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Traci picked up a Wii Fit about a week ago and those things are not easy to get!  She actually bought one from some dude on eBay because all the local stores had sold out.  Apparently after a national spot on a morning show the pre-orders went through the roof and there are just not enough extra to go around.

The Wii Fit, like the Wii itself, is pretty awesome.  It focuses on balance, stretching, cardio, and strength training.  Exercise is like cleaning the toilet to me; I hate every second I spend at it and can’t wait for it to be over.  This thing, however, is actually a lot of fun.  If I only had more free time I’d do it more often (that could be said for the Wii in general though).

It’s more expensive than a game by itself because it comes with the Wii Fit board.  The board and the controller are used in conjunction with the game.

It also tracks your progress and goals, and allows you to set up a personalized fitness plan.

Overall I think if you’re wanting to exercise even a little and you’ve got the cash pick one up.  Just don’t be surprised if it ends up on backorder.

Here are, I believe, the salient points from the preceeding pages and from the preface of the NIV Bible.  The first thing I noticed was this:

You will be pleased to know that a portion  of the purchase price of your new NIV Bible has been provided to International Bible Society to help spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.

I’ll be honest here; I really wasn’t pleased to know this.  I knew I’d be contributing to the cause by buying the book but it was only $5.95 and a necessity I really couldn’t avoid, if I wanted to use the NIV Bible.  I’d dabbled in the King James version but I found it difficult to trudge through and probably a little less complete than the NIV Bible.  A friend just recommended the NET Bible which is a great free resource.  I’m sure I’ll be referencing and quoting both of these versions periodically throughout this project but most likely I’ll primarily be using the NIV Bible.

(Note: When I mention “IBS” here I mean the “International Bible Society”, not “Irritable Bowel Syndrome”, as one might think.  The irony is not lost on me.)

On Page V I’m told that the Bible was written by many …read more »

I want this on a t-shirt so I can wear it to the Creation Museum.

So today begins “The Bible Study Project”, a project I’ve been planning for some time but just now finally got around to.  Lately I’ve spent a lot of time reading both atheist and Christian books and articles.  Each of these make interesting points while quoting verses from the Bible.  I’m openly skeptical of the Bible, the message it sends, the actual morality it teaches, its followers’ actual piety, and of Christianity’s audacious claims of divinity.  I’m a science-minded individual, preferring proof to faith, and the Bible, quite frankly, just doesn’t provide me with adequate proof to support the incredible and miraculous claims it makes.  At least not what I’ve read so far which is limited.

David Mills says that one of the contributing reasons people believe science and religion can harmoniously coincide with each other is because neither side really understands the other.  Religious people generally don’t know a lot about science and scientists often don’t know much about religion.  There’s a hopeful ideology that the two can find a common ground that really doesn’t exist, at least in David’s opinion.

I think he’s right but I want to find out for myself.  I don’t believe I can accurately and effectively continue to …read more »

I was watching a particularly amusing video clip sent by a friend to me of Sean Hannity having his ass handed to him by Christoper Hitchens and Hannity, in true Fox News fashion, pulls out the same tired old list of atheist mass murderers in an attempt to vilify and dehumanize atheists across the world. O’Reilly does the same thing, as do a number of conservative ditto heads. He sites Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Joseph Stalin in particular. He refers to atheists as “good atheist communists” which is almost juvenile in its intended misrepresentation and blatant misdirectional “sleight of hand”. He’s pulling the same routine, attempting to imply that these people committed their heinous crimes because of their atheism, not because they were homicidal megalomaniacs.

The non-belief in a deity has little more to do with the motivation for these people’s crimes than their hair color or their favorite food. If someone is homicidal they’ll find a way to carry out their plans, regardless of religion. Religion can be twisted any which way; it’s not an impediment to immorality. It’s the same old tired argument, made time and time again to inextricably combine morality with religion. It’s a tactic fundamentalists have used for centuries and they’re still doing it today. It’s tired, it’s old, but, apparently, it’s effective.

Since Hannity has decided that all atheists are “good atheist communists” and are mass-murderers then I thought I’d present a list of other atheists to “watch out for”. You might be surprised by this list which includes the likes of Woody Allen, Lance Armstrong, Isaac Asimov, Berkeley Breathed, Warren Buffett, Rodney Dangerfield, Jodie Foster, Bill Gates, Katharine Hepburn, Penn Jillette, Billy Joel, Angelina Jolie, Diane Keaton, Bruce Lee, John Malkovich, Barry Manilow, Julianne Moore, Desmond Morris, Jack Nicholson, Ron Reagan Jr., Keanu Reeves, Gene Roddenberry, Andy Rooney, Salman Rushdie, Teller, Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, William Shatner, and Linus Torvalds, just to name a few.

I guess Hannity didn’t want to mention the …read more »