent.

Finally the author concedes that it is possible, the history/creation of the universe, the construction of religion, the lack of positive intercessory prayer, the (im)moral behavior of individuals, the independence of morality from God etc, the personal revelations, all can happed without God. The carefully considered evidence from the Professor, leads our author to see that all these things are explainable without resort to God. Occam’s Razor leads the author from “it is possible that there is no God” to “there is no God”.

Realizing one’s own sexual identity is not always easy for every person. For me, it took quite awhile. My first crush was on this girl in 2nd grade, and I was too shy to talk to her, or even ask what her name was. At the time, of course, I didn’t fully understand the emotions involved. I knew only that she was too pretty to talk to or about, and that because I’d never felt that way about anyone before, I reasoned that I should probably hide those feelings, for the crime of being unusual.

Sociologically, I was a late bloomer, and kept my sexual naivete for a long time. I remember high school as being rather awkward, and not fully understanding the sexual humor that other students bandied about readily. They probably had only a touch more understanding than I did, but were likely far more comfortable posturing than I was.

I remember that one of my acquaintances in gym class confessed that he was a homophobe. Even though I did not yet know that I was gay, I thought that this is a rather ridiculous stance. It’s not that he was violent, it’s that the idea of some member of the same gender being attracted to him, made him very uncomfortable. To me this is really at the core of the debate concerning homosexuality and homosexual behavior: We’ve grown comfortable with the stereotypical portrayal of homos in movies, but many still harbor some level of discomfort with the idea once it goes beyond the screen and enters the real world.

Unlike some, I didn’t always know that I was gay. For me it took quite awhile to realize that I was a bit different from most others. At the tail end of high school I began to look at pornography. Of course, I started out by looking at the girls. Eventually, though I was compelled to follow where my curiosity led me. So, within a short while, I was looking at pictures of men. I thought that this was somewhat deviant, but the images appealed to me, and (being a computer geek) I was very much used to the anonymous safety provided by the internet. I excused myself by reasoning that it must be just a phase. I thought eventually the interest would wane, and I’d naturally switch back to looking at girls again.

I was able to keep that pretense for about 4 years, while I attended UCLA. During this time I also had another crush on one of my roommates. For most, this would be pure torture, for me it was quite tolerable. I got to see the guy everyday, work together with him on homework, and observe his interactions with his girlfriend. The friendship and intellectual companionship that came with studying the same material was enough for me, I didn’t have to ask him for more, and he never learned of my affection.

After graduating I went to work for 3 years. I still wasn’t ready to admit that I was gay yet, but I started to become more open about my interests. I watched many films, movies that features gay characters, focusing either on the coming out drama, or on the relationship that two men can share with each other. I also watched documentaries about gay portrayal in movies, and the intolerance sometimes shown by society. (I’d like to thank BBC for their courage to explore such politically sensitive topics in a realistic and very evenhanded manner). I excused this behavior has having a homosexual curiosity. I still find the topic to be intellectually fascinating, and certainly worth more exploring. Despite all the films and characters that I observed, I still never came to a grasp of “what it means to be gay.”

It wasn’t until this past year, that I was finally ready to admit to myself that I was gay. It began with first learning that my advisor was gay (actually a surprise to me, since I have no gaydar and didn’t pick up on it until the bigoted Prop 8 was approved). Then during the past summer, I used internet dating to find and meet with some other openly gay folks in the area. Just knowing that these people could live in relative comfort, without too much ostracization, gave me the courage I needed to come out.

Once I had the personal courage, I began to confide in my friends. None of them have shown me any bigotry or even disapproval. I think that my generation is much more tolerant of these issues than previous generations. We’re more open about our personal lives in general (sometimes to the extreme). Yet we also seem to have recognized that this openness requires us to be more tolerant of each other. Nevertheless, I’m probably quite fortunate to have such understanding friends. I’ve not really noticed any ‘weirdness’, or lasting awkwardness beyond the surprise shown when I reveal the news.

