Science is a search for truth –whatever the truth may turn out to be, even if it’s evidently not what we wanted to believe it was. In science, it doe… - Aron Ra

It doesn’t matter what you believe; all that matters is why you believe it, and how accurate you can show your beliefs to be.

Godzilla 2014 missed the mark primarily because it is not an origins story. Gojira was a monster of our own making. Similarly Gino was supposed to impose nature’s response to our meddling. But G2014 pre-existed genetic modifications and nuclear testing. We have no responsibility for him, nor the mutos either. They come from a time that never was, millions of years ago, “when the world was much more radioactive than it is today”. The story implies that mutos ‘eat radiation’. In the film, they can track it through every kind of protective shielding, and they eat nuclear devices like fruit -metallic peal and all. I guess millions of years ago, nuclear missiles grew on trees, and kaiju were common even though they’re absent from the fossil record -with only one top-secret exception. As an advocate of science education with a deep interest in paleontology, and as someone who would rather see humans held accountable for what they do to their environment, this film was very disappointing. As an atheist, it was even worse. The star of the film not only has impossible dimensions and an inexplicable power, he is also immortal. He’s been alive forever, and spends all his time sleeping. He awakens only he senses submarines or the arrival of other kaiju, because he has a mission to protect humanity. G2014 put the ‘god’ in Godzilla. The director called him a god, and some of the characters in the movie describe him as a god too. So he’s not a lizard, not a dinosaur, but one of the Lovecraftian great old ones like Cthulhu. In a video I made years ago, I too joked about Godzilla being a god. But it was still somewhat disappointing to see him depicted that way.

The people who are overtly bigoted against gays now are often the same people who were openly bigoted against blacks years ago.

While scientists themselves may be religious men of many different faiths, their methodology was designed to be the antithesis of faith because it requires that all assumptions be questioned, that all proposed explanations be based on demonstrable evidence, and that all hypotheses be must be testable and potentially falsifiable. Blaming magic is never acceptable because miracles aren’t explanations of any kind, and there has never been a single instance in history when assuming the supernatural has ever improved our understanding of anything. In fact such excuses have only ever impeded our attempts at discovery. This is one of many reasons why science depends on methodological naturalism; because unlike religion, science demands some way to determine who’s explanations are the more accurate, and which changes would actually be corrections. Science is a self-correcting process which changes constantly because its always improving. Only accurate information has practical application. So it doesn’t matter what you wanna believe. All that matters is why we should believe it too, and how accurate your perception can be shown to be. So you can’t just make up stuff in science (like you can in religion) because you have to substantiate everything, and be able to defend it even against peers who may not want to believe as you do. Be prepared to convince them anyway. Its possible to do that in science because science is based on reason. That means you must be ready to reject or correct whatever you hold true should you discover evidence against it.