Knitting and Bananas

I've been watching a lot of these videos recently - brought to my attention by my father in law. I think they're great. Mainly I've been watching the "Why people laugh at creationists" series, although I did try and sit through Thunderf00t's discussion with Ray "The Bananaman*" Comfort. What struck me as interesting was Comfort's inability to get his head around the fact that people who aren't religious do not have an "origin story". He asked Thunderf00t how the earth began and Thunderf00t starts discussing the scientific concept of the unknown. This became Comfort's "aha" moment and he claimed (repeatedly) "You don't know, but I do know". As if having any kind of answer trumps not having an answer. Nevermind the millions of people who share this planet who have a completely different answer. He says some (mostly) other ridiculously inane things (like "Where I'm from, in New Zealand, up is down!") and then I turned it off. I'll try again later. But back to the "can't get his head around the fact that people who aren't religious don't have an origin story" - that is a fundamental problem with discussing religion with a lot of religious people. They can't even begin to put themselves in the shoes of someone who doesn't have any belief in a supernatural being - the question: "Do you want to be an atheist and go to hell?" seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to ask if you can't get your mind around the fact that atheists aren't choosing hell, because they don't believe there is a hell. 

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I've also been knitting again. I'm about halfway done with a new hat for Ryan:

I want to attempt something bigger next but I'm concerned that I'll not finish it and buying all that yarn is expensive! I feel like I ought to use up my stash before I get going on anything large like a sweater. Or this sweater dress that I'd like to make, but I'd change the cable pattern to be just one cable up the left hand side so it goes all the way up the dress and make the rest of it ribbed. I also think I'd prefer it in a warmer colour, like a beige or brown or even the light olive.


*If you only click on one link in this blog entry and you haven't seen Ray Comfort talk about the Banana being the atheists nightmare (I can't do that phrase justice, not have a kiwi accent), click on this one. And remember, it is not a tutorial for masturbation, which is what my mother thought it was.