Based on that experience, I was ready to tell my family and parents. So last month, when we celebrated Christmas, I made the announcement at dinner. This seems to have shocked all but my sister. I get the feeling that there’s a bit of disappointment, though I’m not sure that I fully understand that. I find homosexuality to be much more interesting because of it’s relative abnormality: being hetero is just so ordinary. Still, my family has told me that they all still love me, and though it’ll take some adjustment, I think they also know that it doesn’t really change anything. I’m the same person I always was, and I’m not going to suddenly go playing with pink unicorns and dance around like a fairy while the very ground underneath my feet becomes a rainbow.

Mostly what I’ve learned, is that the question “what does it mean to be gay?” is a nonsense question. There’s no need to act or behave differently and there isn’t anything more fundamental to understand beyond the fact that your attractions are different from the norm. But, as Kinsey showed, these attractions are on a sliding scale anyway. There’s no need to even think of yourself as being different, nor do you have to identify with the stereotypes and cultural connotations.

I would characterize the entire ordeal as being both personally liberating and relatively uneventful: exactly the way it should be!

Last week, while I was working on re-writing that compiler, I decided to upgrade my system (I felt oppressed by my software). I usually advise all my friends: “Don’t upgrade your computer, it will break everything.” It would have been good to follow my own advise. After the upgrade, grub was all wonkers and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it easily and get back to the compiler work. So, I figured the quickest solution was to completely re-install the system.

Easiest path to getting a new system, that has close to the same functionality of the old system is quite simple when you don’t have to worry about making extra backup copies of your stuff! I broke the mirror RAID, and installed a new system on one of the drives! Then any settings that I don’t quite like, or configurations that need to be maintained (such as the one for this website, and for Xorg) I can copy over when I identify the problem. When everything is all hunky-dory, then I can also re-establish the RAID.

Best part about splitting the root from the /home, is that all my user preferences and settings don’t have to be touched during the entire process! As soon as all the packages I wanted were installed in the new system (via dpkg --(get|set)-selections) I could simply login and pick up where I left off.

The total time before I could get back to programming: 1/2 day. I love Linux!

The compiler that I wrote was, in my personal opinion, a pathetic failure. Though we were able to generate some x86_64 code that actually ran (given a bootstrapping program), it would crash on certain valid inputs. We were also unable to handle arrays properly; our calling convention was a nightmare (I now heartily recommend going with proven standards, rather than trying to come up with one yourself); and our register allocator was basically non-existent (it just spilled everything, assigning all ssa values to their own slot, and never re-using slots). On the positive side, it was able to do factorial, and towers of hanoi, so we nailed recursion!

The TA’ing gig was wonderful. I had great fun teaching the kids concepts, tricks, ways of thinking. It was my first time, so I occasionally gave away answers in my eagerness to explain, but overall I think I did a reasonable job. Some of the kids regularly came to my office hours, and thanked me for helping them pass the class (which felt really wonderful, I made a difference!) I ended up loving the TA work so much that I even let it take time from some of my other obligations (research, and my own classwork).

Given my experience, there’s one big thing that I’d change in the current system: I’d make discussion sections mandatory, and limit their size to about 10. This would make discussion an actual discussion, rather than just another lecture. I think the discussion sections should encourage the design aspects of the homework/projects. That is, we all gather round the table, and whiteboard a design. One of the things that I noticed in grading the programming assignments was that our students are sometimes really creative in their solutions (and not always in a good way). I think that we probably do a poor job of teaching design, because there isn’t really a quantitative scale that can be used to measure how good a design is. So, they need to practice for an hour each week, offer each other design options, constructively criticize by identifying holes in each other’s attempts (with guidance from the TA), until a satisfactory solution is converged upon. I don’t think our current system quite has the resources to do this though.

I still don’t get too much of a break though: I’d like to re-do the compiler, this time with a better design; I need to catch up on some neglected research; and I want to play around with Google’s new language Go.

