Go To Church, Get 10% Off!

Imagine getting a discount from a well known, nationally recognized business simply because you are atheist.  Can you imagine the outcry from the believers? Yet everyday people get discounts because they go to church.  In this scenario, not only did they get discounts, their church also got a donation of 10% of the final bill!

I agree with Jeff Wagg, the author who covered this in Randi.org's blog, that we must also be wary of giving into "knee-jerk militant atheism" because I hope that it would be seen equally as silly if the tables were turned and businesses began offering people discounts based on their lack of belief.

More importantly, Jeff brought up the point that it violates Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 anyway:

TITLE II--INJUNCTIVE RELIEF AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN PLACES OF PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION
SEC. 201. (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, and privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.

I have to say though that to me this is harmless but I still agree with Jeff on the principle of the whole thing.  However, the cynic in me tells me  that it's nothing more than businesses capitalizing on the mass of people looking to eat a quick lunch right after their morning service.  I mean, if these businesses were so religious, they wouldn't be working on the sabbath, as the good lord commanded.  At least I can tip my hat to Chick-Fil-A in that respect as they're losing money by being closed on Sundays because of their adherence to scripture, so I have to give them that even if I think it's pretty fracking stoopid.

Go here to read Jeff's post in full on Randi.org

Playing Your Dreams Like Video Games

How many times have you dreamt only to awake and wonder why you wouldn't have known it was a dream?  Consider that when you dream, you can take flight, and defy laws of physics without really thinking twice about it.  So why is it that when you're dreaming, it's often that you don't question your state of reality when what is actually taking place is otherwise pretty damn absurd?

Lucid dreaming is an age-old thing.  Dreaming, let alone lucid dreaming, has been a mystery for our ancestors, though scientists believe that dreaming actually plays an evolutionary role in "enabl[ing] early humans to rehearse responses to the many dangerous events they faced in real life." [via]  Lucid dreaming has also been researched scientifically though the average person doesn't experience this type of dream so often.

Some time last year, I awoke from a lucid dream and I excitedly scoured the internet for ways to achieve these dreams more easily.  There are people that systematically attempt to have as many lucid dreams as possible.  This site has a rundown of some good tips, btw.

Lucid dreaming is not to be confused with dream control, which is exactly what it sounds like, but achieving an awareness during your dreams (lucidity) is likely to increase the extent to which you can deliberately influence the course of events; hence dream control.

Without getting into the more technical reasons about why we dream (which I actually began to write about-- not so ironically lulling myself into a comatose slumber), I'll just explain to you my experiences of dream control.

I have lucid dreams pretty often and have actually controlled my dreams like a video game.  The down-side to this is that I actually told my friends about a few of the dreams that I had, and they looked at me like I was crazy.  In my defense, I was certain I was dreaming and was the only reason I decided to experiment.

To start, there are certain exercises you can do throughout the day to ready yourself for awareness of your dreams when they occur, and hopefully leading you to control them when you know they're occurring.  This might mean doing otherwise trivial actions such as turning off the  light-switch to see if it actually turns off the light, or looking at a block of text in a book, looking away, and then looking at that very same block of text to see if the words have changed.  Another thing you can do is to look at a digital clock and see if the bars that make up the numers are static or if they dance around.  You may be wondering what all of this has to do with dreaming.  To explain one, it is said that turning off a lightswitch is impossible in a dream because it's nearly impossible for your brain to construct a scene in which it's totally dark.

The thinking goes that if you practice these exercises during the day then you're more likely to question your state of reality in dreams.  So I did just that.  I woke up and documented some of these dreams, often times right after I woke up; be it 1 AM, 4 AM, etc.  I did not want to forget the details.  My lucidity sometimes waned from complete confidence in my dreaming state to questioning whether or not I was actually dreaming.  When I realized I was dreaming, I tried not to excite myself so much as to wake myself up.  When it worked, it worked well.  Needless to say, I seemed to be on an endless conquest for virtual ass.

