Jesus was a pedophile-Happy Blasphemy day!

(In order to be a pedophile you'd first have to exist and since the magical zombie that was really his own dad described in the bible wasn't real, Jesus couldn't possibly have been a pedophile. )

The reason for my blatant and some would say uncalled for blasphemy is that today -is blasphemy day! The only American holiday other than thanksgiving that's worth celebrating and its not just about the good clean fun that is calling Jesus a pedophile, it's about promoting free thought as well as free speech and the rights of not only non-believers, but dissidents of all forms to speak out against things with which they do not agree as well as the rights of all of us to simply speak our minds without fear of imprisonment, violence, or death, a right which for much of the world still doesn't exist.

For me, it's the threats of violence and death waged against those who of us who question or criticize religious tradition, ideals or beliefs that I find most egregious. Primarily because more and more the response from others seems to be that we simply shouldn't have provoked the violence in the first place by offending someone else's religious beliefs, as though that somehow justifies the violence.That's not how things should be.

No matter how offensive you may find anything I have to say, No idea or individual, or object, is sacred or immune to criticism or insult. I have the right to insult your president, your country, your mother, and your beliefs. I can call Jesus a pedophile, the pope an asshole, or spend my time writing short stories detailing the prophet Mohammad's love of bacon sandwiches and gay anal sex, or drawing pictures of him doing those very things, and you do not have the right to threaten my life because you find it offensive - And if you do threaten my life, then the answer should not be that I shouldn't have provoked your wrath by insulting your beliefs.
-CAINE-

Finaly, because I love this video and now seems an apropriate time to share it, Penn Jillette shares what he belives- which just happens to be exactly what I believe, except the part about the jello. I hate jello.

Does the methane cycle on mars point to life?(probably not but it's still pretty cool.)

According to a study conducted by Italian scientists using five years worth of data collected by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, methane concentrations on mars change with the seasons as well as location.

led by Sergio Fonti of Italy's Universita del Salento, scientists studied around three million observations from the Mars Global Serveyor made between July 1999 and October 2004, which is around three years on Mars. They found that during the fall methane peaks in three regions on the planet: Elysium, Arabias Terre, and Tharsis. The methane concentration in these regions then falls to it's lowest level in winter before rising to it's highest level of concentration in summer, allowing the gas to spread throughout the Martian atmosphere before dissipating and then somehow being replenished, beginning the cycle again.

The discovery and observation of extraterrestrial methane tends to excite researchers and the public alike because methane is most commonly produced one of two ways. Either through geologic activity, volcanic eruptions, or biological processes, the life cycle of plants and animals. But methane can also be produced through chemical processes such as carbon dioxide combining with melted ice beneath mars' surface. This, obviously, seems the most likely scenario given that the Tharsis and Elysium regions are home to the two largest volcanoes on Mars, and the Arabia Terrae region is believed to poses a vast amount of water ice beneath it's sands.
-CAINE-

Source:Popsci

This Weeks Compendium

This week on Compendium Of Strange: Art from Bobby Chui and Zdzislaw Beksinski, The transforming owl, guitar bot, Glow in the dark sperm and more. Follow the links provided to see these and all the other posts from this week on Compendium Of Strange.

Of course, if you followed me on twitter or liked my musician page on Facebook, you'd already know all this...I'm just sayin'.

-CAINE-

Eye Candy:Antennae Galaxy Collision Composite

Pz Myers' "A Funeral For Folly"

PZ Myers has quickly become one of my absolute favorite living humans for so many reasons. One such reason is that like me, he clearly sees no need to apologize for who he is and what he believes and I love that!

See, for a long haired metal-head musician freak such as myself to go around carrying on about the evils and absurdity of religious beliefs or defiling bibles and Korans, all of which I do, is not such a big deal. Most just write it off as a stunt done for pure shock value and assume that I'll eventually stop rebelling and grow out of it, which is complete crap and NEVER going to happen by the way, but that's besides the point. But when a man with a respectable haircut and a university job does it, people tend to take it more seriously. So when I saw this weeks "Sunday Sacrilege" entry on Pharyngula I just had to mention it here.

Focusing first on the absurd assertion,-and the consequences which come with it- made by believers that we godless heathens must respect their books, idols, and beliefs, even if we don't believe in them ourselves- Myers goes on to describe how his rejection of this idea led him to a reevaluation of his own book collection. Ultimately leading to his decision to find an alternative use for a Koran and a Bible which you can see in the video below.

-CAINE-

Ricky Jay, Trapped in an Elevator With Two Stupid Girls