Last year I bought myself a nice quad-core desktop machine, that required its own assembly. I had to get a specific case, so that would hold 6 HD’s, 4 in a RAID5 and 2 in a RAID1. I remember spending probably about 2 weeks going through all the options and choices, doing price/performance comparisons, etc, etc. My desires are really too specific for anyone but myself to buy a good Xmas present. That machine, is still working today, serving up this website, and hosting a large collection of media. Since I purchased it I’ve wanted to run use the quad core for heavy-duty computing, but only wound up doing that once. I still have (long dated) plans to do stock market calculations though!

So, today and yesterday I spent several hours browsing the netbook offerings. I’m pretty sure that I want one of these things now. Last year, the market didn’t quite fit my needs. What I’d really like to have is

• a decent keyboard
• HD screen 1366×768 resolution, with LED backlight
• Long battery life
• Built-in GPS
• Wifi, 802.11a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth, even though I have no bluetooth devices
• magnetic power plug, but Apple seems to have the monopoly on these, and isn’t licensing
• Internet everywhere, without paying hideous $30+/mo. service charges
• a Solid State Drive, because 5400rpm makes virtual memory paging take too long
• a processor that can actually do work

It seems that enough of these requirements are fulfilled by the Acer Aspire as1410-8414. While HD video playback isn’t as good as a normal desktop, it’s really the screen size that I care about. I need that space for plenty amounts of text. I assume that if the provided HD is too slow for my tastes I can upgrade in 6months to a SSD, and more RAM. My current laptop, Toshiba Satellite U205-S5057, has a Core 2 Duo, and has held up quite nicely for 3 years now. It’s unfortunate drawbacks are some finickiness with suspend/sleep, and battery life. I think that the season is right for an upgrade. I’ll be downgrading to a Core 2 Solo, but the higher number of pixels, and longer battery life make it all worthwhile.

Ray operates a ministry in Huntington beach, and can usually be found on a soapbox bantering with beachgoers on Saturdays. There are several videos of this on YouTube, that I won’t reproduce here for brevity. He made himself famous online with one episode of his “Way of the Master” series that he produces with his boy-toy and former actor, Kirk Cameron. That episode, Bananas: The Atheist’s Worst Nightmare, claimed that bananas were perfect for human consumption, obviously designed as such by a loving creator god. His arguments were rapidly debunked, both in video form, and through skeptic websites.

In the video, Ray reveals his obvious lack of scholarship. He completely neglected to research anything about bananas before simply making up creationist arguments. He overlooked the history of bananas and their human cultivation for 7,000, year. He missed the fact that the convenient ‘pull tab’ is used by stupid humans, while smart monkeys simply pinch the other end. He claimed that the shape of the banana was a perfect fit for finger joints, while it’s simply a result of having grown in a bunch (nature can pack efficiently). It is unfortunate that Ray has a successful ministry, as it reveals that humans are easily won over by superficial arguments and tend not to take the time to seriously critique the messages they hear. The success of his ministry almost directly demonstrates, how fallible and gullible we are.

More recently, as an obvious publicity stunt, Ray decided to distribute a republication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, in ‘honor’ of the 150th anniversary of its original release. Of course the book has long been in public domain, so, while a bit touchy, this is a perfectly legal maneuver on his part. He placed within the book a 50 page Special Introduction, available at his ministry. In his indoctrination, Ray again reveals sloppy scholarship. He plagarizes, and uses well worn creationist arguments, that have long been refuted. A summary nice refutation can be read at the Don’t Diss Darwin site, setup by the National Center for Science Education. He ends the Indoctrination with a plea that you should buy one of his other books, presumably also as thoroughly researched.

Since enough people within the science community had found out about the publication, there was time to address the misinformation that would be spread on so many college campuses. US News and World Report has a back and forth between Ray and the Eugenie Scott, who works as the executive directory of NCSE and who’s work finding ‘cdesign proponentsists’ helped considerably in the Dover Trial. Ray introduced why he wanted to publish the book, Exclusive: Ray Comfort Defends His Creationist Edition of ‘On the Origin of Species and Eugenie replied with How Creationist ‘Origin’ Distorts Darwin.

