Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge

Registration is open for the 3rd Annual Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge!

This year's race begins in Las Vegas on Sunday, August 5th, and ends in Manhattan about a week later.

I am guessing that the route will again go through Lakota country in South Dakota. I am also guessing that the route will pass through Sturgis during the 72nd Sturgis Rally Aug 6-12.

The race is open to experienced riders of American-made big bore V-Twin motorcycles, such as the Harley-Davidson Road King. I gather that Harley-Davidson is not the exclusive sponsor this year, and that maybe Victory is getting in on the action.

Online application form: HERE

The question now is...
What will you do with the choices that are before you?

When Islamic atheism thrived

It's astonishing to read about the freedom of expression afforded to Muslims in the 10th century, in contrast to our own times. How can we bring back a reliance on the power of reason? How can we pursue universal Truths instead of focusing on differences and divisiveness? 


When Islamic atheism thrived
by Amira Nowaira
Tuesday May 11 2010
guardian.co.uk



Freethinking is perhaps not one of the strongest suits of modern Islam. For one thing, the list of books that have been banned for challenging prevalent religious orthodoxies and sensibilities during the past hundred years is disconcertingly long.

Modern Islamic clerics and scholars in various Muslim countries are often highly selective of which part of the Islamic heritage to emphasise and bring to light. Out of the countless and varied sources from centuries of vigorous debates, commentaries and controversies, they seem to dig out, and revel in, interpretations that are hopelessly conservative or frustratingly and grotesquely at odds with the life of modern Muslims.

It may therefore come as a surprise to many people that there is a long and vibrant intellectual tradition of dissidence and freethinking going back to the Middle Ages. The Islamic thinkers of the early medieval period expressed ideas and engaged in debates that would appear strangely enlightened in comparison with the attitudes and views adopted by modern Islamic scholarship.

This is the basic argument presented by From the History of Atheism in Islam by the renowned Egyptian thinker Abdel-Rahman Badawi. Published in Arabic in 1945, the book was reprinted only once in 1993. It discusses the work of the Islamic philosopher-scientists of the medieval period and the way they upheld reason, freedom of thought and humanist values, while questioning and often refuting some basic Islamic tenets.

Although many of those thinkers, according to Badawi, did not attempt to disprove the existence of God, they lashed out against the notion of prophethood and argued against the privileged position occupied by the Prophet Muhammad and his followers.

Most prominent among those scholars was Abu Bakr al-Razi, who believed in the supreme importance of reason. He argued that the mind had an innate capacity to distinguish between good and evil, and between what was useful and what was harmful. According to him, the mind did not need any guidance from outside it, and for this reason the presence of prophets was redundant and superfluous.

Al-Razi directed his most vehement attack against the holy books in general, including the Qur'an, because he saw them as illogical and self-contradictory. He also believed that all human beings were equal in their intellectual capacities as they were in all other things. It made no sense therefore that God should single out one individual from among them in order to reveal to him his divine wisdom and assign him the task of guiding other human beings. Furthermore, he found that prophets' pronouncements and stories often contradicted those of other prophets. If their source was divine revelation as is claimed, their views would have been identical. The idea of a divinely-appointed mediator was therefore a myth.

Al-Razi understood the hold of religious belief on society, which he attributed to several factors. Firstly, systems of beliefs spread mainly through the human propensity for imitating and copying others. Secondly, religion's popularity rested on the close alliance between clerics and political rulers. The clerics often used this alliance to impose their own personal beliefs on people by force whenever the power of persuasion failed. Thirdly, the lavish and imposing character of the attire of religious men contributed to the high regard in which they were held by common people. Lastly, with the passage of time religious ideas became so familiar that they turned almost into deep-seated instincts that were no longer questioned.

In examining this chapter of Islamic history, regardless of the validity or otherwise of the views expressed, one cannot help feel amazed at the fact that the Islamic thinkers of the 10th century had the freedom to discuss and publish their "unorthodox" ideas, while the Islamic world now cannot, or will not, deal with any form of intellectual dissent. It might be reasonable to suggest then that the problem of Islam does not lie in inherited texts and traditions, but in interpretation. The Islamic heritage, like its Christian counterpart, is made up of a huge body of commentaries and interpretations that were produced in various periods of history to address problems specific to their age. We need to remember that the Christian scriptures have not changed since the middle ages. It was in the name of these very texts that innumerable so-called heretics were burnt at the stake.

There is little doubt that Islamic scholars have the task and the responsibility to review tradition and re-emphasise the human values of tolerance and freedom of thought. They do not have to look far for these values. All they are required to do is to reach deep into their own cultural coffers to retrieve the pearls and discard the dregs.



H/T: C.E.E



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Friday Funny: Paraprosdokian Answers

BRILLIANT ANSWERS OF A STUDENT WHO OBTAINED 0%

     [ I would have given him 100%.]


Q1. In which battle did Gen. Custer die?

      * his last battle.


