We're All a Bunch of Fruit-Cakes: The New Atheism's Real Agenda

Many Christians have had much to say, lately, about the rise of the new atheism (you know Michael Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and all those guys). But, it seems to me they have all missed something. They have all been offering the explination that the new atheism is just another way to subvert the athority of God over their lives, but that has been the agenda of atheism since the first atheist.

With new atheism comes new agendas. It's actually kind of cute, and I think we all should have a good ironic chortell over it. Considering how they have been calling us idiots and retards for what we believe. I really believe they perceive us unsophisticated, unscientific, and unstably minded Christians as the ones standing in the way of some great utopia that science is inevitably going to lead us to.

Why didn't I Ask for Money and Hot Chicks?

Well I got my birthday wish; I am now officially a world ranked minesweeper. Go here and see that I'm the 477'th best minesweeper in the world.

Happy Birthday to Me

Yep, today is the big three-zero. I not sure how I feel about it yet. I geuss I should quit smoking as they say that any damge caused can be reversed if stop at thirty. They also say that thirty is the new twenty. I hope that's true because I hardly feel like I'm an even an adult. On the bright side I have lost fifteen pounds in the last month or so. I'm amazed how easily i've done it just by eating healthier. More whole grains and fiber less saturated fat and smaller portions. Mmmmm falafel. I made my first attemp at falafel from scratch, it was no Mamoun's but it came closer than I thought it would. I'm going to go play minesweeper, I'm only one second away from qualifying for a world ranking, that would be a nice birthday present...

I Love To Say, "I Told You, So!"

Anyone see 20/20 tonight, about TCAP?

On a related note check this shizzle out.

Empircal Hipocrisy

I just recently discovered what, I think, is a great irony in the whole global climate change debate: You got all these freaking naturalistic scientist saying that global warming was sent into hyper-drive because of the industrial revolution.

Yeah, that's right! The same industrial revolution that was fueled by eighteenth century empirical ideologies.

Another victory for pragmatism!

I don't get you, Neil.

My friend Todd and I went to see Rush last night at the Mohegan Sun Casino Arena. And, even though the sound in there is just slightly better than an airplane hanger or maybe a wind tunnel, and they were way too loud, they were really on.

During the song Secret Touch, from their 2002 album Vapor Trails, I started thinking about all the things Neil Peart had gone through before penning those lyrics and all the stuff my family has gone through with the suicide of my brother, and I just started to well-up, and thought to myself, "Neil, how on earth can you write these lyrics and not believe in a personal benevolent God?" they go as follows:

The way out
Is the way in
The way out
Is the way in...

Out of touch
With the weather and the wind direction
With the sunrise
And the phases of the moon
Out of touch
With life in the land of the loving
With the living night
And the darkness at high noon

You can never break the chain
There is never love without pain
A gentle hand, a secret touch on the heart

Out of sync
With the rhythm of my own reactions
With the things that last
And the things that come apart
Out of sync
With love in the land of the living
A gentle hand, a secret touch on the heart

A healing hand, a secret touch on the heart

There is never love without pain
Life is a power that remains

Geoff Bosco Tackles the Problem of Evil and Suffering

WARNING THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC PROFANITY:


I'll be the first to admit that I get in over my head sometimes, not having a formal philosophical education, but I do believe I have a unique perspective on matters such as these.

I don't know what is is about me (call it a certain kind of masochism, or maybe a martyr's heart,I don't know) but, I feel compelled to expose myself to atheistic philosophy and philosophers, even if it leaves me feeling bad afterwards.

Anyway, the problem of evil goes something like this: If God, in all His glory, really exists why does He allow so much suffering?

I just finished listening to the Philosophy Bites podcast with Steven Law, he gives the classical atheist responses to what he called theodicies...you know like freewill, Intelligent design, and all that happy horse crap but, I have no interest in inventing a better theodicy. I'll leave that to Kirk Cameron. I just have a few observations for the Steven Laws of the world.