Ray had initially planned on releasing his creationist re-publication on the anniversary of Darwin’s original. Yet, since that landed on a weekend prior to Thanksgiving, he rescheduled to Thursday, Nov 19. This was convenient for my club, AAR@UCI because we have meeting on Wed night, and could easily discuss strategy and organization prior to his arrival. We were also hoping, that since UCI is so close to Huntington Beach, he might show up to our campus in person.

Then, on the morning of Wednesday, Nov 18, we spotted his people handing out books! He preempted the schedule! Fortunately, we had already received a collection of banana bookmarks from NCSE, and rapidly organized ourselves to hand them out. He must have felt that the atmosphere in Orange County is too strongly affected by the rationalists because he decided to show up at UCLA instead. He was immediately countered by the Bruin Skeptics though, as recorded by their posts:

• Nazis, Darwin, and Living a Good Life
• BASS Meeting VIII
• A Day Early: Banana Man and Kirk Cameron at UCLA
• Ray Comfort Soapbox Video

In summary, I found the whole event anti-climatic. Most of the world had not heard that this was going on. All they say was some people handing out Darwin books, claiming “This might help you with your studies”. The only people that even wanted to debate with them were members of our own group, who knew what was going on. It seems that the creationists must go to extreme lengths to find a way to shovel their shit into the minds of others. This includes deceit about schedules, slipping bogus content into otherwise good books, neglecting scholarship, misrepresentation of the material, and all other manner of logical fallacies. On strictly moral grounds, I have to give the entire creationist movement a big CHRISTIAN FAIL, for not following their own espoused moral code.

Over the summer, I had the free time to make a few additions to my social life. I was able to attend more of the Atheist and Freethinking groups in the area, as well as make some special friends (more on this topic later; hopefully during the holidays). I was also able to finish (and submit) the XSS Survey paper, but have yet to get back the reviews.

I’m now a second year grad at UCI, and we’re in our 3rd week of Fall Qtr. Summer’s past, and I miss it sorely. The campus is now swarming with undergrads that get in my way, whenever I want to go somewhere. There are now line as the eateries; it’s horrible. My workload this quarter is, I fear, too much to bear, and will probably zombify me by the end of the quarter.

I’m TA’ing CompSci 141: Concepts and Techniques in Programming Languages; It’s a 120 student class this time. Though I’m new, the (awesome) lecturer is relatively seasoned, and things have been going fairly smoothly so far. Answering questions from students can be a bit repetitive; but I like communicating my knowledge so much that the repetition has cause the education part to lose its charm. Not only do I have to solve the assignments myself (without any helping hand), but I also have to be there, ready and able to guide them through the solution too. Methinks my students doth protest too much about the workload.

I’m also taking my advisors course: CompSci 241: Advanced Compiler Construction. It’s the most difficult grad course offered at UCI, both in terms of coursework and material covered. Of course, there’s no way out of this class, but I’ve fortunately got a partner in lab that’s doing a great job of writing the code; letting me help out with the design. Soon, it’ll get to the point where he expects me to pull my weight in code too. By the end of the course, we’ll have implemented an optimizing compiler for a small toy language. The other difficulty in this course, is that most of the material is so new, that there aren’t any reference books that contain the algorithms and techniques. It’s still bundled up in research papers. And what is available in books, is in a couple cases, an incorrect implementation.

I’ve also been elected Secretary of AAR@UCI. That’s the Atheist, Agnostic, Rationalist club on campus. There are actually about 50 registered religious groups (predominately christian) on campus, 25 of which are active. So our group is special in that we’re the only one explicitly on the other side of that fence. One of my more interesting duties, which I gladly participate in, is representing the club at the various atheist, freethinking, and skeptic groups in the Orange County area. It’s been quite fun hanging out with like-minded folks.

Of course, research must still get done. I was in a planning session nearly all day, concerning how we shall be adding security labels to Mozilla’s SpiderMonkey. So the design work is fortunately mapped out. but I still need to go through the tedium of implementation. In practice this usually throws you back to the drawing board before too long, but I’ll still have to see how far I can get with our current approach.

