hale-bopp

december 23rd's astronomy picture of the day

great park balloon

yup, i rode the carousel too!

altho the great park balloon isn't a hot air balloon, i'm crossing it off my bucket list anyway because it's close enough. (tho someday i would love to actually be in a real hot air balloon.) i've been wanting to go for a while, and rip and i actually went last month to try to ride it but we were too late and all the spots were full. being free and all, it's very popular! but we went again this sunday morning, bright and early, and finally got to ride it. :)

since it's a tethered helium balloon, the ride is actually completely quiet. and you can't look up into the balloon like how you can on a hot hair balloon. from getting on to getting off , the whole ride is only about 10 minutes with about 7 minutes at the top. so it's a very short ride. you get up to 400 ft up tho, which is pretty high (tho not nearly high enough for me!) and you can see views for miles and miles around. rip and i were very lucky because we were on the first ride with a big group coming after us, so on our trip were only had 10 people with us, though it can hold up to 30 people at a time.

(btw, in writing my post today i saw that as of next month they're going to start changing for the ride. score!)

food for the... soul?

in life group we talked about local vs global church. they were talking about how great it is that missionaries go to spread the word of god to third world countries. they talked about how crazy it is that we have so much yet also complain about so much when many others have barely anything at all, not even food. and how great is it that all these people are now saved! they may not have a second pair of pants, but it's so inspiring how when even two weeks ago they hadn't even heard about god, now they're singing worship songs!

i'm of course sitting there thinking "are you serious? who cares about god when you're starving?!" they're talking about how important it is that we donate money so they can buy bibles, bibles for god's sake. "a bible can help 10s of people. they pass it around so everyone can hear about god." um... yeah... i get that maybe sending money so starving people can buy food is maybe a waste since you can only eat it once but...

i guess our priorities are really different. one's afterlife is forever. human life, especially if you die young from starvation, is temporal. yet... how can you love, honor, worship, and respect a god who doesn't save people who don't know about him, and give them pretty terrible lives to boot? it's different if i go to hell, having heard about god but not believing him in anyway. (tho i would argue that it's also not fair since one cannot command belief) but these people who are dying from diseases that we just don't have in 1st world countries because we have basic medical treatment and sanitation, these people who haven't heard about god because the missionaries haven't gotten there yet, these people people have to spend an eternity in hell? why?

most christians ask, at some point or another, about the people who haven't heard about god yet. or the ones born in china a thousand years ago, or the egyptians from even before that, you know, before christianity was even "invented." somehow they don't think to blame god or question his omnibenevolence. he has a plan, they say, we just don't understand it.

well, no, i don't understand it. i can't understand it. i can't understand why you think giving someone a bible is better than giving them a well so they can have clean water. i understand that christians do both on missionary trips, but to place a higher value on your afterlife rather than your current one is surely a sign of arrogance. you know you're leaving india in a week, to come back to your wifi and $4 cups of coffee. when they don't even have 50cents to protect themselves from NTDs.

some christians have told me that they think god doesn't send people who don't know about him to hell. they're not sure what happens, but surely he wouldn't punish them for something out of their control. he is omnibenevolent, after all. if this is the case, which i'm inclined to agree with, wouldn't it be more humane for missionaries to save lives than to save souls? instead of sending missionaries to spread the word of god, send money, food, shoes, doctors, whatever it takes to make life livable! if you were choking, would you prefer someone to give you the heimlich or to read passages from the koran? i think it's clear.

right at us

december 15th's astronomy picture of the day

natural woman

First transgender MMA fighter goes public

so here's in interesting story: a man who used to be a woman is now fighting women professionally in mma. yes, she's had gender reassignment therapy and yes, she's been on "hormone therapy long enough to remove gender-related advantages."

now, i don't know any of the science behind this stuff, but can hormone therapy remove all gender-related advantages? this is fighting we're talking about. physically stronger fighters have a distinct advantage over physically weaker ones, training and natural talent be damned. it's one of the reasons there are weight classes. men are, on average, quite a bit stronger than women. and men also tend to have much stronger upper bodies than women. it's just the way we're built. i don't see how hormone therapy is able to change physical differences to the point of us having insignificantly different muscle mass ratios.

i'm not not saying that she shouldn't be able to fight professionally. but i do wonder if there should be other restrictions. maybe she'd having to fight in a higher weight class, i don't know.

this does all bring to mind, tho, the story of hermaphrodite runner Caster Semenya.

umbra world

december 14th's astronomy picture of the day