by Pappy November 23rd, 2009, Posted in: Religion , Science , evolution

Imagine this:

You are a member of the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea, living in relatively small tribal and family groups. Your beloved Uncle has died and you are preparing to take part in a traditional funeral ritual to honor him. As part of the ritual, Uncle’s brains are ceremonially eaten by you and your family; it is a mark of respect.

The event is repeated through the years as other family members die. Some time later, many of your neighbors and even some of your own family members begin dying off rapidly. Even though your people wont eat anyone known to be diseased, the death rate spirals upwards. But not you, nor any of your children. You still continue the traditional practice of eating human brains, and see no negative effects at all. You have no idea that a brain wasting disease, called kuru, is sweeping through your culture. You have no idea that your genes protect you against kuru and have been passed on to your descendants. You may be clueless, but you are an evolved human.

Similar to mad cow disease, kuru is spread through the consumption of infected brains. It spread its way through the Fore tribe, killing at least 2500 members in the twentieth century until its cause was discovered in the 1960s, and the brain-eating practice was finally abandoned. At it’s height, between 1957 and 1968, over 1100 members of the South Fore, mostly women, died of kuru. At one point, there were almost no women remaining in some Fore territories.

Kuru is taken from the Fore word “kuria/guria”, ‘to shake’. It is also known as the laughing sickness due to the pathologic bursts of laughter people would display when afflicted with the disease.

This amazing tale is true, and this week scientists have revealed the even more amazing details behind the discovery. Let’s break down the specifics, released by Simon Mead of the British prion research center at University College London:

• Mead and colleagues discovered a mutated gene after comparing the stored DNA of 152 Fore kuru victims with over 3000 living Fore members, including nearly 600 who participated in the brain eating practice.
• In 51 survivors they discovered a variant of PRNP, the gene that makes prions, which are the proteins that spread the disease.
• The change in the gene comes at a position called codon 127. Throughout the animal kingdom, the codon contains the same amino acid, called glycine or “G”, from each parent, giving the form G127G. To their astonishment, Mead and his colleagues found a variant of the codon never seen in nature before, in which one of the glycines has been swapped for a valine amino acid, giving the new variant the name G127V.
• The mutation first arose about 200 years ago by accident in a single individual, who then passed it down to his or her descendants, and so on to today’s generation, who still carry the gene.
• It was a very sudden genetic change under intense selection pressure from the disease.

It comes as no surprise that, just as Darwin showed evolution to occur in the Galapagos, the transition arose and took root in an isolated human population with almost no genetic transfer with the outside world. As if the DNA weren’t proof enough, the mechanisms and conditions under which evolution operates are further demonstrated in this instance as well. This is indeed a very specific and demonstrable case of human evolution, observed almost literally as it happened.

As Mead stated in his release, “I hope it will become a textbook example of how evolution happens. It’s a striking and timely example, given the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species,” he says.

Finally, in keeping with my recent campaign, ol’ Pappy has to poke a dead dog in the eye for no other reason than to watch the twitchy, nervous response that corpses sometimes exhibit when properly agitated. I propose the following conundrum to our religious faithful who will insist this proves nothing:

If this is NOT proof of evolution in humans, then the Fore, and only the Fore people, were granted this genetic miracle by God. As the gene protects the practitioners of cannibalism, doesn’t God therefore condone or even encourage the practice? Does this finally prove that the practice of communion has it’s origins in cannibalism like some of us have been suggesting all along? Does God not love the rest of us enough to bless us as well, given the G127V variant may also protect humans from other prion diseases? And if God created the miracle, then which God? The entire kuru epidemic, the resulting genetic mutation, and the abandonment of cannibalism all happened prior to any exposure to, or influence from, the so-called “true” religions of christianity, judaism, or islam.

Did I say I was only going to poke it once?

Pappy out.

• Tags: evolution, Fore, G127V, Papua New Guinea
  
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by Pappy November 22nd, 2009, Posted in: Atheism , Religion

One of the most annoying statements religious people make about atheists is that, without belief in a god or gods, an atheist is without moral character. Sometimes the statements are quite wild, such as “You’re an atheist? You must not have any problems with stealing or even killing then, right?”

