Religion has no place in science
Posted on | July 30, 2010 | No Comments
I did some thinking on this, and I need to say, it makes SENSE that it would hurt their scientific careers. Not because scientists bully or pick on their beliefs, though I’m sure SOME do.. (science is not immune to politics).. but it makes sense because much of religion goes strictly AGAINST science.
Wouldn’t your career as a geographer be in jeopardy if you believed the earth was flat? Yes!–because what you study clearly shows that the earth is NOT flat, and you as a flat-earther are not helping in the progress of geography.
So let me just say that if you feel it is unfair that a religious ’scientist’ should get his beliefs criticized and scrutinized in the name of science, then perhaps you really don’t understand what science is.
Re-evaluating my strategy
Posted on | June 2, 2010 | No Comments
In a recent post, I said I’d give up computer/TV/games to work out everyday and lose weight.
I’ve decided I would not give up the computer, so that I can document the weight-losing experience, and so I can work on learning more about writing websites.. do something PRODUCTIVE with the time away from working out, since I cannot do that all day, obviously.
But today it dawned on me that giving up TV and Games is also quite silly. Not because it’s a bad idea, but because it has nothing to do with my goal.
My goal is to work out everyday until my birthday, so that I lose weight. I think now, that if I accomplish my workout for the day, I should do what I want afterward. So, I will work on my site. I will document my weight-losing experience as I see fit… but I will also enjoy myself by playing a game or watching something on TV (though, honestly, I probably will watch no tv).
So, I will use the things I want to do as rewards for the goal I am setting forth. If I work out, which I’m about to do after I submit this post, then I can play my games (which, mind you, are strategy games… very thought-heavy). This I will be doing tonight.
Just wanted to be as public about this as I was about my original strategy.
Now to work out then eat, See ya!
- John
A thought about the USA
Posted on | May 31, 2010 | No Comments
You know, some people actually would prefer a country where we all help each other out. You call it socialism, but I think it’s common sense.
I just watched another episode of “What would you do”, and I was reminded of the consequences of all the selfish, survival-of-the-fittest, thinking that goes on by about half the country.
A second thought: this country is, in actuality, divided–in 2 parts. Not democrat and republican, not religious and non-religious. No. It’s divided into the selfish and the not-selfish. Though, the correlation between all of the labels I just mentioned are probably not coincidence..
I apologize if I offend anyone in saying any of this, but the thought just rubbed me the wrong way right now.
I’m in Georgia Y’all
Posted on | May 26, 2010 | No Comments
I’m in Georgia visiting my grandma 
I love it. Having lots of fun.
And of course, if you read my last post, I’ve completed NONE of what I wanted to. This is bad. I set goals, don’t finish them, then here I am setting new goals.
What new goals, John? Oh. right. Here they are:
What I plan to do is, as of June 1 2010, give up TV/Video Games/PC usage at home (until my birthday, July 14).
Why? I want to lose some weight. And I think a month and a half is a good amount of time to give myself. Think I can lose, say, 20 lb in a month and a half? If I worked out everyday?
Here is how I imagine a typical June day to go:
1) Go to work (if weekday)
2) Come home from work and either clean, do something productive, or workout.
3) Sleep early.
4) Wake up early.
5) go to 1
So before June 1, I want to have a book ready (to record my working out), and I will play my last game of League of Legends (because that’s ALL I’ve been playing lately) on May 31.
Starting June 1 or earlier, I want to work out for at least 30 minutes each day. Perhaps I’ll just do the elliptical at the school gym… I don’t know yet.
Any suggestions for me? Leave a comment. Please. I could use whatever help possible.
Again, do you think I can lose 20 lb by my birthday, July 14?
Wish me luck…
Long time no see interwebs
Posted on | April 30, 2010 | No Comments
I haven’t updated since January, yet a whole lot has gone on. Pfft, it’s not like anyone reads this thing anyway 
So, I have about 5 minutes. Here are some things I want to post before the end of the weekend (hopefully)
- My Speech on exploring new ways to justify our moral decisions (science).
