More Evidence of Theist Blindness

The earthquake in Haiti was and continues to be an unmitigated disaster, relief efforts are being hampered by political slowness, thousands in need of aid. However it is bizarre to me that every time another person is pulled from the wreckage of their house somehow god gets the credit.

Apparently the hard working people of the international aid effort is only a side line to the great hand of the almighty. The small fact that if god had wanted to stop this disaster he could have done with a wave of his hand, if you believe this kind of thing, seems to have been forgotten. More the point as everything apparently happens to his design then he caused the damn thing in the first place, hence anyone who survives is a testament to either his incompetence or fickleness.

Neither of these attributes is particularly desirable in a mortal leader let alone an all powerful sky daddy. Consistency and aptitude are what you want, and yet the blatant lack of either of these traits never seems to phase the faithful.

Yet again we see god being credited with the hard work of us mere mortals, sadly often by the very people who should be cursing the very concept of a benign, loving god. I am sorry but if you want to give god credit for rescuing you then please apportion him the blame for dropping you house on you in the first place. Also ask yourself why you are so special that he had to go kill the rest of your family but save you?

Computer says No

Well it certainly is interesting working for a business that deals with ‘sensitive personal’ data. Our governance department seem to think it their job to stop us actually releasing any of the work we do. First they lock out all the USB ports on our computers so we can’t copy anything to them and now they refuse to let us use our ‘secure’ data sharing system because it is not secure enough.

Apparently they are concerned by people out there with super computers with nothing better to do with their time breaking a 128 encryption; if it’s not 256 then it’s not good enough. Personally if I had a machine capable of brute forcing a 128 encryption I would be using it for more interesting things than getting access to hospital attendance records. While I am sure that there would be some juicy secrets to tell I am not convinced it would be worth the time or money.

What I find particularly frustrating is they continually tell us what we can’t do without any suggestion of how to do what we need to. I appreciate that they have a job to do, but at what point to common sense enter the fray?

Though I suppose, to be fair, the intended recipient for our data couldn’t read it anyway, seeing as how we have to zip it in WinZip 9, as directed by their information governance, but as an organisation they use WinZip 8 so they can’t open the files anyway

Subsequently we are an information processing organisation that cannot release information to a customer who couldn’t read it anyway. Makes you wonder why you get up in the morning.

Religious Morality

This is a topic that seems to keep coming up, including in a comment to one of my previous posts. Brazen Hussey effectively asked the old question how can you be moral without god?

I have never quite understood this stand point, particularly when being spouted by people who have abrogated all responsibility for there actions to a being that cannot be questioned, either due to his ineffability (their argument) or lack of existence (mine).

How can you consider your self moral when you accept no responsibility for the decisions behind your actions? If it is claimed that god has said a particular action is good then does that make it so by definition? even if that action would be counter to common good and or against the golden rule?

Surely this is just a case of might makes right, in their world view, god is the most powerful being hence can dictate the rules, to go against these rules invites ultimate punishment and to pander to them ultimate reward, this does not speak of the morality of these edicts, simple the ability of the one making them to enforce his will. Further this does bring into question the motives of anyone doing 'good' because of pronouncements made on the behalf of such a being. If the only reason to do good is to either avoid punishment or gain reward then the choice is not moral but mercenary, not a question of ethics but expediency. How is being a good Samaritan to get into heaven any different from being paid by a dictator to uphold his laws? both are done on the basis of the results of your actions rather than whether the actions are them selves are justified.

I also find it interesting that most Christians, sorry to have to bang on about only one religion but it is the one I know the most about, seem to want to pick and chose the rules they follow. There are plenty of laws in the bible that Christians ignore and yet they still claim the ones they follow are divine. Either the whole book is godly or the whole book can be questioned, you don't get to pick and choose, if you do how do you decide which ones to follow and which ones to ignore? If some of these 'divine' laws can be ignored, what is the rational for doing so?

Suffice to say I do not need a god to be good, I have sympathy and empathy to allow me to understand the consequences of my actions, I have a good understanding of the common good to allow me to make decisions that are bigger than just myself and, most importantly, I accept responsibility for my actions rather than trying to hide behind the edicts of the biggest bully around.