Recent activities, thoughts, and happenings at Hart's Abode

Perhaps the scariest floor-talk at the conference was the idea that religion should organize its own financing of a star-ship in order to make sure that earthly gods were spread throughout our Universe.  This was not only scary but strange because surely if the Christian god exists it is already out-there? I find it sad that many people with a religious bent do not understand that science is not a belief system but a language with which Homo sapiens describes reality in our Universe. As I have pointed out before: a belief system holds that some things are fundamentally true and others are fundamentally false.  When two belief systems conflict on an issue of truth or falsity only one can be  correct and the other is false. Both can be false but both cannot be true.  Science holds nothing as a fundamental truth!  Science can falsify a hypothesis that asserts it is true but it NEVER claims to prove a hypothesis is true: only that it fails to reject it. In doing so the scientific method allows scientists to provide a description of reality in our Universe that is both consistent and improvable throughout time and space.  By rejecting the scientific methodology for falsifying statements the religious right fails to do justice to god - to that which created our Universe.
As we moved into October we had a week long visit from our friend Walter Simmons of Baton Rouge and enjoyed showing him the mountains and the towns of the Front Range.   We had our first real snow of the winter - about 10 inches which, as usual only lasted a day then the sun came out and evaporated it away leaving only small remnant patches to melt and muddy up the road for a day. It did prompt us to get a load of hardwood and light a fire for the day!