- An update to my life.
- Something creative like a story, a drawing, or something… haven’t figured it out yet.
I should have had the first one done forever ago, but I find myself distracted with a social life and my anti-social life, www.leagueoflegends.com (DotA fans beware… if you visit that site, you will instantly lose weeks of your life )
Anyway, this was just a quick update.
See ya,
John (Actually, I think I’m wanting to adopt the nickname Jim… but is that really appropriate for johnmcglone.com?)
What? You don’t like Pizza?
Posted on | January 2, 2010 | No Comments
Just some fun on omegle:
What? You don’t like pizza?
Posted on | December 10, 2009 | No Comments
Two things I must talk about.
1) This is why you don’t make your mom jokes on facebook:
Evan, you will be missed
(Disclaimer: this is a joke. A sick, twisted JOKE)
2) This is a WTF ad:
Is that baby… sucking on his nipple!? WTF (or am I seeing that wrong.)
Either way, strange choice for that ad’s picture.
3 simple steps toward the legalization of same-sex “marriage”
Posted on | December 1, 2009 | No Comments
Step 1) Define marriage.
Step 2) Create a word that means the same thing as your definition of the word marriage, and take out the part that says “between a man and a woman”
Step 3) Pass a single law that states, everyone who is married or [created word here] gets all the benefits that married couples currently have.
Q.E.D
In summary, we don’t need to call it “marriage” for it to be fair.
Hello BlogTV
Posted on | November 17, 2009 | No Comments
For those of you who never heard of BlogTV, it’s a site that allows users to broadcast live over webcam, where they, or one other person, are the only visual chatters. Not so much a blog as it is a tool to interact and be in touch with people who, well, want to interact or be in touch.
I met edbassmaster from youtube there, and it was really fun. He did a phone prank on my friend (lol Bharat.. you gave Lisa AIDS). Not the best of pranks, but how many of your friends have been pranked in front of a few hundred people. And check out edbassmaster, he’s hella funny.
Anyway, I’m thinking of doing live shows as well. The focus, I think, will be drawing. I’ll take requests, draw what people want me to draw, and it’ll be fun. We can talk, do other things (programming tutorials maybe? Games? Idk, whatever people might be interested in. It doesn’t really matter).
So once I get a webcam set up (the laptop one isn’t good enough), I’ll be inviting everyone to www.blogtv.com/johnmcglone.
You can subscribe there and get announcements as to when I’ll be on.
Anyway, I thought I’d let the few who read this know. By the way, I hit an all-time high on a single day of page views: 219 Thank you reddit.com 
“God does not exist” vs. “God probably does not exist”
Posted on | November 7, 2009 | 3 Comments
Is it more appropriate to say “God does not exist” or “God most probably does not exist”, and why?
I am an atheist. I do not believe in a God, for similar reasons as to why I do not believe in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Boogey Man, and other such imaginative creatures created by my fellow man to induct morale, or Order. I am a skeptic. I see nothing as true if I am not presented with some evidence of its truth.
That’s going to be a key word in this post, “truth.” There are two truths in which I will speak of.
1) Relative truth
2) Absolute truth
Relative truths are the truths that are only true because we share a common perception of it. For example, we share the observation of light, so we can all agree that it exists. If, however, man never had eyes, or any tools to sense what we call light, then light would not exist relatively, though it COULD very well exist absolutely. In summary, just because we can’t sense or observe it, does not mean it absolutely does not exists. And similarly, because we can sense or observe it doesn’t mean it does exist!
So an absolute truth would be something that exists, whether we perceive it or not. However, even what we perceive may not be absolutely true. Let me explain.
