The Godless Delusion

I just finished reading a book called "The Godless Delusion" by Madrid and Hensley. The book is an obvious counter to the Richard Dawkins best-seller titled The God Delusion, and it attempts to represent a Catholic challenge to modern atheism. However the book fails in two respects. One, the arguments are logically flawed, and two many of the authors' comments are so far off base that my blood boils and steam flows out of my ears!

First I'll address the logical errors. The authors actually summed up their case for the existence of God quite succinctly on page 219 ...

"... it is simply not the case that we have argued in a circle or begged the question in the book. Theists don't say, 'God exists:  therefore God exists.' Therefore, neither is our argument circular. If anything it's been structured thus:

A law of morality exists and is known to all --- and therefore, God exists. Consciousness exists, and the mind; reason, and the laws of logic; human worth, dignity, and equal rights; free will, human personality, love purpose, and meaning --- and therefore, God exists."

Now it doesn't take a philosophy major to see the major flaws in their logic ... like where's the proof for starters?! But in fairness to the authors their argument is a little deeper, but not much. Basically it is argued that atheists only believe in the natural world containing material items. However, non-material things exist like consciousness, laws of logic, morality, love, and so on. Since these non-material things exist then atheism is false and therefore the Christian God exists. Putting this into a structured logical argument leads to the following premises & conclusion:

• Atheists believe only in the natural material world;
• Non-material things exist;
• Therefore atheism is an incorrect world view;
• Therefore the Christian God exists.

OK, let's pick apart this argument. First, atheism is only the lack of a belief in a god. It makes no claim about the natural, supernatural, material or non-material world views. They are wholly separate philosophies. So being an atheist does not also mean being a materialist, and vice-versa. Therefore premise #1 is flawed and the whole argument is shot right from the beginning. However, there is another logical flaw. Even if atheism is the wrong world view, that doesn't mean the Christian God exists! The author would need to provide further evidence to show that their God exists and not one of the other thousands of gods worshiped by humans.

The logical flaws notwithstanding, what really irked me were the baseless, irresponsible, and absurd comments made by the authors which were nothing more than a feeble attempt to appeal to emotions but ended up showing their stupidity and immaturity instead. Here are some examples:

" This means out of a total population of some 300 million Americans, 30 million citizens doubt, or outright deny, the existence of God. That's a significant number of people who ... would be in a position to do terrible damage to society."

" ... if the atheist worldview were to be implemented across the board as the basis of societal policy (as it has been, in limited fashion, at times in the 20th century --- with disastrous results), you would definitely not want to live in such a society, so brutal, so tyrannical, and devoid of genuine goodness and beauty would it be."

"We contend that the denial of God's existence leads to the complete disintegration of not only morality, meaning, and human value and dignity, but the possibility of knowledge itself. The atheist worldview leads to foolishness."

"Atheism enables sociopathic behavior by claiming that human life has no intrinsic, transcendent value. That's why as atheism gains ascendancy in the West, there is a concomitant rise in barbaric, inhumane practices such as abortion, fetal stem cell research, cloning, infanticide, and euthanasia. Society's death spiral into darkness, despair, and nihilism is being propelled by naturalism."

"In the atheist worldview it's good for the strong to devour the weak, because that is how the evolution of the species progresses."

In regard to that last idiotic comment, atheism is actually silent with respect to evolution. Remember, atheism only posits that a god does not exist. Atheism is silent to whether evolution is true. Moreover, even though the evidence shows that evolution is true and that "survival of the fittest" played an important role in the past, that doesn't mean someone who believes in evolution also thinks that survival of the fittest is the best policy going forward.

Bottom line ... the authors are complete morons.

Stupidity of Infant Baptism

I've been thinking about the religious custom of Baptism lately, but yet the more I research the topic the more apparent it becomes that the practice is stupid, especially for infants.

According to Christian Doctrine, the purpose of Baptism is to (a) cleanse the body from sin and (b) to be unified with Christ. For infants, item (a) refers to the cleansing of original sin.

OK, so let's dissect baptism a little deeper. In particular I have three objections to the practice.