What, the fuck, does Steven Law know about any one's suffering? Have you ever noticed how angry these people get when they talk about suffering? I did and it got me to thinking that they are not talking about something as abstract, to them at least, as some child suffering in an earthquake. They are obfuscating the fact that they are simply pissing and moaning about their own pain and suffering. If they are right about naturalistic evolution then why is it bad that some weak little people in some far off country they've never been to, dies because they have no food? Isn't it just natures way of weeding out the people not smart enough to get food by any means necessary? Or not smart enough to leave before an earthquake like the animals that do? Survival of the fittest, isn't that how it works? If they say that this naturalistic view proves their point then why be so angry about it?

This is kind of part two of my open question to atheists. The reason for the question, was because I got into a debate on Youtube with a satanist about the existence of God and he said something like satanist don't believe in satan or the supernatural, satan is simply a symbol of their own self worship. The problem with the Steven Laws of the world is that they lack the intellectual honesty of the satanist. The reason they don't believe in God is because they worship themselves and the real God is nothing like them, which, to me is, the greatest reason I could ever give myself to believe in God, CAN I GET AN AMEN!

Ahh, I feel much better now.

Separated at Birth? You Decide.

So I bought Pan's Labyrinth on DVD, and I'm watching the interview with director Guillermo Del Toro on disc 2 from Charlie Rose and I'm all, "dude...this guy looks familiar." And, then a few minutes goes by and I realize why.

An Open Question to Atheists

If God did exist, what would you want Him/Her/It to be like?

While I'm At It

How low have we sunk as a culture when we have to watch "To Catch a Predator" to feel OK about our own goodness?

Disclaimer: I know what I'm about write, many of you will strongly react to, but please read it carefully and think about the arguments I'm making.

Another thing that bugs me is that the people at Dateline are the same people that defend "reproductive rights" for thirteen year-old-girls. The fact is dirty old men go on the Internet to find teenage girls because it works; They wouldn't do it otherwise. In my very Unhumble opinion if you tell a teenage girl it is OK to have sex with teenage boys...well what do you expect?

Thanks Dateline for contributing to a problem and then pretending to fix it. As if putting five guys in jail a month is really keeping our kids safe.

Judd Apatow Is The Master

Just got home from seeing "Knocked Up", and all I have to say is: if this movie is going to give big and dumpy, but smart and funny underachievers like myself a shot with hot women, bring on the ladies, there is enough Geoff to go around.

Another Stupid Observation

Have you ever called a friends cell phone and gotten the voice mail message starting with: "Hi this is philosphically ignorant. I'm not here right now please leave ..."

Yeah I've heard that one many times and thought, "you're not where? It's a cell phone, are you in the next room. Is you're phone nine feet away on the love seat and you're on the sofa...maybe the lazyboy?"

This brings up another philosphical quandry: where is here anyway. I know it is physically impossible for you and cell phone to share the same space at the same time, didn't we all learn that in science class? The existential imlications are mind melting.

Things I've Learned Since My Last Post

The age of enlightenment is highly overrated, the golden mean is wrong, and insurance is an evil concept straight from the pit of hell. I'm too lazy to deffend these arguments right now, except to say that you can't use you reason until you start with a belief. Truth is Gods way and does not exists between two human extremes, it exists on a compltely different plain. The end result of insurance will be that no one will be able to wipe there ass unless the insurance company say so. You want to find a real obstacle to freedom look at how much of our lives are controled in order that insurance companies don't lose money. We give them our money and then they tell exactly what we can and can't do otherwise they don't pay when something does go wrong.

Sorry It Took So Long...

To save time I'm just gonna post the rest of the tracks that I have done. I have more in the works but here are the final three.


This is song was written by Mike Brandon the young man who is singing. He also was the one who played many of the leads on Gone. This one is called Spy Girl


This is a version of an old Sam Cook tune called Summertime


Now this is something special, this tune has been appearing in a certain car commercial lately but this version bears little stylistic similarities to the original...oh yeah it last almost twenty minutes, but don't let that scare you-none of it is boring. The reason for that is Jesse Brown. His improvised chord substitutions and just plain jazz genius make this one of those things you just can't repeat...oh yeah this is the only track so far that I don't play on. So here it is Use Me

Bad Love

I'm calling this Zappaesque jam Bad Love...and that's all I have to say about that.