Pretend it is very late in the night, and you are 5 years old. There’s a dark shadow that looks like a hand swaying back and forth on your window. In sync with the swaying of this hand there is a loud scraping noise, like nails on glass. There’s also a light moaning noise coming from the creature that you see at your window. This happens night after night after night, and in those moments, your perception of what is happening tells you there is an unknown creature at your window, and you become frightened and want to retreat. However, the truth is, the wind is just pushing a branch up against your window. There’s nothing to be threatened by, there’s no creature stalking you, and certainly you’ve allowed your perception to trick you.
This observation can be proven to be false through investigation, because you can show with high certainty what was making the noise and the hand-like shadow was in fact the tree.
We would have to be ignorant to believe that some of the things we perceive even today in our adult or elder ages are absolute truth, even if we’ve seen them over and over and over again, to accept anything as more than relative truth would require some ignorance. I’m willing to take that argument even as far as a pretty convincing concept: gravity. We can demonstrate that masses are attracted to each other, and that larger masses have more force than smaller masses, over and over and over again, but could we say with 100% certainty that this is true?
Well, with relative truth, yes we can. All who can observe this will say it is true, because that’s what truth is. Truth is anything we can perceive, anything we can show others.
So, back to our original question about whether we could say “God does not exist” vs. “God probably does not exist”.
Well, it was argued to me that it is the same thing as saying “There is 1 apple on the table” vs. “There is probably 1 apple on the table” when clearly, there is just 1 apple on the table. I disagree with this argument, and this is why.
There being 1 apple on the table is a) dependent on our ability to perceive (see, touch, feel, taste, smell…) and b) is mutually exclusive from the idea that there is NOT 1 apple on the table. In other words, we cannot have 1 apple AND NO apples on the table, nor 1 apple AND many apples. (This is known as a paradox)
My stance would be, that since the two are mutually exclusive, if you are able to prove to me by means of our shared perceptions that either way is true, or false, you could say with relative certainty that “there IS 1 apple on the table” or “there IS NOT 1 apple on the table”, and that would be the relative truth, and logically sound.
However, if given a situation where your claim is NOT mutually exclusive of the statement you are trying to prove wrong, should you in fact say “there is probably” or “there is probably not” … “a god” or “a dead cat in the box” or something of that sort.
My stance: it’s more correct to say “probably” when you have no evidence supporting your argument or the mutually exclusive argument.
One cannot prove that God does not exist. That does not mean we can’t say he probably doesn’t, but still, you cannot prove with 100% certainty that he does not exist, for the same reason that Russel can not prove to you that there is no “too small to be seen” teapot floating around in space.
I’ve been argued that there is very strong evidence that God does not exist, but really what is being said is that there is very strong evidence that the stories of the bible are wrong. You see? And the thing is, even if we were to prove every story in the bible to be wrong, that would not disprove a God’s existance. To better clarify this, consider the following:
You are my friend. You exist, and plenty of people know you exist. What if, from this day on, we tell false stories of you. Every story ever told of you from this point on is wrong in its entirety, except for the 1 fact that you existed. People of the future may prove every one of the stories wrong, and because of it, have very strong doubts in your existence, but truth is, you did exist. The people of the future would be wrong if they pronounced that you “did not exist.” Being able to prove, or show strong evidence against, the stories of the bible, is NOT mutually exclusive to the idea that a God exists, it merely supports that a God as described in the stories does not.
Also, let me point out, that having strong supporting evidence of things like evolution, the big bang, and how the earth is older than 6000 years also is not mutually exclusive to the idea that a God exists, so therefore, even in relative truth, saying “God does not exist” is not the same as saying “There is not 1 apple on the table” because the counter argument is not, and I hope the prior has shown this, mutually exclusive.
I am not arguing that a God exists, I am merely arguing that he most probably does not, and only until we can all agree on that statement as a relative truth (which we clearly do not in this world), it should be stated “God probably does not exist”.
Now, should it be said “God probably does exist”? That, my friends, is a whole other argument.
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