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http://happilyfreethinking.blogspot.com/2009/02/explaining-god-to-child.html
 
Little, 7-year-old Timmy: "Hey, Mr. Will. What's God?"
Will: "That's a good question. I suppose that depends on who you ask."
 
Timmy: "I'm asking you!"
Will: "Alright, hand me that scotch and I'll tell you. Good. Do you
ever play with toys, Timmy? Maybe little action figures, legos, and
trucks?"
 
Timmy: "Of course."
Will: "When you play with legos and trucks and things, do they act
like trucks or do they act like people?"
 
Timmy: *thinking* "What do you mean?"
Will: "When you're playing with the toys, do they talk and think like people?"
 
Timmy: "Yeah!"
Will: "Why do you think that is?"
 
Timmy: "I dunno. Why?"
Will: "Hand me that airplane glue and I'll explain my theory.
People—human beings—are social. We have to team up in order to get
things done a lot of the time. Most of the time, throughout our
history, we've lived in groups of people, not alone. Think back to
what you learned in school about cavemen. They lived with family and
friends, and everybody had to help out just so they could survive."
 
Timmy: "Like Democrats!"
Will: "You've got it. Well, because we had to all work together so
much, people had to learn really early how to understand other people.
It's hard to communicate and get something done if you don't
understand the person or people you're working with. Well, this skill
grew in humans very early. The better people were at understanding
other people, the more likely they all were to survive. This trait
became a survival trait. Before too long, most if not all people were
pretty good at sympathizing with other people, understanding other
people's thought processes, and using teamwork to get things done. And
we were really successful. We spread out of a small place in Africa
into the Middle East, then South Asia and even Europe. Before too
long, we were the dominant species on the whole planet."
 
Timmy: "Cool. But what does this have to do with trucks?"
Will: "Stop interrupting and hand me that salvia. Whoa... Anyway,
because humans were so smart, we were always trying to learn and
understand everything around us. The problem, though, was that we
didn't have thousands of years of science to built on like we do
today. There's no way a hunter-gatherer from 8,000 B.C. could
understand that the sun was made up of a nuclear furnace, burning
hydrogen so hot that it turns into helium, nearly 100 million miles
away. How could they? Astronomy was still in its infancy, and real
nuclear physics wouldn't be along for nearly another 10,000 years. But
that didn't stop them from being curious... so they guessed."
 
Timmy: "Are you okay? You look dizzy and you keep licking the couch."
Will: "Yeah, salvia's a hell of a thing. So how do you think they
explained the sun?"
 
Timmy: "I dunno."
Will: "They did what they'd learned how to do over thousands of years;
they gave it a personality so they could relate to it."
 
Timmy: "But the sun's not a person! It's a fireball!"
Will: "You know that and I know that, but they had no idea. All they
saw was a warm ball that rose and fell every day, and they knew it was
very, very important. The knew the sun was necessary for warmth, for
growing crops, for telling when the harvest season was going to end,
and even just telling what time it was during the day. The sun was
important! So what happens when you combine these? What happens when
you combine a great natural phenomena with a personality?"
 
Timmy: "God!"
Will: "Basically, yes. They figured that this very, very powerful
personality was something to revere, so they started worshiping the
sun. And because the sun isn't consistent—some days are hot, some days
are cold—they assumed that their behavior could influence the sun god.
Appeasing the sun god was thought to have positive results and
angering the sun god was thought to have negative results."
 
Timmy: "But that's not how it works. The sun does what it does because
of other reasons."
Will: "You're absolutely right. Because of that, the response to their
praise and worship wasn't consistent. You can pray to the sun one day
and have it sunny, and you can pray to the sun and have it cold the
next. This is when something pretty bad happened. Because people
thought they could communicate with the sun, they thought that somehow
that gave them a supernatural importance, and people got kinda
addicted. The people that were the most addicted became priests and
shamans. These were spiritual leaders that were expected to be
authorities on what the sun wanted or how the sun thought. As time
went on, other natural phenomena were also given personality, and
eventually they were just assigning gods to whatever. There were wind
gods, and ocean gods, and sky gods. And then people with one set of
gods would meet other people with another set of gods. This generally
didn't go very well. Inevitably one group would try to convert the
other and they'd either succeed or they'd both fight."
 
Timmy: "That's stupid!"
Will: "Yes. We're still doing it today, though."
 
Timmy: "Wait, I mean the Christian God."
Will: "I'm getting to that. Hand me that tequila and I'll explain it.
Eventually, it was the gods and not the phenomena that were important
to people. God wasn't the sun god, Ra, anymore, it was king of the
gods Zeus, for example. Zeus did throw lightning, but that wasn't why
he was praised anymore. Religion had gone from being the predecessor
of science to being something that dominated society. Then came the
Jews."
 
Timmy: "Like John Stewart?"
Will: "Sort of. Around 2000 B.C., a man named Abraham had a vision,
like what I just had with the salvia, and thought he saw angels. He
was scared, but because he got his wife pregnant he believed it was
true. He gathered together old myths that had been handed down from
some of his ancestors and then started a religion that we now call
Judaism. He passed down the religion to his sons, and they added a bit
more, and then their sons added a bit more. Before long—maybe 600-700
years—they had a lot of followers. They were all over the area we now
call Israel. Anyway, they ruled for a while, were conquered a few
times; normal religion stuff. Somewhere along the way, priests and
"prophets" discovered one of the best ways to keep people believing in
a religion, they and others found, was to make vague prophesies. These
were just guesses about what might happen. If they came true, and they
usually did because they were so vague, they could use that as
evidence that their faith is real. Judaism had prophecies, too, about
a savior coming from their god to usher in some new age. Anyway after
a while, according to Christianity, a man came along. His name was
Yeshua bin Joseph but most people now just call him Jesus or Jesus
Christ."
 