(1) When parents choose to baptize an infant, they are basically forcing a religion down the throat of their child. How do you know the kid wants to be a Christian? Shouldn't religion be an individual choice a person makes when they are old enough to understand the issues and decide for themselves? After all, you wouldn't raise your kid to be a lawyer just because you are a lawyer. You wouldn't hold a celebration party that indoctrinates your newborn to be a member of a political party either. You also wouldn't arrange a marriage for your child. Those are all personal choices you let a child make when they become an adult, and religion should be that way as well. Although parents may try to be well-meaning by raising their child into a religion thinking it's in their best interest, such is not a necessity in order for the child to turn out intelligent, well-mannered and successful. That can easily be accomplished outside of religion without wasting time and money attending church, confession, Sunday school, etc.

(2) The thought that an infant is born with original sin is probably the most patently absurd and idiotic concepts of all time! If a pregnant mother commits a crime and is sentenced to 20 years in prison, under that logic the baby should also have to spend 20 years in prison if it is to be believed that sin is passed on automatically from one person to the next. Of course we don't punish the child in such a real life situation because our legal system has an ounce of common sense. However, let's look more closely at the so-called "original sin", which occurred when Adam & Eve ate fruit from the forbidden tree after being coaxed into it by a talking snake of all things. Just think of the logic of that for one moment. Is eating a piece of fruit really a sin worthy of causing the fall of all human-kind? Frankly it's nonsense. However, let's dig a little deeper.

Where did concept of "original sin" come from? Well, it certainly didn't come from God. According to Deuteronomy [24:16] God states that "Children should not be punished for the sins of their parents" and that "those deserving to die must be put to death of their own crimes". Moreover, God never stated in Genesis that the offspring of Adam & Eve would be punished for eating the apple. In fact, Noah (who was a descendant of Adam) was described by God as "a righteous man and the only blameless person living on earth." So clearly God didn't believe in original sin. How about Jesus? Well, he never mentioned a word about it in the New Testament. So where did the concept of original sin come from? It was invented by the Apostle Paul [Romans 5:12] who, I should point out, was not an original disciple of Jesus and had never even met Jesus! So the whole thing was basically made up after the fact when inventing the Christian religion. Therefore, the concept that a beautiful newborn baby is littered with "original sin" and needs to be cleansed is total nonsense.

(3) The thought that any parent would want to submit their child's life to Jesus just goes to show that not many people actually read the Bible. Do you know what Jesus teaches? Yeah, I know Jesus tells us to love one another, blah blah. But in particular I'd like every Christian to actually read the New Testament especially the Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 5-7] to see ALL of what Jesus teaches. In reality, Jesus was an idiot and I submit nobody with half a brain would follow his teachings. Here's a sample of his stupidity:

• You shall not get angry with someone or call them an idiot or you will be judged. You shall not curse at anyone or you are in danger of going to hell. Really? So if some drunk driver kills the members of my family and I get angry & curse at the drunk I'm the one that goes to hell?
• If a man looks at a woman with lust he shall gouge out his eyeball and throw it away, otherwise he will be thrown in hell. Really? In that case you would think most of the male population would be walking around blind!
• A man is guilty of adultery if he marries a divorced woman. A woman is guilty of adultery if a man divorces his wife. The punishment? According to the Bible the punishment is death [Leviticus 20:10]. Gee, 50% of marriages end in divorce, and 80% of those divorced remarry. Wow, according to Jesus we should kill off a good chunk of our population.
• Do not resist an evil person. Really? If someone breaks into my house with the intention of doing harm I'm supposed to just let them? If a woman is about to be raped she should let them? If an evil dictator wants to start a war and invade the USA, we should just let them? Sorry but Jesus is an idiot, most rational people would fight back.
• If you are sued in court and lose, give them more than the judgment. Really? Bet the ambulance chasers are Christians, LOL.
• If someone asks for something then give it to them without question. Cool. Mr. Buffett, kindly send me a check for 10 million dollars!
• Love your enemies. Really? Never felt much love for Osama Bin Laden. 
• Keep your gifts to charity private. Hmm, guess that also means goodbye to the Bill Gates Foundation, the Tiger Woods Foundation, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
• Do not pray where others can see you. Really? Then exactly why were churches built?
• Do not accumulate wealth on earth. Really? So what shall millions of Americans do with their IRAs?
• Do not worry about every day life - whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear. God will take care of that. Really? And how many millions of children starve to death each year on the planet hoping for God to take care of them?
• Do not plan for the future. Really? Sorry, but Jesus you're really an idiot.
• Do not judge others. Really? If a gang of obvious thugs is heading your way exactly how am I supposed to survive without judging others?
• Pray for something and you will receive what you ask for. This is very dangerous. Just ask the parents of sick children who ended up dead because their parents thought that praying was better than taking them to a hospital.
• If a town doesn't accept the words of Jesus, the town shall be destroyed in a manner worse than Sodom and Gomorrah [Matthew 10]. Oooh, now we're rolling. Guess we should kill off over half the world's population that doesn't follow Christianity.
• Children who speak disrespectfully of their parents must be put to death [Mark 7:10]. Wow, who would think Jesus would condone killing children.
• To get into heaven you  must sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor [Mark 10:21]. Really? Maybe the Vatican can set an example and give all its net worth to the poor.
• Jesus says that slaves must obey orders from the master or face severe punishment [Luke 12:47]. Another example of outdated morality in the Bible.
• You can not be a disciple of Jesus unless you hate your father, mother, wife and children [Luke 14:26]. Wow, what a monster.
• People who don't believe in Jesus shall be thrown away like useless branches to be gathered into a pile and burned [John 15:6]. This passage served as impetus for the killings during the Inquisition.