Just to set the record straight, then, I give you the results of the following study. Given our (atheist)  relative percentage of the general population, it appears that a religious person is about 100 times more likely to commit a crime that will land them in prison. Either that or we’re just too smart to get caught. Either way, I’m okay with the results…

STUDIES: ATHEISTS SUPPLY LESS THAN 1% OF PRISON POPULATIONS

by Wayne Aiken, North Carolina Director

AMERICAN ATHEISTS

In “The New Criminology,” Max D. Schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without religious training is about 1/10th of 1%. W.T. Root, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said, “Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character,” adding that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers were absent from penitentiaries, or nearly so.

During 10 years in Sing-Sing, of those executed for murder 65% were Catholics, 26% Protestants, 6% Hebrew, 2% Pagan, and less than 1/3 of 1% non-religious.

Steiner and Swancara surveyed Canadian prisons and found 1,294 Catholics, 435 Anglicans, 241 Methodists, 135 Baptists, and 1 Unitarian.

Dr. Christian, Superintendent of the N.Y. State Reformatories, checked records of 22,000 prison inmates and found only 4 college graduates. In “Who’s Who,” 91% were college graduates; Christian commented that “intelligence and knowledge produce right living,” and, “crime is the offspring of superstition and ignorance.”

Surveyed Massachusetts reformatories found every inmate to be religious.

In Joliet Prison, there were 2,888 Catholics, 1,020 Baptists, 617 Methodists and no prisoners identified as non-religious.

Michigan had 82,000 Baptists and 83,000 Jews in the state population; but in the prisons, there were 22 times as many Baptists as Jews, and 18 times as many Methodists as Jews. In Sing-Sing, there were 1,553 inmates, 855 of them (over half) Catholics, 518 Protestants, 117 Jews, and 8 non-religious.

Steiner first surveyed 27 states and found 19,400 Christians, 5,000 with no preference and only 3 Agnostics (one each in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Illinois). A later, more exhaustive survey found 60,605 Christians, 5,000 Jews, 131 Pagans, 4,000 “no preference,” and only 3 Agnostics.

In one 19-state survey, Steiner found 15 non-believers, Spiritualists, Theosophists, Deists, Pantheists and 1 Agnostic among nearly 83,000 inmates. He labeled all 15 as “anti-christians.” The Elmira, N.Y. reformatory system overshadowed all others, with nearly 31,000 inmates, including 15,694 Catholics (half) and 10,968 Protestants, 4,000 Jews, 325 refusing to answer, and 0 unbelievers.

In the East, over 64% of inmates are Roman Catholic. Throughout the national prison population, they average 50%. A national census of the general population found Catholics to be about 15% (and they count from the diaper up). Hardly 12% are old enough to commit a crime, and half of these are women. That leaves an adult Catholic population of 6% supplying 50% of the prison population.

On my, oh my! No sooner did I post this (literally!) I received an email stating these numbers didn’t make sense. So, in the interest of educating the mindless religoids, here they are simplified:

I think that’s enough education. Should you (you know who you are, M.D.) need more, buy the Video Professor’s DVD on MS Excel and plug the rest of the numbers in yourself. I know, I know, that’s math, and math is a science, and science is BIG WOOLY BAD in the religio-fantasy world, but them’s the facts.

Pappy out.

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by Pappy November 3rd, 2007, Posted in: History , Religion , World

Who hasn’t heard of the Salem witch trials of 1692? Nineteen men and women, including the town’s Puritan minister, were hanged on Gallows Hill for their participation in witchcraft. Another man was crushed under stone blocks for refusing to submit to trial. Hundreds of others languished in jail under accusations while this madness carried on for almost a year.

A group of teenage girls, for still unknown reasons, began the hysteria by accusing several older women of bewitching them, sending their witch’s familiars to oppress, threaten, and pinch the girls. Preposterous, eh? The real scary part really begins with the town’s response to these teenage pranks. The accused were dragged in for trial. No evidence other than the girls’ testimony was required. The court did consider “spectral evidence”, although that was again mostly claims by victims.

Every time one of the women spoke of their piety, their goodness, or denied the charges, the girls would go into crazed fits, writhing and screaming on the floor. At one point, when Rebbecca Nurse was found innocent by the jury, the girls went into a frenzy. The judge asked the jury to consider this response of evil, and they changed their verdict. Amazingly, order was immediately restored in the court. On July 19th, 1692 she was hanged alongside four other innocent women.

Even though many of the girls admitted they had lied, the executions went on from June until September.