Ray began his talk with a really rousing and impassioned speech about being touched by the Holy Spirit; this got quite a few laughs, and is a very effective attention grabber at an atheist gathering. As a sample of religious behavior it demonstrates a few effective communication mechanisms. After studying psychology and religion (used to be a minister) he tried answer a few questions: “Why do religious people behave the way they do? Why is it so powerful and persuading?”

His theory is this: Religion is a virus. It has strategic pattern of spreading and uses vectors of infection. It reinforces itself with a guilt cycle, sexual control, and mass hypnosis. This makes people who have the infection behave in certain, identifiable patterns. The reinforcement also makes it difficult for a person to leave their religion.

Ray first got the viral analogy from Richard Dawkin’s essay Viruses of the Mind and used it to explain the biggest memetic virus around. From here on I’m going to outline the big ideas from the talk, if you want details get the book.

Religious fundamentalists (regardless of their particular flavor) all behave the same way, talk the same way, etc. The ministers preach, gesture, dramatic pause, pace, etc. in a way that encourages mass hypnosis and trance (same thing is done by big successful politicians, e.g. Hitler’s rallies). This pattern also discourages critical thinking. Many ministers use trigger phrases (’just’ used 20 times in 2 minutes).

Because believers have been infected by a virus, you cannot talk them out of it with logic. It would be akin to curing the flu with argument. Also, depending on how you argue, esp. if you’re assertive, you can easily raise their religious defense system, which will cause them to stop listening. So more successful persuasion uses compassionate outreach, and dances around the religion virus. It’s more important to relate as human beings than to disinfect.

Many viruses participate in brain control. Dennett points an the lancet fluke, but there are many others. Part of the mind control is to spread the infection. This can happen horizontally (mormons do missionary work) or vertically (through the parents, catholics encourage breeding). Not too many are purely vertical (Amish, and Druze).

Most people are infected when they are young and have no rational immune system, you get infected socially (through friends, family) and you are more susceptible when under stress (immune system weakens). Many religions popularize converts (St. Paul), and they have a behavior that helps to spread the infection: proselytize, money donation, break ties with former family/friends. Many are also relapsing into the religion that they grew up with (chicken pox -> shingles).

Churches form the epicenter of infection and use many techniques: Hypnotic sermons, emphasize guilt and stress in daily life, provide social needs, control sexual behavior, indoctrinating music, and childhood intimidation. This can be seen in the video of Sarah Palin getting cured by a witch-hunter in Kenya.

Often relaxation is paired with a guilt message. A different church will usually set of defense mechanisms. The minister speaking style and cadence is targeted for emotional appeal, and induces a trance in the audience. This can be seen in cult leaders, dictators, and videos of John Piper (a popular minister). The guilt message is reinforced in lyrics (Amazing Grace, what a wretch I am) and sermons (not worthy without God’s guidance).

A typical church program is geared to provide a weekly booster shot, and puts its victims on an emotional rollercoaster:

• quiet music as walk in, encourage peace
• open with song about triumph and hope
• then a song with sin and guilt, to make you feel unworthy
• another song about salvation
• followed by a song about rising up and promises of hope
• a sermon about dealing with guilt and self-doubt
• a song about commitment or self-sacrifice before the collection plate is passed
• finally end with a song about joy, happiness or redemption to leave you feeling great

Churches also offer their members a sense of community, but only one if you share their form of the infection (otherwise you’ll be very uncomfortable). Vectors are used: Rick Warren, Ted Haggard, The Pope. Sometimes the message is coded: when the pope says that europe is immoral, it really means: Catholics breed faster, we’re falling behind!. Getting more Holy Spirit translates to “stop questioning everything”.

Many times you’re put on a guilt cycle, where you commit a sin (sex before marriage) and then get forgiven (confession). But forgiveness is more difficult each time, so it reinforces negative patterns of behavior that get a person hooked on the redemption. Often the punishment is more severe (increasing the number of Hail Mary’s). Esp. for sex, religion often takes a thing you’re prone to do anyway, condemns it and then offers you the cure. But constantly the message is: you’re never good enough, and you’re incomplete without the virus.