So why anyone would want to unite their child with this lunatic named Jesus is beyond my comprehension. Read the Bible and decide for yourself rather than listen to priests who cherry pick only the passages they want you to hear. The reason you don't hear about the passages listed above is because priests would probably lose a chunk of their congregation!

Ray Comfort's Evolution vs. God

Just finished watching Ray Comfort's Evolution vs. God video and just about blew a gasket. If you'd like to torture yourself for about 35 minutes here's the link:  http://www.evolutionvsgod.com/

In the video Comfort interviews a number of scientists and college students and asks them (i) if they believe in evolution and (ii) to provide him a case example that proves evolution (for example where one kind of animal turns into another). When provided with such examples from past fossil records Mr. Comfort responds with "well you didn't actually see it since it happened millions of years ago", and prompts them further to provide evidence he can see today in front of his eyes. When they can't (since that's not how evolution works ... duh!!!) then Comfort suggests a "better" alternative explanation for the diversity of the species ... God.

Now I'm not going to get into a long diatribe on how evolution works and why Ray Comfort is clueless on this topic because it's totally irrelevant. Even if evolution is one day proven to be false, that doesn't mean God exists! Moreover, even without discussing the topic of evolution, there is an overwhelming amount of irrefutable scientific evidence to show that the Bible's explanation of our origins is totally wrong, contrary to Comfort's claim that "all scripture is true."

In the Book of Genesis, it's claimed that God made earth on the first day, before all the stars. Well that's clearly not the case. The oldest stars are 13 billion years old and the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Moreover, the heavy elements that make up a planet can only come from a star that explodes, so there is no way the earth could have preceded the formation of all the stars.

The Bible also claims God created vegetation before the sun was created. This is impossible since plants need sunlight for food and would never form first. The Bible also claims that birds formed before land animals (not true) and that the first land animals were created at the same time as human beings (also not true).

The Bible also claims that the full creation took place in only six days. Unfortunately the evidence shows that our universe & life took billions of years to take shape. This is indisputable. Of course theists will make the lame argument that those weren't literal days in the Bible, but rather one of God's days is much longer. Well that argument flops for the simple reason that it then wouldn't make sense of Adam's age. Being created on day 6 Adam lived beyond day 7, but if one of God's "days" is a much longer time like a billion years, then Adam couldn't have lived that long (he only lived to 960 years according to the Bible).

The Bible also claims there was a global flood high enough to cover the tallest mountains. Unfortunately, there's not enough water to accomplish that. If there was enough water to make it rain that much then the atmospheric pressure would be so great from all the precipitable water in the sky that the temperature on earth would be hundreds of degrees so even Noah would have croaked.