For your reading entertainment (and my utter embarrassment) I'm giving you the exact notes of my dreams that I quickly jotted down in the wee hours of the morning on Notepad, so I apologize in advance for the horrible formatting.  You'll notice I repeat some of the things I've already mentioned in this blog because I wrote my notes in preparation to share with some friends via e-mail last June.  Enjoy:

Dream (Night of 6/8, morning of 6/9)

2 Woke up. Heard Christian singing in apt in middle of night. Woke up and sang L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole.





I didn't realize it at first, but I noticed that my radio was playing the song as well.





3. I looked at my radio after I wondered why it spontaneously came on as this hadn't ever occured on any





nights before. I looked at the alarm settings and saw that it had two settings: an alarm for Tuesday morning





alone, and a separate alarm for Weds-Monday.





4. Isaac spent the night and got up and asked if I was scared of being alone and left to go upstairs.





5. Strangers walked into my apt to use my restroom. It appears they just came back from a night of





clubbing and they spoke of electricity being out throughout the city.





6. A girl I didn't know embraced me from behind and was hinting at having sex. I was not attracted to her





and passed her off to someone else.





7. I was reading my blog on Myspace and saw that I blogged about some band very recently that I was apparently





very fond of although I had never heard of this band before.





I knew I was dreaming - however it was a low-level lucidity state. I woke up and wrote the aforementioned details with an intent to have another





chance at lucidity. I browsed the web for techniques I had read before on how to do so. I've always achieved lucidity without much effort,





but I wanted to try all I could to do it again. I placed the link at the bottom of this e-mail.





dream #2





1 Got out of bed. Saw person next to me that wasn't Christian. Instantly was aware I was dreaming.





Grabbed their face and smashed it to the ground. Got up with the intent to get laid. Walked out of my room and realized I lived in a palace.





2. Walked into a door. Turned around. Created barriers so no one could get in. Tried to make a brick wall but couldn't. Instead Made bars





that covered the room leading into the other room of women.





I walk into the door and there are girls in this area laying in beds encased in this glass room with raised beds in rows, but each bed alternated in





height and the ones adjacent to each other were different planes, being about three feet higher and lower than the next.





I go in to pick my girl. I survey the women and realize that some of them look absolutely horrid and resembled the creature on Harry





Potter that worked at that bank with long, bumpy noses. I eventually decided on three women extremly hot women that my mind created and asked everyone else to leave the room.





For some reason there were men who I think were bodygaurds/security and they questioned my motives. "Why must we leave?"





Judging from past experiences with trying to score in my lucid dreams, I knew this guy would be trouble. I didn't hesistate to put out a gat and shoot him in the face just for questioning me. I then looked to the other side of the room on the floor and created a trap-door, and underneath





there was water. I ordered the other security guy to get rid of the body. He didn't listen to me so I ended up killing him as well.





Next Dream:





I was walking around my apartment and noticed that Ali was walking up my back staircase. I opened the door and told her I was surprised to see her





because I thought she was on tour. She said she was but remembered I told her about a day I was taking off and since she had a break too,





she figured she'd come visit. Eventually Dawn, Ashley, Luis and some other unrecognizable girl was there as well and we were all talking on the floor of my living room





and we were sleeping on the floor in sleeping-bags.





Ashley was complaining about boys and asked me how she should feel when she goes out next time we're out. I told her she should feel





exactly how she's feeling at that moment (because I thought it was pretty stupid to ask how you should





make yourself feel) but I added that she should at least try to be in great spirits. Dawn was complaining





about the curvature of her back and asked me to feel a bump that was on one side of her back. I told her it wasn't noticeable and not to worry.





Later, someone (like an authority figure) arrived home and we were all trying to get everyone to quiet down. Luis was shining a flashlight





and Ali told him to 'shut off that fucking flashlight.' Luis giggled and said 'geez.'





Not sure who that guy was.





Woke up because Christian kicked me.





Dream #3





I am walking around town searching for women again. I instantly know I'm dreaming.





