Monstrous Monday: The True Monster

"They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.
“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy..."

- A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

One of my most favorite stories is a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  What? Surprised an atheist can enjoy a Christmas story? Or even a ghost story?  Well I can and I do.

The above scene from the Second Spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, is telling.

The greatest monster we face today is Ignorance.

As American we seem to want to embrace our ignorance as some sort of badge of honor.  We watch stupid TV shows with stupid commercials for products we don't need or are even bad for us.    We revel in it.

Of course then it is no surprise that there are those that want to dumb down our schools. Have them learn stupid fantasies because they are too ignorant or too lazy or both to learn the truth.

There is another quote often attributed to G. K. Chesterton.

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that monsters exist, but because they tell us that monsters can be beaten.”

Ignorance can be beaten.  But it is going to take a lot more work than most people are willing to do.

Neanderthals, the evolving concept

There is a great article summarizing what we know about Neanderthals over at the National Geographic.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121012-neanderthals-science-paabo-dna-sex-breeding-humans/

The article it also full of great links to more research.
You just have to ignore the god-soaked idiots in the comments section.

What is interesting about this is the picture it paints for us as a species. Most animal types out there have many species that are similar, but not the same.  Think of all the types of birds, or even the various cannid types (wolves, dogs, foxes).

As humans we don't have anything so near to us, unless you want to count chimps and bonobos.
I wonder what the world would have been like today if Neanderthal had survived as an intact species.

Monstrous Mondays: Invisible Pink Unicorn

Invisible Pink Unicorn

It's magical because it is invisible AND pink.

Over at my other blog, The Other Side, I am running a bloghop called Monstrous Monday.

I am going to post a new monster for the D&D Basic game (circa 1980) and it's compatible clones.
Over here, since I focus mostly on my atheism, I wanted to pick monsters that fit the theme of this blog.

Now to this you might say, "ah but I am an atheist, I don't believe in monsters or magic or magical monster for that matter!" which is true.  But I also believe in having a sense of humor.  So maybe my atheism message will reach another audience.

So I present to you the magical, Invisible Pink Unicorn.
Again, I presenting these in Basic Era stats to support my new books "The Witch" and "Eldritch Witchery"

Invisible Pink Unicorn

Armor Class:  2 [17]
Hit Dice: 8d8+5 (50 hp)
No. of Attacks: Bite, hooves, horn,
Special Attack: invisible, rainbows (as Prismatic Spray)
Damage: 1d8, 1d6/1d6, 1d8
Movement: 120’ (land) 240' fly
No. Appearing: 1 Unique
Saves As: Fighter 10
Morale: 12
Treasure: None, Discovering one is Treasure enough
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 1700

The Invisible Pink Unicorn is a unique creature.  At least we have faith she is since only one is known to exist. There could be more, they all would look alike.
As her name would suggest the IPU is invisible.  She moves, lives and attacks all while invisible.  Even to characters that can see invisible she is invisible.
The IPU can attack with a bite, hooves and her horn.  She is in all respects like a normal, non-invisible, non-pink unicorn.  She may also once per day fire a Prismatic Spray spell from her horn.
The IPU most often attacks those that lack faith or have too much faith.  Her victims seem unwilling to be clear on which.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn
http://www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com/ipu/home.html

One of us! One of us!

New article at CNN.com from a Pew survey poll.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/09/survey-one-in-five-americans-is-religiously-unaffiliated/

So there are more and more people self-identifying as having no religious affiliation 
Mind you, that is not the same as "Atheist".

Given the recent news reports about various self-identified Christians:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/08/charlie-fuqua-arkansas-candidate-death-penalty-rebellious-children_n_1948490.html
http://www.classwarfareexists.com/dallas-mom-super-glues-2-year-olds-hands-to-wall-beat-her-till-she-suffered-bleeding-on-her-brain/#axzz28nxYJL85

I honestly can't blame these people for wanting no part of that.  But I say why not go the next step as well a get rid of god.

There is obviously no need or use for god.
The truth is everything that people used to think was attributed to god we have found scientific reasons for.  Now it seems god is invoked only when one sports team wants to defeat the other.  God of Gaps as the say.  Only where there is something has yet to explain.

Something to consider.

Why do Muslim's fear women so much?

Maybe I should say the Taliban.

But in any case the question remains.
Why do they fear women?

Read this article.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/10/opinion/ghitis-malala-yousufzai/?hpt=wo_c1
and
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/10/world/asia/pakistan-teen-activist-attack/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

So a 14 year old girl speaks out about the Taliban and in retaliation her and her friends are shot.

Doe this sound like the reasonable reaction of a sane human being?
Does this come anywhere close to the discourse we should find acceptable?

No.

These people are the lowest form of human life possible.

We have a Taliban here in America too.  They are the Christian right.  Whether they want to admit it or not they share more in common with these sub-humans than the decent people in this country.

Monstrous Mondays: Crocoduck

Time for something a little different today.
Over at my other blog, The Other Side, I am running a bloghop called Monstrous Monday.

I am going to post a new monster for the D&D Basic game (circa 1980) and it's compatible clones.
Over here, since I focus mostly on my atheism, I wanted to pick monsters that fit the theme of this blog.

So I figured why not start with one of the most well know fake creatures in atheism circles.

Crocoduck

Armor Class:  5 [14]
Hit Dice: 2d8+1 (10 hp)
No. of Attacks: Bite
Damage: 1d6
Movement: 20’ (land) 45' swim
No. Appearing: 1-2
Saves As: Fighter 2
Morale: 6
Treasure: None
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 25


The crocduck is an odd beast.  Some claim it part of the same experiments that created the owlbear.  Indeed the overall unintelligent design of the creature tends to give proof that whomever created it was insane.
The crocoduck's head is that of a crocodile, but it's lower body is that of a duck. The result is that the head is much to heavy for it's body and the crocoduck  is only found in the water.  The crocduck can not fly and and is awkward and slow on the ground.
The crocoduck is an omnivore and tends to favor the duck's psychology.  Though it prove as dangerous as a normal crocodile if pestered.  The animal is somewhat stupid, even by the standards of ducks and crocodiles.
Of one odd note, the Crocoduck is inordinately fond of bananas.   Tossing a bunch of bananas at a crocoduck has same the effect as tossing raw meat to feral dogs. Many adventurers will even seek out nests of crocducks and toss bananas at them to see the hilarity of these creatures waddling, quacking and snapping at a bunch of bananas.
The crocoduck has no treasure but their eggs are prized by alchemists and wizards alike.





The real crocoduck, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatosuchus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocoduck
http://www.crocoduck.com