Sunday, March 31, 2013

Blue Collar Heathens Online Radio by Blue Collar Heathens | Blog Talk Radio

Blue Collar Heathens Online Radio by Blue Collar Heathens | Blog Talk Radio

Another attack?... always with the attacking!

Here we go with another attack! on Christianity?
From what I understand a bunch of conservative people were pissed off today. Why? you ask... well I am going to tell you why, Cesar Chavez... that's why! You see there's this search engine called Google (you know the most famous search engine/household name/ verb) did not happen to advertise Easter on Easter. I know what your thinking {I thought Christianity was the only religion?} That however is not the case.
President Obama declared the 31st to be Cesar Chavez day. "I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate service, community, and educational programs to honor Cesar Chavez's enduring legacy." Sounds like we just lost another day off...




So that brings us to why... From my own perspective, I do not see this as Google attacking anything. I see a widely used product. Every type of person uses Google, religion is not universal. Many other people who do not subscribe to Christianity may be just as offended as these Christians who were not given their special attention. According a Google spokesperson said "We enjoy celebrating holidays at Google but, as you may imagine, it's difficult for us to choose which events to highlight on our site. Sometimes for a given date we feature an historical event or influential figure that we haven't in the past."

Since March 31'st was recently adopted as Cesar Chavez day that was the focus. I checked out the Google doodles page and saw they had one in 2000. I have not heard complaints before, then again I probably was not paying attention then. 

Word up!
         Steven V.


Spring Celebration time (a.k.a. Easter)

Today as I sit and contemplate our humble beginnings, Easter is put into a different perspective. For some, Easter is the celebration of Jesus' (zombie like) resurrection. For others Higan ({japan}spirits crossing over to nirvana) as well as Nowruz ( Iranian new year, stems back to Zoroastrianism) are celebrated around the same time. These events are well known in the areas they are celebrated, as Easter is to us.
I mention these holidays because their roots are older than all of these religious traditions. 

Our ancestors living on the plains of Africa 60,000+ years ago also did some egg decorating. Pagan rituals have been passed down through thousands of generations, celebrating the coming of spring and the rebirth of life. We used animal symbols to represent fertility like eggs and rabbits. Humans began to celebrate spring to welcome back food and warmth from the depths of the winter. The rituals also helped us with agriculture, timing when to plant seeds and when to begin hunting and gathering again. Our ancestors began to track these seasonal changes and taught the next generations how to remember by using rituals like these. Eventually we developed dances and story telling about amazing things that took place behind the scenes of nature. These amazing stories about the inner most workings of nature quenched our thirst for answers. 

Now in the twenty first century however we know the answers. We have discovered the true under-workings of nature. We know what spring is and that it arrives every year and why it arrives. We no longer need to assert magic is the cause. Yet... every year these celebrations continue to give thanks and pay homage to stories we created to answer a question we could not properly answer at the time. 

Over and out,
          Steven V.

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Worried about your package not arriving? Try being an atheist!

Recently in Germany a shoe company titled Atheist shoes tested a hypothesis using the 
United States postal service. 

“We have lots of customers in the USA, but sometimes the shoes we send them take longer than they should to arrive, or even go missing,” the atheist shoe website declared “And when some of our customers asked us not to use ATHEIST-branded packaging tape on their shipments, we started to wonder if the delays were caused by the US Postal Service taking offence at our overt godlessness.”

They tested this theory by mailing two packages to 89 United States customers in 49 states, one box with the ATHEIST tape and one without. 
The packages with ATHEIST tape took 3 days longer to arrive and were 10 times more likely to disappear. They also conducted similar experiments in Europe, these tests showed no bias. 

“Interestingly, this seems to be a national problem — traditionally less religious and more liberal states also saw high levels of delay and disappearance,” they wrote. “Sadly, many of our customers who took part in this experiment were not surprised by our findings, even thought tampering with post is a Federal Offence.”

The results of the company did show some statistical significance, so they have decided to stop using the ATHEIST packing tape on all American shipments. The company's delivery times are already improving.