This strange looking Asian girl jumps in front of me as I'm walking and starts giggling.





I grab her face and hurl her into the trees that are about 30 feet away. I walk into this little park area that has benches and a gazeebo





and I begin killing people for no reason at all other than the fact that I don't like the cut of their jibs.





I grab a guy by his face, slam his head on the ground and then step on it. As I step on his face I realize that I was barefoot.





I remember specifically thinking how real that felt for a dream. Then I pull out a glock and shoot this other guy





in the face. I never got around to finding a girl but I thought about what more I could do. I could only think of one cool thing. I wanted to





fly to the moon. I jumped up into the air and blasted off into space. A little into the flight I realized that I might want to put a space-suit





on. (Apparently this is low-level lucid dreaming - where you're aware that you're dreaming, but you don't realize that you aren't completely





in control and you forget that you cannot be harmed. I couldn't make the spacesuit appear so I just gave up on that. I am flying toward the moon at an exhilirating rate, however it doesn't





appear to be getting any closer. So I drastically change speeds. Finally I am almost to the moon but I can't get it to look like the moon.





I could only get it to look like Earth so I bypass it. Then I try again but the moon just looks way too small and doesn't ever look like the surface





of the moon but rather just a bunch of grey images and static.





I end up in a dark neighborhood and I see a car approaching. It's a car full of the women that were supposed to be the three women I picked





earlier. They were all smiles and extremely sexy. I jumped in the car to drive toward my lair to give them each a ravishing. I hear squeaking





from the 'real world' and I realize that something is attempting to wake me up and I fight it at first, but I couldn't any longer. The birds near my





window totally blocked me. That's all I remember.





I have never had that many lucid dreams in a night that I remember. The best tip given on the site is to even question reality





in your 'waking life'. You might want to try this throughout the day but especially at night. Routinely question your reality. Look at digital





clocks to see if digits can be formed. (Usually they cannot on a digital watch.) Also, in my first dream - I didn't understand why my light





didn't come off. Then I remembered this movie I watched (which you should watch if you haven't) called Waking Life. They mentioned that light





are virtually always impossible to turn off. I wondered about that but then if you think about it, if it were totally dark, than means your mind





just went blank. Another thing that was mentioned on the site below, as well as on the movie, was that if you read text you'll find that the





text changes if you read it again. Really, if you've even gotten to the point of thinking to do these things in your dream then you're already there.





Another thing I did that the site below suggested was that I question reality in my waking life, since you can never be 100% sure, afterall.





I know it seems a bit silly to ask yourself right now if you're reading this and if your existence at this point is real, however, more often than not





you think your dreams are real and you fail to question those as well. Get in the habit of asking yourself about reality and performing several





tests throughout the day and you'll find that it will almost become second nature to do the same thing in your dreams.





It mentioned to chant something like keep telling yourself that you're dreaming as you're falling asleep. What I did instead was I kept telling





myself 'If I see someone other than Christian, I'm dreaming.' 'If I'm somewhere other than my bedroom, I'm dreaming."





I kept repeating that over and over and it got into my subconscious and I had no problem at all becoming lucid. What I also noticed





was that the dreams were like watching HD tv when you are aware that you're dreaming. When you think about it, images are basically constructed





in your mind anyway - so what can create the crispest images than the actual source? Everything seemed so real even when I knew they weren't.





I realize now that the quality of my lucidity was never a constant. Sometimes I didn't realize the full power I had even though I was aware I was dreaming. Other times I realized



I was invincible and that's when it is really fun. I can't wait to try this again tonight.

1. In apt with Christian.  Light on.  The light would not turn off.

Dream (Night of 6/8, morning of 6/9)

1. In apt with son.  Light on.  The light would not turn off.

2  Woke up.  Heard son singing in apt in middle of night.  Woke up and sang L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole.

I didn't realize it at first, but I noticed that my radio was playing the song as well.

3.  I looked at my radio after I wondered why it spontaneously came on as this hadn't ever occurred on any nights before.  I looked at the alarm settings and saw that it had two settings:  an alarm for Tuesday morning alone, and a separate alarm for Weds-Monday.

