Prostitution vs. Organized Religion

My Heinlein quote did not go unnoticed. I was challenged on Hobbes, a local forum, to defend the charge that religion is the “oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.” As if I didn’t have better things to do, I stayed up half the night writing a 3000 word response on the topic of “Prostitution vs. Organized Religion: Which is more productive?” Enjoy – if you dare.
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"Missile-smuggling plot"? What plot?

God knows, I’m all for blowing to hell any terrorist fuckers than want to mess with the U.S. of A. However I suspect that this latest "missile-smuggling plot" is basically a PR stunt by the FBI, perhaps motivated by the upcoming elections. I was watching an interview with a former FBI chief investigator, and listened to him answer questions for several minutes about the "foiled plan." Guess what he said? NOTHING. He went on and on about how terrorists were bad (um, DUH!), how terrorism is a global problem, blah, blah, but nothing whatsoever about what this "plot" was about. Methinks, some undercover FBI agents promised this Indian guy a ton of money in exchange for smuggling a "package" into America. Meanwhile, the Russian security agents working with the FBI conveniently sold it to him. That’s all that ever happened — no plot to shoot down any airliners ever existed, and no sale would have happened if some poor sucker hadn’t been convinced to smuggle a package accross the ‘lake’. Meanwhile, while the FBI is pulling publicity stunts, Congress is restricting the military’s abilities to take out the real terrorists. Good planning, guys.

While you wouldn’t guess it on campus, Texas A&M really does have an active fundamentalist population. Depending on how you look at it, it’s either scary, silly, or plain stupid how seriously these guys take their fantasies. Some of them are quite intelligent, but debating Objectivism with them, I’ve realized that they’re quite hopeless.

In other news, portable tele-presence for doctors, another great Cox and Forkum, and Hong Kong Nazi Chic?

Three Proofs Against the Existence of God

I was feeling argumentative tonight, so I started a debate on God at the TexAgs forum. This post is mostly for my use in some future debate, but check out my arguments if you care to.

Edit: I realized that my arguments have some major flaws. While true, the background knowledge required to understand the concepts involved requires that the reader be an atheist/Objectivist before he reads them. So, I appreciate the compliments, but stand by for a rewritten version designed to respect the silly theist’s hierarchy of knowledge.
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