As quickly as it began, it was over. Massachusetts was in shock and the entire region was still dealing with and rationalizing the tragedy almost a decade later. But it was over.

Fast forward now to the 21st century. Man has walked on the Moon, developed and dropped the atomic bomb, peered into the heart of the DNA from which we are made, and sent messages around the globe in mere seconds. Thank goodness we, the enlightened children of our ancestors, are immune to such craziness.

Think again.

Kinshasha, Democratic Republic of Congo, 2007. As many as 18,000 children roam the streets, estranged or abandoned by their families. Poverty rates in the country’s capital have risen so high that families will do almost anything to reduce the number of mouths to feed. Thus the trend has become to accuse a child of sorcery. Test them. Try them. Punish them. Banish them.

Kill them.

The Salem trials never really ended, they just changed venues; adjusted victims. A whole new market has opened up, as religious charlatans accept money to “drive” the evil from the children. The true evil, the evil that can allow these events to happen repeatedly throughout human history is trapped inside of us. It is a part of us. Wherever we go, so goes it. We carry it with our fear and ignorance. We pass it around in our Bible tracts and sermons. We shout it out across the land in Friday prayers.

I encourage you to watch the following video, not because you can do anything to change the world. Watch it and know that you are not enlightened. You are no different from the jury members at the Salem trials. We all deserve a dose of humility as long as this goes on anywhere…

• Tags: 1692, 2007, Congo, Salem, video, witch
  
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by Pappy November 3rd, 2007, Posted in: Religion

Religion: the equivalent to mental cholesterol. It blocks the arteries of the intellect and places blinders on personal accountability. It infuriates me to see people constantly defend religious practices and teachings that quite frankly have no place in modern humanity.

Today’s rant: Wife Beating

Cherie Blair, the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, gave a speech defending a religion she obviously knows nothing about stating:

“It is not laid down in the Koran, that women can be beaten by their husbands or that their evidence should be devalued, as it is in some Islamic courts.”

Historian Robert Spencer tells us this is not the case. In fact the Koran 4:34 tells men to chastise their wives after first warning them and sending them to sleep in separate beds. The word “chastise” is one of the milder translations of the verse. Many editions use the words “scourge” or “beat”.

Pickthall edition: “and scourge them”
Yusuf Ali edition: “(And last) beat them (lightly)”
Al-Hilali/Khan edition: “(and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful)”
Shakir edition: “and beat them”
Sher Ali edition: “and chastise them”
Khalifa edition: “then you may (as a last alternative) beat them”
Arberry edition: “and beat them”
Rodwell edition: “and scourge them”
Sale edition: “and chastise them”
Daryabadi edition: “and beat them”
Asad edition: “then beat them”

Ah, but those that try to defend Islam are constantly assaulting Mr. Spencer’s study of the religion. So fine, don’t believe Spencer. How about Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-’Arifi. On a recent Ramadan television program for young people Al-’Arifi not only clarifies the Koran’s teachings on the subject, he goes so far as to explain how hard you should beat your wife, and you should beat her with a toothpick. Just don’t hit her as hard as you would a child or a donkey…

Beating in the face is forbidden, even when it comes to animals. When a person is beating an animal… Even if you want your camel or donkey to start walking, you are not allowed to beat it in the face. If this is true for animals, it is all the more true when it comes to humans. So beatings should be light and not in the face. Some religious scholars say: “He should beat her with a toothpick.” I happen to have a toothpick with me. A man who is angry with his wife because she doesn’t get it… If he says to her: “Watch out, the child has fallen next to the stove,” or: “Move the child away from the electrical socket,” and she says: “I am busy” – then he beats her with a toothpick or something like it. He doesn’t beat her with a bottle of water, a plate, or a knife. This is forbidden. The scholars said he should beat her with a toothpick.

Say what you want, apologize if you must Mrs. Blair. If Islam’s teachings embarrass you so badly, then bury your head in the sand. But do so using actual research and facts, not what your Liberal party authorized interpretation of Islam says.

Another religious book I hate, the Bible, does at least tell you to “judge a tree by it’s fruit”. The fruit of Islam lies rotten on the floor all over the world: women who are beaten, and girls whose opportunities for education are routinely stripped from them. In the Islamic world, women are baby making machines whose purpose is to provide soldiers and suicide bombers. No amount of apologies or misinformed speeches by Westerners who feel the need to defend Islam will ever make me believe otherwise.

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