Sunday, September 30, 2007

KEEP YOUR GOD AWAY

I have a beautiful daughter. She is two years old. As parents, my wife and I have decided not to expose here to various concepts of god until she is old enough to understand those concepts and explore them herself. So far, she has taught me more about compassion, empathy, love and joy than religion (any religion) ever has.

That being said, I would like to know why you Christians cannot respect MY right as a parent to raise MY child as I see fit. I will give you a case in point.

My wife is a devoted stay-at-home mom. In order for our daughter to socialize (and I am sure that it helps to maintain my wife’s sanity), she takes Rachel to certain functions during the week where there are other mothers and children. The local community center has a whole host of classes during the week for this very thing. One day, I returned home from work early and went to one of these social events with them. It was a story time event at the local library and they had a lamb there that the kids could pet. Sounded great! Rachel LOVES animals. On the table, they had various books that the children could take home with them to keep. These were not library sponsored books, these were books donated by the host of the event.

There were about 7 or 8 titles to chose from, multiples of each title. It was a great gesture, I thought. My daughter looked over the table and was instantly captivated by a book whose cover was shaped like a puppy and had a felt piece attached as an ear. That was the book she picked out. As she went off to pet the lamb, I thumbed through its paperboard pages. “God sees you. God sees me. God sees my puppy.”

Now, you have to understand that my daughter LOVES to be read to. She is constantly bringing books over to me or mom to read to her.

Out of these 7 to 8 titles, about 3 of them were religious in nature and based on Christianity. The fact that I am an atheist is beside the point. There were other faiths at this function as well. Jewish, Muslim, atheists and Pagans. A wonderful blend of humanity there to do nothing more than give their child an activity to do outside of the home with other children.

I would also like to mention that not one of the titles were telltale in nature of their contents.

The same Christian fanatics that protest against such great literary works as Catcher in the Rye being classroom curriculum seem to have no problem dumping their propaganda driven material onto others. Why the double standard?

In short, if you want education withheld from your child, great. Home school your kids. Have them believe that the Earth is only 7,000 to 10,000 years old. Deprive them of the great literary works and culture that have brought us to where we are today. Shun them away from the very science that may one day save their freakin’ lives. Keep them in their sterile little bubble, looked away from the reality that is the world that we live in. Just please, KEEP YOUR GOD AWAY FROM MY CHILD!!!
Posted by Ajay :: 7:04 PM :: 0 comments

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---------------oOo--------------- The Making Of ARCHERY

Don't let the word 'physics' put you off - read the article for an insight into how modern science can help us understand the history of the weapon we now use for sport (and ignore the formulae if you must!) It is generally believed that the main factor responsible for the English victory at the battle the Agincourt in 1415 was the longbow. Gareth Rees describes from a physicist's point of view why we believe this simple weapon was so devastatingly effective.
In 1415 King Henry V of England took a small army to France to try to enforce the English claim to the French throne. By late autumn things were not going well for the English. The weather was poor, and Henry's army was short of provisions, exhausted, and badly stricken with dysentery. Henry decided to make for his stronghold at Calais for the winter, but the French saw an opportunity to annihilate the English forces and advanced with a huge army to do battle.

The two armies met at the little village of Agincourt on the evening of 24 October, after the English forces had marched 260 miles in 17 days. King Henry's offer to buy peace was rejected, and on the following afternoon one of the decisive battles of the Hundred Years' War took place.

The battle of Agincourt has entered English folklore - and, indeed, popular culture as a result of the Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branah film versions of Shakespeare's Henry V. No more than 6000 soldiers in the service of the English king faced about 50,000 French soldiers. Apart from the gross disparity in numbers, the other substantial difference between the two armies was in their use of the longbow. The English army was composed largely of bowmen (about 80%), whereas the French used virtually none.

The massive French cavalry charge was met by a storm of English arrows, as a result of which the cavalry fled back through the front columns of the French infantry. The English soldiers waded into the chaos armed with hatchets and billhooks and, backed up by their own small cavalry and the threat of their longbows, succeeded in dispersing the whole French army.

A SIMPLE MODEL OF A BOW AND ARROW
The bow - any bow - is basically a spring. The archer does work on this spring as he draws the bow, storing potential energy in the elastically deformed bowstave. When he releases the string, some of this potential energy is converted into kinetic energy of the arrow, through the action of the tension in the bowstring accelerating the arrow, the arrow leaves the bow at high speed and wings its way towards its target. Its orientation is stabilised by three fletchings at the rear of the arrow.

ENERGY STORAGE IN THE BOW
If we draw a graph of the force F needed to draw the arrow back through a distance x, the area under the graph represents the work done on the system and hence the potential energy stored in the bow. If the graph is a straight line through the origin (i.e. the bow behaves like a spring that obeys Hooke's law), this energy will be equal to Fx/2 ).
More at:http://www.stortford-archers.org.uk/medieval.htm

Posted by Ajay :: 6:57 PM :: 0 comments

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