So the point is we know for fact that the Bible is wrong regarding our origins, and regardless of whether evolution is ever falsified. Given that the Bible is wrong, then that certainly lowers the probability of the existence of the Biblical god. To see why, just look at the opposite case. Suppose the Bible said God started the universe started 13.7 billion years ago, and then God created the earth 4.5 billion years ago, and that 1 billion years ago God created the first multi-cellular life form, and from then on life evolved and diversified to the point where 200 thousand years ago humans appeared. Well that would certainly increase the probability of God's existence, wouldn't it? Of course. So given that Genesis in the Bible is totally wrong and obviously written by humans who didn't have a clue, then that certainly increases the probability that the God thing was just something early humans made up because they simply didn't know how anything worked.

Anyway, Comfort makes a couple other statements that give me heartburn. One of which is that people who want to be atheists only do so because they choose to sin. Sorry Ray, but you're way off base. Atheists choose not to believe in God because that's where the evidence leads.

Comfort also says that being an atheist is like living in a closed cell without a window. Again, not true. Being an atheist is actually liberating, knowing that you're not enslaved to outdated, absurd and unnecessary religious beliefs & customs.

Lastly, Ray Comfort states that atheists must believe that something can come from nothing. Again, not true. Atheism is merely the lack of a belief in a God. It makes no claims regarding how the universe formed. But since we're on the subject, I'd like to ask Ray Comfort a question. Which is more probable, scenario A below or scenario B?

Scenario A
- The universe formed naturally out of nothing

Scenario B
- God formed out of nothing
- God obtained unlimited powers out of nothing
- God then made the universe out of nothing

Seems to me like scenario A has fewer absurd things to believe in than the supernatural solution in scenario B.

The Folly of Faith

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard "Oh, she is such a great person ... she is a person of faith."

However, I've always wondered why having strong faith is synonymous with being a good person (almost as if you don't have faith then you're a bad person). Such a notion is silly, of course, because being a good person is determined by the harm and good you do to others, not by whether you believe in a supernatural entity. The two are mutually exclusive and it makes about as much sense to say "She is a great person because she has faith that eating whole grain bread will lower her chance of cancer."

In fact, if someone claims to have deep faith then that's just a red flag showing that a person believes in something without having any supporting evidence. In my opinion that is a poor trait for someone to have. Imagine being a defendant in a criminal trial. Would you want the jury to convict you just because they have strong faith in the prosecuting attorney or would you want them to weigh the evidence and form an opinion separate from their faith in the DA?

Interestingly, in a poll conducted by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Christians make up about 80% of the US population and about 80% of the prison population. In contrast, atheists make up about 4% of the US population but only about 0.2% of the prison population. So, in reality a smaller percentage of atheists are in prison compared to Christians. Admittedly there are flaws in this study (for example, prisoners could become religious after being convicted in hopes of eternal forgiveness). However, I think the numbers are good enough to show that someone's faith has absolutely nothing to do with whether they are a bad or good person.

This post will serve as a lead into to a multi-part series on morality & religion. In particular I'll be dissecting William Craig's argument that the existence of moral values proves the existence of God, and I'll dig deeper into the faith vs. morality issue.

You Can't Tuna Universe, Part 5

This is the final part to the series on Fine Tuning (aka, the final nail in the coffin). In the previous parts it was shown how there were basic flaws in the premises contained in the Fine Tuning Argument (FTA). Also discussed were the objections from mainstream scientists. In this concluding part, it will be shown that if you believe that the FTA proves the existence of God, then you must also conclude that God is controlling our weather intentionally killing innocent people! So strap your seat belts and put on your science helmet!

Roughly 50 years ago it became apparent to meteorologists that the atmosphere here on Earth has its own fine-tuning problem, specifically in the area of numerical weather prediction where physical equations of the atmosphere are applied to initial weather conditions and integrated forward in time to produce a weather forecast.

In the early 1960s Ed Lorenz was performing some of the earliest experiments in computer-based numerical weather prediction. By accident, Lorenz discovered that when the same set of initial weather conditions were input to three decimal places instead of six, the two sets of computer forecasts diverged rapidly apart. That is, very tiny changes in the initial state of the atmosphere grew nonlinearly through time resulting in dramatically different future weather patterns. This became known as the "butterfly effect" after a paper Lorenz presented in 1972 titled "Predictability:  Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?". For this discovery Lorenz became known as the Father of chaos theory.