4.  Younger brother spent the night and got up and asked if I was scared of being alone and left to go upstairs.

5.  Strangers walked into my apt to use my restroom.  It appears they just came back from a night of clubbing and they spoke of electricity being out throughout the city.

6.  A girl I didn't know embraced me from behind and was hinting at having sex.  I was not attracted to her and passed her off to someone else.

7.  I was reading my blog and saw that I blogged about some band very recently that I was apparently very fond of although I had never heard of this band before.

I knew I was dreaming - however it was a low-level lucidity state.  I woke up and wrote the aforementioned details with an intent to have another

chance at lucidity.  I browsed the web for techniques I had read before on how to do so.  I've always achieved lucidity without much effort,

but I wanted to try all I could to do it again.

dream #2

1  Got out of bed.  Saw person next to me that wasn't my son.  Instantly was aware I was dreaming.

Grabbed their face and smashed it to the ground.  Got up with the intent to get laid.  Walked out of my room and realized I lived in a palace.

2.  Walked into a door.  Turned around.  Created barriers so no one could get in.  Tried to make a brick wall but couldn't.  Instead Made bars

that covered the room leading into the other room of women.

I walk into the door and there are girls in this area laying in beds encased in this glass room with raised beds in rows, but each bed alternated in

height and the ones adjacent to each other were different planes, being about three feet higher and lower than the next.

I go in the meet my harem of women and pick my girl.  I survey the women and realize that some of them look absolutely horrid and resembled the creature on Harry Potter that worked at that bank.  Most of the girls had long, bumpy noses.  I eventually decided on three women extremly hot women that my mind created and asked everyone else to leave the room.

For some reason there were men who I think were bodygaurds/security and they questioned my motives.  "Why must we leave?"  Judging from past experiences with trying to score in my lucid dreams, I knew this guy would be trouble.  I didn't hesistate to put out a gat and shoot him in the face just for questioning me.  I then looked to the other side of the room on the floor and created a trap-door, and underneath there was water.  I ordered the other security guy to get rid of the body.  He didn't listen to me so I ended up killing him as well.

Next Dream:

I was walking around my apartment and noticed that my friend was walking up my back staircase.  I opened the door and told her I was surprised to see her because I thought she was on tour with her band.  She said she was but she reminded me that I told her about a day-off from work I was taking and since she had a break too, she figured she'd come visit.  Eventually two of my other friends and my older brother were in my apartment as well and we were all talking on the floor of my living room and sleeping on the floor in sleeping-bags.

One of my friends was complaining about boys and asked me how she should feel when she goes out next time we're out.  I told her she should feel

exactly how she's feeling at that moment (because I thought it was pretty stupid to ask how you should make yourself feel) but I added that she should at least try to be in great spirits.  Another chick friend was complaining

about the curvature of her back and asked me to feel a bump that was on one side of her back.  I told her it wasn't noticeable and not to worry.

Later, someone (like an authority figure) arrived home and we were all trying to get everyone to quiet down.  My older brother was shining a flashlight

and my chick friend (that initially showed up) told him to 'shut off that fucking flashlight.'  Brother giggled and said 'geez.'

Not sure who that guy was.

Woke up because my son kicked me.

Dream #3

I am walking around town searching for women again.  I instantly know I'm dreaming.  (Damn, I'm getting good at this shit.)

This strange looking Asian girl jumps in front of me as I'm walking and starts giggling.  I grab her face and hurl her into the trees that are about 30 feet away.  I walk into this little park area that has benches and a gazeebo

and I begin killing people for no reason at all other than the fact that I don't like the cut of their jibs.  I grab a guy by his face, slam his head on the ground and then step on it.  As I step on his face I realize that I was barefoot.