Timmy: "Jesus Christ!"
Will: "Yes. This part is a bit of a mystery, because we're not really
sure if there was a real Jesus or not."
 
Timmy: "What?! Why?"
Will: "The thing is, they didn't start writing the Bible until like 70
years after Jesus was supposedly born. And the accounts of Jesus' life
aren't consistent going from author to author. The worst part is that
evidence outside of the Bible that we have now usually came from the
Bible at one point or another or was made up. We'll probably never
know for sure if he was real or just a combination of other religious
figures."
 
Timmy: "Fuck!"
Will: "Whoa, watch the language. No more HBO for you."
 
Timmy: "So god is just people believing in nothing? Wait a second, we
already know about how the sun works, though. We know how a lot of
things work. Why do people still believe in god?"
Will: "A few reasons. First, when you're really little, you tend to
believe what your parents and other adults tell you. It's another
survival trait. Back in the caveman days, if your mother told you to
stay away from wolves, you had better stay away from wolves. Those
kids that didn't listen were probably delicious, and they were eaten
before they could reproduce. Another reason has to do with the way
people interact. There's something called groupthink. Because humans
have done so well when we cooperate, it's become a part of us to want
to cooperate, to get along with and agree with others. Unfortunately,
sometimes this can go too far, and we'll agree with a group of people
even if what you're agreeing with is bad or doesn't make sense. But
the big two reasons are easy: the carrot and the stick. Smarter
animals, like humans, can be conditioned through rewards and
punishments to do and think pretty much anything. In religion,
generally there is a promised reward for believing and a stern
punishment for not believing. Ask a Christian about hell if you want
to know about their punishment. It's basically torture for all of
eternity. Pretty scary right?"
 
Timmy: "So they think you're going to be tortured forever?"
Will: "Most of them do, yes."
 
Timmy: "Why don't you believe?"
Will: "I'm not afraid of something for which there's no evidence and
I'm not motivated by something for which there's no evidence."
 
Timmy: "Okay, Entourage is on I've gotta go."
Will: Zzzzzzzzzz

There is a lot of hype about the McDonalds' scalding coffee case. No
one is in favor of frivolous cases of outlandish results; however, it
is important to understand some points that were not reported in most
of the stories about the case. McDonalds coffee was not only hot, it
was scalding -- capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin,
flesh and muscle. Here's the whole story.
 
Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat
of her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonalds'
coffee in February 1992. Liebeck, 79 at the time, ordered coffee that
was served in a styrofoam cup at the drivethrough window of a local
McDonalds.
 
After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and
stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her
coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have pounced on this case,
often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was
in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck
placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic
lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the
cup spilled into her lap.
 
The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it
next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered
full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her
body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and
groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time
she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement
treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds
refused.
 
During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700
claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some
claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks.
This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and
nature of this hazard.
 
McDonalds also said during discovery that, based on a consultants
advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit
to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the
safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell
coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home
is generally 135 to 140 degrees.
 
Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the
company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot
at 185
degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn
hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above,
and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured
into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn
the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that
burns
would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing
the "holding temperature" of its coffee.
 
Plaintiffs' expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin
burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full
thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony
showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the
extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases
exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155
degrees, the liquid would
have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.
 
McDonalds asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or
home, intending to consume it there. However, the companys own
research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee
immediately while driving.
 
McDonalds also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its
customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were
unaware that they could suffer third-degree burns from the coffee and
that a statement on the side of the cup was not a "warning" but a
"reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers
of the hazard.
 
The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This
amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20
percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7
million in
punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds' coffee sales.
 
Post-verdict investigation found that the temperature of coffee at the
local Albuquerque McDonalds had dropped to 158 degrees fahrenheit.
 
The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 --
or three times compensatory damages -- even though the judge called
McDonalds' conduct reckless, callous and willful.
 
No one will ever know the final ending to this case.
 
The parties eventually entered into a secret settlement which has
never been revealed to the public, despite the fact that this was a
public case, litigated in public and subjected to extensive media
reporting. Such secret settlements, after public trials, should not be
condoned.
-----
excerpted from ATLA fact sheet. (c) 1995, 1996 by Consumer Attorneys
of California

http://www.allowe.com/Humor/book/World%20Class%20Resignation.htm

Dear Mr. Baker,

As an employee of an institution of higher education, I have few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and me during our commission of duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.

Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know how to network computer systems, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to your employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of "cut and paste" as it is explained to you for the hundredth time.

You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is. Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will.

You wander around the building all day, shiftlessly seeking fault in others. You have a sharp dressed, useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle.

Seeing as this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation; however, I have a few parting thoughts:

1. When someone calls you in reference to employment, it is illegal for you to give me a bad recommendation as I have consistently performed my duties and even more. The most you can say to hurt me is, "I prefer not to comment." To keep you honest, I will have friends randomly call you over the next couple of years, because I know you would be unable to do it on your own.

2. I have all the passwords to every account on the system and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I will publish your "Favorites," which I conveniently saved when you made me "back up" your useless files. I do believe that terms like "Lolita" are not viewed favorably by the university administrations.

3. When you borrowed the digital camera to "take pictures of your mother's b-day," you neglected to mention that you were going to take nude pictures of yourself in the mirror. Then, like the techno-moron you are, you forgot to erase them. Suffice it to say, I have never seen such odd acts with a ketchup bottle. I assure you that those photos are being kept in safe places pending your authoring of a glowing letter of recommendation. (And, for once, would you please try to use spellcheck? I hate correcting your mistakes.)

I expect the letter of recommendation on my desk by 8:00 am tomorrow. One word of this to anybody and all of your twisted little repugnant obsessions will become public knowledge. Never f*ck with your systems administrator, Mr. Baker! They know what you do with all that free time!