One of the more interesting conclusions that Ray came to was that religions have a difficult time propagating in a sex positive culture. Their first move into a new culture is often to make sex a taboo. We have the power to combat this situation by talking openly and willingly about sex. Sex is used as part of the guilt cycle, because it’s something humans will do regardless of their belief system.

Then there are statistical revelations: If Jesus (and religion) are supposed to help your marriage…

• Then why are the most religious segment also the least married? (black women)
• Why is the highest divorce rate among evangelicals and fundamentalists?
• Why does MS, one of the most secular states, have such a low divorce rate?

So, when dealing with a religious person, remember that the virus is in control. Don’t raise their defense mechanisms by attacking their religion. Remember that their under the influence, and cut them some slack in matters of logic. Promote humanistic relationships, and express your concerns without mentioning religion. Read between the lines and respond in a positive manner. You can actually see that their entire personality will change.

It begins with the hypothetical existence of a ‘Literature patent’. I consider such an idea to be terrible at face value, and the article actually dismisses it as much. It would be ridiculous to expect every author to carefully comb over their work making sure that it doesn’t infringe on any registered plots or (worse!) plot devices (good buy holodeck!) Acquiring knowledge of registered patents would be prohibitive for a beginning author, they’d have to rely on publishers/editors. This significantly raises the cost of creating an innovative work. Not to mention the human effort the government must spend to maintain consistency in it’s patent database, and the legal costs and liabilities for the inevitable infringement.

The article then proceeds to demonstrate what happens in patentable areas. Immediately, there is a land grab on the ‘low hanging fruit’. During this process, established market leaders tend to benefit, because the have the resources (both funds and people) to make a large number of claims and file the required paperwork (economics of scale apply to paper shuffling too). Typically only a relatively few companies will be successful in this endeavor. The initial grab might also appear to be an ‘economic stimulus’, as it will show a remarkably steep and sudden interest in the field, resulting from the underlying similarity of the tragedy of the commons. After the market settles, a few incumbents then use their patent portfolios to threaten up-start competition. As the article points out, in the world of software patents, so much of the field is so obvious, that agents without an explicit interest in software will find themselves infringing as a normal course of their business but will be without their own patent portfolio and unable to make a bargaining counter-threat.

Another economic phenomenon that happens as a result of the patent system’s existence is economic stalemate. This actually happened with the sewing machine, as recorded by Adam Mossoff in A Stitch in Time: The Rise and Fall of the Sewing Machine Patent Thicket, which was blogged about at the Volokh Conspiracy. He recounts how the marketing and distribution of the sewing machine was actually encumbered by the patent system, because the machine required the combination of several innovations, and no single agent held all patents on the functionality. History also demonstrates the practice of ‘patent trolling’, whereby a company, which doesn’t actually produce anything, seeks to profit by legal threats of infringement and licensing agreements on its patent portfolio. The resulting stalemate was finally resolved through the explicit creation of a patent-holding company, whose sole function was to share the patents and resulting profits of all involved manufacturing firms.

So we can see that for areas where copyright is already established practice, the introduction of an extension of the patent system results in litigation and paperwork and encourages the preservation of an established regime of a few powerful companies working in loose collusion, both of which tend to outweigh any potential benefits to development and innovation

Now, I’d like to go out on a limb here, and reject the very concept of ‘Intellectual Property’. Richard Stallman has spoken out against its use, and continuously advertises the fact that it’s deceptive and misleading. At the root of the issue is that ideas and physical matter behave differently. That is, copying != stealing. The reasoning behind this position is fairly simple, when an idea is copied that does not deprive the original possessor from the idea. When you tell me about your theory of X, you don’t suddenly forget after telling me. In contrast, if you give me an apple, now you no longer have that apple. Ideas are part of a different realm of existence.

Finally, I’d like to point out the slippery slope, what happens if we go too far with this property idea: we might lose The Right to Read, or watch How creativity is being strangled by the law.

I hope that through these references, you can see where, how, and why I’ve developed my position on the patent issue; I’m firmly on the side of maximum freedom (and that includes the opening up of all media: open-music, open-software, open-hardware, open-design, open-architecture, open-video, open-government, open-literature, etc…)