I remember specifically thinking how real that felt for a dream.  Then I pull out a glock and shoot this other guy  in the face.  I never got around to finding a girl but I thought about what more I could do.  I could only think of one cool thing.  I wanted to  fly to the moon. I jumped up into the air and blasted off into space.  A little into the flight I realized that I might want to put a space-suit on.  (Apparently this is low-level lucid dreaming - where you're aware that you're dreaming, but you don't realize that you aren't completely

in control and you forget that you cannot be harmed. ) I couldn't make the spacesuit appear so I just gave up on that. I am flying toward the moon at an exhilarating rate, however it doesn't appear to be getting any closer.  So I drastically change speeds.  Finally I am almost to the moon but I can't get it to look like the moon. I could only get it to look like Earth so I bypass it.  Then I try again but the moon just looks way too small and doesn't ever look like the surface of the moon but rather just a bunch of grey images and static.

I end up in a dark neighborhood and I see a car approaching.  It's a car full of the women that were supposed to be the three women I picked

earlier.  They were all smiles and extremely sexy.  I jumped in the car to drive toward my lair to give them each a ravishing.  I hear squeaking from the 'real world' and I realize that something is attempting to wake me up and I fight it at first, but I couldn't any longer. The birds near my window totally blocked me.  That's all I remember.

I have never had that many lucid dreams all in one night that I remember. The best tip given on the site is to even question reality in your 'waking life'.  You might want to try this throughout the day but especially at night.  Routinely question your reality.  Look at digital clocks to see if digits can be formed.  (Usually they cannot on a digital watch.)  Also, in my first dream - I didn't understand why my light didn't come off.  Then I remembered this movie I watched (which you should watch if you haven't) called Waking Life.  They mentioned that lights are virtually always impossible to turn off.

Another thing that was mentioned on the site below, as well as on the movie, was that if you read text you'll find that the text changes if you read it again.  Really, if you've even gotten to the point of thinking to do these things in your dream then you're already there.

Another thing I did that the site below suggested was that I question reality in my waking life, since you can never be 100% sure, after all.  I know it seems a bit silly to ask yourself right now if you're reading this and if your existence at this point is real, however, more often than not you think your dreams are real and you fail to question those as well.  Get in the habit of asking yourself about reality and performing severaltests throughout the day and you'll find that it will almost become second nature to do the same thing in your dreams.

It mentioned to chant something like keep telling yourself that you're dreaming as you're falling asleep.  What I did instead was I kept telling

myself , "If I see someone other than my son; I'm dreaming. If I'm somewhere other than my bedroom, I'm dreaming."

I kept repeating that over and over and it got into my subconscious and I had no problem at all becoming lucid.  What I also noticed was that the dreams were like watching HD tv when you are aware that you're dreaming.  When you think about it, images are basically constructed in your mind anyway - so what can create the crispest images than the actual source?  Everything seemed so real even when I knew they weren't.

I realize now that the quality of my lucidity was never a constant.  Sometimes I didn't realize the full power I had even though I was aware I was dreaming.  Other times I realized I was invincible and that's when it is really fun.  I can't wait to try this again tonight.

So I told some people my dreams and they jokingly (maybe) think I'm pretty fucked up in the head.  Hey, I just knew I was dreaming, right?

Happy 40th, Apollo 11.

It's pretty fucking mind-boggling to think that we have actually been to the moon and back.  Come on, you jaded bastards!  The moon; the fucking moon!  Then again, there are those that somewhat dogmatically maintain we haven't been there.  I've somewhat already uneloquently addressed that in a post in late 2007, as have many others; not limited to Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait in this well constructed argument on his blog.

Of course if you're a Flat Earther, you still believe that we never landed on the moon because if but for no other reason, (though I suspiciously surmise there are) it would mean that people have actually seen for themselves that the world is, I dare say, not flat.

In honor of this day, I went to see Moon which was not exactly what I expected it to be because of some elements I didn't see coming.  I can't talk about it too much without giving much away; but I recommend it if you can avoid thinking a movie's a waste if by the opening credits you're not incessantly bombarded with some really fake CGI explosions and the odd areola or three.

