On What I Believe

I believe in the self-sufficiency of the Human Meat Machine. I believe that we, the Extraordinary Flesh Machine Corps, make our own way in this wholly wondrous universe, and that all the wonders we wreak are our own, as are our atrocities. I believe that the Amazing Flesh Computer every one of us is equipped with is a mighty tool, a tool mighty enough to decide and to deduct, to discern what is Right from what is Wrong. I am proud when I or my brethren in Meatship use this tool to correctly discern this difference and act accordingly, as this is a decision made under our own Computational Power, and I am sad when this tool fails somewhere in this process and mistakes are made; I therefore believe that our existence is cheapened by the supposition that a set of moral commandments, handed down from on high, coupled to the promise of eternal doom and despair should we stray, is necessary to keep us moral.
Atheism is not an absence of belief. It is not the anti-belief, at least not for me. I do not believe in nothing. I believe in Meat Machines, self reliance, emergent systems, science, and evidence. My belief is strong, and it gives me comfort, pride, and peace of mind. And sometimes it gives me grief, when I have to struggle with the stupidity that has still not been eradicated, but I never have to struggle to reconcile my system of belief with what is happening, because all of this is contained therein.

Tinkering, tinkering

So, while switching to the new-fangled customizable layout I thought I'd change the look of this place completely. So far, I like the new look, and I definitely like working with the new layout in the background. As with nearly all things Google does, the interface is straightforward and good. It doesn't afford me the kind of control manual editing would, but as you can tell from my post frequency, I don't really want to put that much time into this (and the little time I do put into it better be spent posting), so I'm really grateful for this.