In addition to sensitivity to initial conditions, meteorologists further discovered that the future evolution of the weather is also extremely sensitive to numerous "tunable" physical parameters and constants of the atmosphere. For instance, if the moist adiabatic lapse rate was greater than the observed value of 3* per 1000 feet, then updrafts in thunderstorms would be weaker and there would be less violent weather. There are literally hundreds of these parameters and coefficients which are necessary to accurately describe the physics of our atmosphere including those for cloud radiation budgets, heat and moisture fluxes, turbulence, convection and so on. If any of these factors are altered even slightly then those differences would grow nonlinearly through the forecast period, resulting in dramatically different weather down the road.

In recognition of this meteorological "fine tuning", weather forecast centers around the world have adopted a strategy referred to as ensemble forecasting. Instead of running one computer forecast model from one set of initial conditions as input, the ensemble forecast technique runs dozens of computer forecast models each with a slightly different physics package or from slightly different initial conditions. As a result each computer forecast is different from the other, some more dramatically than others. This provides the meteorologist with information about the most probable future weather along with a measure of the different possibilities.  Those who watch The Weather Channel during hurricane season have probably already seen the output from such ensemble forecasts which typically resembles a spaghetti plot. The link below provides one such example, which is of the possible forecast tracks of tropical storm Sandy roughly 10 days before intensifying to hurricane strength and bashing the NJ/NY coast.

http://www.artofscientia.com/spaghetti-plot-maps-of-tropical-storms-and-hurricanes-as-art/

Notice how the individual model forecast tracks diverge significantly over time only because of tiny differences in initial conditions and physical parameters. So this "fine-tuning" problem is for real in the atmospheric science and is widely acknowledged in the meteorological community.

So how does this relate to the fine tuning argument that God was responsible for creating the universe? Well, in the FTA it was argued that in order for the universe to exist, numerous physical constants have to be in a narrow range of values or else we wouldn't be here, and the odds of them ALL falling in such a narrow range to allow a life-permitting universe are so infinitesimal that a God had to be responsible. Those odds being on the order of one in 10^1050.

Well, in the meteorological fine tuning it ends up that in order for a killer hurricane like Sandy or Katrina to form the antecedent initial conditions several weeks prior to the storm's formation must be exactly tuned to specific values over a broad area. Even the slightest deviation from those precise values would result in no hurricane or one that takes a different path or intensity.

So what are the odds of having a storm exactly like hurricane Katrina form that follows the exact track and exhibits the same evolution of intensity over time? Perhaps not so surprisingly, that probability is far lower than the odds of one in 10^1050 for the formation of a life-permitting universe!

To show this, let's produce very conservative back-of-the-envelop calculations. First suppose there are just five meteorological variables that need to be fine-tuned (temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, wind direction). Next suppose there are only 10 possible values that each of those variables could possibly have whereby each value would result in a different weather pattern in the future. Lastly, suppose there are just 1000 locations across the northern hemisphere and 5 levels of the atmosphere (5000 total data points) where the initial conditions must be fine tuned. Again, these are VERY conservative estimates. Yet, when the math is done the probability of getting a storm exactly like Katrina is roughly one part in 10^34,948 (5^10 raised to the 5000th power). This of course is a much more insanely low probability than Hugh Ross's odds of a life-permitting universe mentioned earlier. Moreover, this calculation only considered the fine tuning of the initial conditions. If the fine tuning of the physical parameters are also taken into account the probability would be even insanely lower.

So what are the implications of meteorological fine tuning? Well quite simply, if you think that a God has to be responsible for the formation of the universe because the probability of its formation through the fine tuning of the physical constants is insanely low, then to be consistent you must also conclude that God is responsible for forming Hurricane Katrina since the probability of its formation is even lower. Of course that would mean God was responsible for human death and destruction! Doesn't sit well to theists does it? Well too bad. If theists want to concoct a crazy argument like the FTA to prove God formed the universe, then they have to take the good with the bad and similarly conclude God likes to kill people with tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and lightning.

Such a notion is silly, of course, because for the most part we can predict the weather. That would make it unlikely that it is being controlled by a God (since it's absurd to think we could forecast what a God would do with good reliability). Of course the error in both arguments is that given enough time and enough space, shit happens! The cosmos is enormous and old, and extremely rare things can happen at any time. That's not a proof of God's existence.