Given the scientic progress we've made this past century or less, it's a bit aggravating that there are many who still want to keep us in the dark and those that willfully choose to remain in it.  This isn't just about the moon landing, this is about science in general.  More to the point, science that is mostly ignored or refuted because it conflicts with what their momma and dadda told them was so.

This past year or so I've really seen the world in a different light.  I don't want to say that I'm becoming unromantic towards things, but maybe more realistic, which I suppose has the side effect of making me unromantic in some things!  But at the same time, Richard Dawkins said it best that Christianity, or any religion that tells you that your real life is in the next life, is sort of cheating you of your once in a lifetime chance of living here and now.  We should be living life to the fullest now and appreciating this one life we've got. Think of all that had to come to fruition for you to even be reading this right now!

Anyway, some may see me as dry in certain areas because of my mindset.  It's to the point that I don't even feel obligated to say 'bless you' when people sneeze because there's no longer any reasonable chance to deduce that the sneeze was actually a spirit escaping their body.  I'll say it because of the cultural expectation, and truly, I don't think most people think twice about that phrase anyway.  I try not to be militant with my remarks; and I'd like to say that it's not just religion I am turned off by, it's superstition in general.  I'll do a ouija board in a heart beat.  I'll summon the devil all day long because I don't believe in it either.  That show TAPS?  Yeah.  It's a fucking con.  It's in the producers best interest to keep shit interesting and the proles will eat it right up.  Think about it all the things that are riding on your shoulders if you're a TV executive: advertising revenvue, appeasing your shareholders, among other things.  What are you gonna do, walk into a house, sit there and not be dramatic about it?  I'm pretty unsuperstitious.  I'll even change my underwear despite the fact that I might have worn them the past five or six times I won in poker.  Superstitions make us feel as if we have a semblance of control in an otherwise uncontrollable world.  Talk about a psychological pacifier.  I feel that if I must be superstitious in one thing, I shouldn't pick and choose which ones to believe, yet everyone does that.

I don't recall how I got off in this tangent.  I started talking about the moon landing, after all.  I suppose if I'm gonna have my head in the clouds that I have it farther in orbit.  Weaning yourself from ritualistic, superstitious habits doesn't come about overnight, but it comes if you aren't afraid to feel a little vulernable.  Some might say that if it doesn't hurt anything to be superstitious and makes someone feel a little more comfortable, then why bother?  Well, I don't need that crutch, and it's a little arrogant to think that I'm good enough to get along without it but others aren't.  That's pretty much my point.  Anyway, Happy 40th, Apollo.  I have to admit though that it's kind of a bummer that it revealed the moon to not be made of cheese.  I still refuse the believe that.

Would it sort of be like not existing?

I was thinking-off the other day about how much of a bore life would be if I suddenly couldn't hear anymore. Than I tried answering the age-old question about which I'd prefer; deafness or blindness. I have no fucking clue. Then I of course thought about Helen Keller and her deafblindedness. Of course it would seem so much worse if you had been able to see and hear before your onset of deafblindedness because then you'd really know what you're missing out on.

Then I thought about the case of the girl who cannot feel pain; or even more to the point; the girl who cannot feel.  Now imagine if you were deaf, blind, and the real kicker is that you also could not feel.  Would you even be aware of your own existence?

What in the everliving fuck would that be like?!  What would go on in one's mind?  Would you have a personality?  Do you pretty much not even exist in the Descartian point of view?  Now I'm sure there's still got to be some sort of shit going on in your head, but what kind of shit?  If you've never had a memory of pain, what would nothingness feel like?  What sorts of things would fill up your mind as you sit in the numbing darkness?

This is really bothering me but I wouldn't go too far as to say they are suffering.  Is being unaware of your surroundings really beautiful in that it's blissful?  But another perspective outside of that person's is needed in order to apply the word 'blissful' and 'beautiful' to a state such as that because those terms are comparitive terms that the other person has no knowledge of.  I see a lot of parallels with this mindfuck and what I wrote about regarding the idea of a perfect place such as Heaven.