Best of Mario's Part Two

Hey thanks everyone for the nice comments about Whipping Post.

The next track in this series is called Gone. The players are: again Casey Gorman on guitar and vocals, Mike Brandon on guitar, John Springer on bass, and most importantly me on drums.

background and things to listen for:

This is a Gmin blues and the lyrics were improvised by Casey around a general idea he had. It was the first song we did the night of 10-25-05.

Mike Brandon does most of the leads in this song, he is the louder of the two guitars, which isn't unusual for him.

The bassist added an effects unit to his wonderful Ash Down rig, and during the song at around 2:45 seconds you can hear him fumbling around trying to get more low end in his sound. This also is the reason for the playful but fierce exchange at the end of the track. Apparently one of the bass eq knobs was turned way down on his new unit which he wasn't 100% familiar with.

I consider this one of my best recorded drum performances. Listen to the interlude after the second guitar solo at around 7:55.

The Goods

As promised, My friend Todd put the first in hopefully a long series of "The Best of Mario's Open Mic Night."

This is me on drums Todd on bass and Casey Gorman on guitar playing and singing the perennial bar classic Whipping Post. Casey is the host of the open mic, his band is Hubinger St. a very popular band local to New Haven, CT. We kind of pulled this one out of our butts but the jamming on it is worthy of repeated listenings.

So without further adieu: Whipping Post

I'm Not Quite Dead

Hey everyone...I'm still here. I haven't posted in a while but I thought I'd let you know some stuff that's been going down.

Work has been keeping me pretty run down (which is why I haven't posted in a while) but I've been working with my bassist friend Todd (the same one from Musical Object lesson 2) on getting some songs together (we're putting the finishing touches on "Lunch with Gina" from Steely Dan's last album, and it's soundin' pretty good...we might play it open mic night at Mario's cafe tonight) and maybe put a band together if I can find a drummer.


Drummer huh? I wish I had two of me...I would love to have one of my clones on drums while I sang and played guitar.

Oh yeah speaking of open mic night at Mario's...I brought a few condenser mics my mackie and a tape recorder down a few weeks ago and with the aid of some computer magic managed to get some quality recordings of the kinda of fun we have down there. Hopefully I'll have something on the web pretty soon.

Stay tuned for: A Tale of two Bassists, and the Quest for the Warm Fuzzies

Sick of it All

I'm sick of everything...sick of our stupid me culture...everyone complains about how they don't make enough money, and yet if they were in charge they would do things exactly the same way because we all love money just as much as the people who already have it...they'd pay their employees as little as possible and just keep gettin' as much as you can as long as you can 'cause we got to have our stuff, no one's taking our stuff away...and the thing of it is I only care about myself and I'm sick of that too...I'm sick of the absence of community...human beings aren't meant to live in separate houses all by ourselves so nobody can judge them...has that become the American dream? I'm sick of having to be the same as every one else...everyone needs a car to go to work, to pay for a roof over their head, and hopefully to have a house to go to where hopefully no one will give them any guff...well guess what? I don't care about that stuff...I'm an entertainer, I want to sing songs and make people laugh...that's it! A real community has a place for every different kind of person...not our culture though...I have to go to work at a crappy job for some faceless corporation that cares more about the customer's money than the customer...why aren't you up-selling you pee-on! Maybe it's because I hate, as a customer, being up-sold to...the only reason you can get away with it is because every store does it and most people don't realize how much they hate it...big giant faceless corporations don't judge you, they only want your money...they don't care how you are doing...so go ahead and steal some straws...take a few extra packets of sugar...all the stuff that they don't keep behind the counter is free to you...In place of doing things the right way they'll just raise the prices a bit...but you wont care as long as they don't judge you! I bet the ancient Romans thought life would always be that good...but it took over a thousand years for man to reinvent concrete and running water...go to Papua New Guinea and see how much cargo they have...But they have community they make the right kind of judgments about each other...we try to avoid being judged in the proper way and end up condemning everyone else with the wrong kind of judgments, and I'm sick of it!

Toilet Humor

Say no to germs? Does that mean I can say yes to drugs now?