Evolution vs. Creation Debate

Yesterday the ever long debate between evolution and creationism took stage between "The Science Guy" Bill Nye and the director of the Creationist Museum Ken Ham.

Overall I thought Bill Nye performed really well. His point regarding the failure of the wooden ship Wyoming (built in 1905) was excellent for discounting the possibility that a handful of inexperienced people could build an arc that could last at sea for over a year. It was the first time I had ever heard that particular argument made.

Nye was also spot on when he said that we need to get past teaching kids about the Biblical creation stories and teach kids real science. Science and technology is the reason why our lives are so much better than the lives of our ancestors from 100-2000 years ago. Today we have air conditioned homes, cell phones, computers, cars, GPS systems, airplanes, hurricane/tornado warning systems ... none of which wouldn't be possible without using the same science that disproves the Biblical creation myths.

Of course there are a couple of points that I thought Nye could have improved upon. One of these was when he was asked where did the first atoms come from in the Big Bang, Nye responded "we don't know, it's a mystery" which is accurate. However he really could have driven the nail in the coffin with a follow-up like this:

"But just because something is unknown to science doesn't mean a god is responsible for the cause. For example, we don't know why an otherwise healthy middle-age person would get pancreatic cancer, but it would be silly to believe that a loving god caused it. Moreover, there have been many phenomena that at one time in our past were thought to be caused by god (rainbows, eclipses, lightning, motion of the planets, etc.), we even had specific gods in charge of them (e.g., Iris, Zeus, etc.), but later science was able to discover natural causes for each one. So to imply that god must be the cause of the origin of the universe because we don't know the true origin right now, is really a logical fallacy called an argument from ignorance."

However, it's easy to Monday-morning quarterback a debate. I thought Bill Nye did a great job and kicked Ken Ham's butt. Of course, I don't even think the greatest religious apologist & debater of all, William Lane Craig, would have a prayer at defending a 6-day creation, 6000 year old universe, global flood and Noah's arc. Science has simply driven those myths into the ground.

You Can't Tuna Universe, Part 4

In the previous three installments of this series I attempted to shoot down the individual premises within the Fine Tuning Argument (FTA) used by theists to prove the existence of God. In this fourth installment I'll present some of the objections raised in the past by others, and then in the fifth and final installment I'll deliver one final blow using an example from our own atmosphere.

Clearly the objections I raised about the FTA are not the only ones that have been raised. Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson objects to the whole notion that the universe is fine-tuned for life. Tyson points out that there are so many things in the universe that can kill us (asteroid, nearby supernova, disease, etc.) and that 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 percent of the universe is uninhabitable for life, hardly what one would consider a grand design by an all-powerful creator. As Tyson eloquently states "the universe is no garden of eden."

Physicist Lee Smolin comically points out that the universe is more fine tuned for black holes than life, since they are more abundant in the cosmos than planets which are capable of supporting life. Historian Richard Carrier makes an excellent point that our universe looks exactly how it would if the universe was created naturally without god. It would have to be enormous in size, very old (to give time for life to evolve naturally somewhere in the universe), and life would only be rarely observed. And this is exactly what we see. In contrast, an all-powerful god would be expected to build a universe that is more benevolent for life.

Perhaps the most vehement objections to the FTA come from physicist Victor Stenger, who argues that many of the physical constants in the universe have to be that way and can not be set to anything other than the values we observed according to established physics and cosmology. He also points out that many of the constants appear to have a narrow window of life-permitting values only because of the units chosen. More importantly, many of the physical constants are not independent of each other, so changing one parameter can be compensated for by a change to another parameter which increases the probability of life-permitting universes. This dependency among many factors also means that accurate probabilities of a life-permitting universe can not be calculated. In his work Stenger was able to show computer simulations whereby viable universes can develop and exist for billions of years even when the physical parameters are simultaneously varied by several orders of magnitude. Plus there is no telling what other forms of life could form in a universe that had different sets of parameters.

So, as you can see, the FTA is a bunch of bunk no matter which angle it's viewed. In the fifth and final part to this series, I'll provide an example from our own atmosphere which shows that if you believe that the FTA is proof of god, then god must be controlling our weather!!