Q2. Where was the Declaration of Independence signed?

      * at the bottom of the page.


Q3. The River Ravi flows in which state?

      * the liquid state.


Q4. What is the major cause of divorce?

      * marriage.


Q5. What is the main cause of failure?

      * exams.


Q6. What can you never eat for breakfast?

      * Lunch or dinner.


Q7. What looks like half an apple?

      * The other half.


Q8. If you throw a red stone into the blue sea, what will it become?

      * it will become wet.


Q9. How can a man go eight days without sleeping ?

      * No problem -- he sleeps at night.


Q10. How can you lift an elephant with one hand?

      * You can't find an elephant that has a hand.


Q11. If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand, and four apples and three oranges in your other hand, what would you have?

      * Very large hands.


Q12. If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?

      * No time at all - the wall is already built.


Q13. How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it?

      * Concrete floors are very hard to crack anyway, let alone by an egg.


Q14. What's the best way to get down from an elephant?

      * You don't get down from an elephant. You get down from a duck or a goose.



Related post: http://philosfx.blogspot.com/2010/09/favorite-paraprosdokian-sentences-add.html

H/T: LK

Occupy Gatesville

Yesterday, I logged in to my Hotmail account, using my Chrome browser to do so. Today, I opened Chrome and what to my wondering eyes should appear? MSN is now my Chrome homepage!

This is outrageous! 

I normally open Hotmail from within my Explorer browser. I have a few other sites that are optimized for IE, so I habitually switch browsers for certain sites. I have a few other sites that work best with Mozilla Firefox. And you know what? Switching is no problem for me. I like the options, and the differences, and the way the companies are forced to compete with each other. Normally, the healthy competition benefits us all.

But when MSN inserts itself into my preferences and makes itself the homepage for Chrome, replacing my preference for an iGoogle homepage for Chrome, that is going too far! That is underhanded. That is, if not a crime, at the very least an egregious party foul. 

Has anyone else noticed this? Are there other concerned citizens out there? Is it time for an "Occupy" movement on Bill Gates' front lawn?

Connecting Brains with Machines

I have an exciting book recommendation:

Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines---and How It Will Change Our Lives (9780805090529): Miguel Nicolelis

This book recommendation goes out to my friends at the Army Research Institute for Behavioral Sciences, my colleagues at the US Army MANPRINT Directorate, and all interested in human-systems integration for performance enhancement or for post-injury rehabilitation.

Dr Nicolelis and his team are completing neurological research in which monkeys are able to control a joystick just by thinking.  That is amazing. They first mapped a monkey's thoughts as she used a joystick to get a juice treat. They then used her brain signals to power a robotic arm in another room. They "tuned" the monkey's brainwaves until the robotic arm copied the monkey's real arm. Then they removed the monkey's joystick, but not her juice treats. They brought the robotic arm and joystick into view. The monkey soon figured out how to move the robotic arm and control the joystick to get a reward, just by thinking.

This research has obvious implications for performance enhancement. Can you imagine an astronaut or a race car driver or a mechanic who is literally "at one" with his tools?

More subtle applications are doubly intriguing: imagine being a quadriplegic, like the late Christopher Reeves, or like so many soldiers and Marines returning from war. And now imagine donning an exoskeleton with robotic arms and legs which respond to signals from your brain.

Fascinating! 

Sex, fire, alcohol, electricity, nuclear power... There are down-sides to every advance. I am sure this technology can be abused in the wrong hands. However, I am hopeful it will be a net benefit to humanity, and the risks will be managed well.

Incidentally, to my animal-loving friends and family, the testing in these experiments was gentle on the subjects. Dr. Nicolelis intends to begin testing on human subjects in 2012. Personally, I think this is a very exciting development.
 

Interview with Dr. Nicolelis on the Diane Rehm Show

Dr. Nicolelis's website (includes a link to his interview with Jon Stewart)

Connect the Dots

I really enjoyed and highly recommend the article The Key To Creativity, According To Steve Jobs: Connecting the Dots which appeared in a recent edition of Edudemic

The author points to several instances in which Steve Jobs used the analogy of connecting the dots to explain his success. He was able to see seemingly different ideas and connect them in unique ways. He points out that this skill is the essence of creativity. If Ford had asked customers what they wanted, they'd have asked for a faster horse. Creative people are not limited by evolutionary improvements. Instead, like Jobs and Ford before him, they give people what they don't even know they want yet.

Another point that resonates with me is the combination of art and science in one person. Jobs not only understood the science of technology, but he also understood the importance of design and marketing. In this way, I would describe Jobs as an architect, that profession that most perfectly blends the science of materials and function with the art of form and perception.

Read it here: The Key To Creativity, According To Steve Jobs


H/T: MGW

Belgian beer | The Economist

Credit: this photo appears in The Economist

I recommend this awesome article. Belgian beer: Brewed force | The Economist

The Economist + Belgian Beer = Brewed Force

H/T: Scott