In a book I'm reading called the Power of Myth (a conversation between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers), I finally got the real and nearly complete answer to the purpose of religion and God. I always talk about God being useful but not true, and I stick to that answer. BUT I also stick to Friedrich Nietzsche's story of the Ubermensch(literally translated, the super, or over man). First off, I will explain what myth is to me.
Myth, so far as I can tell, is a sort of fable, with a sort of collective teachings of a society. Each and every civilization has had its own myths. Myths help people go through their lives. It's sort of like a collective knowledge, consisting of subconscious knowledge and experience, reflections of a society as a whole and is passed on from one generation to another in a sort of symbolic fashion. Let's remember, myths are supposed to be interpreted by everyone in a society. For that reason, they are written in poetic, symbolic, and vague verses.
There was one example of subconscious symbolism that shocked me, that is the recurring theme of the eagle(a symbol of spiritual freedom, soaring) and the snake(the symbol of bondage to the earth) suddenly and almost universally throughout all cultures amalgamated to form the dragon. A serpent with wings. Without thinking about it, societies related these two animals that symbolized the human desire to have a free spirit and the constriction of man to form the dragon.
Another thing about myths that I mentioned above is how they are parallel. All myths share the same teachings but in different context. If you don't believe me, read this next part.
Part of the conversation between Campbell and Moyers. They are discussing the parallels between the myth in Genesis and myths in other societies:
"
MOYERS : Genesis 1; "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
CAMPBELL : This is from "The Song of the World," a legend of the Pima Indians of Arizona; "In the beginning there was only darkness everywhere- darkness and water. And the darkness gathered thick in places, crowding together and then seperating, crowding and seperating . . . . "
MOYERS : Genesis 1;"And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light."
CAMPBELL : And this is from the Hindu Upanishads, from about the eight century B.C.: "In the beginning, there was only the great self reflected in the form of a person. Reflecting, it found nothing but itself. Then its first word was, 'This am I.' "
MOYERS : Genesis 1:"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply.' "
CAMPBELL : Now, this is from a legend of the Bassari people of West Africa: "Unumbotte made a human being. Its name was Man. Unumbotte next made an antelope, named Antelope. Unumbotte made a snake, named Snake...... And Unumbotte said to them, 'The earth has not yet been pounded. You must pound the ground smooth where you are sitting.' Unumbotte gave them seeds of all kinds, and said: 'Go plant these'. "
MOYERS : Genesis 2: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done..."
CAMPBELL : And now again from the Pima Indians: "I make the world and lo, the world is finished. Thus I make the world, and lo! The world is finished."
-
MOYERS : But Genesis continues: " 'Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, 'The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.' Then the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this that you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.' "
CAMPBELL : The Bassari legend continues in the same way. "One day Snake said, We too should eat these fruits. Why must we go hungry? Antelope said, 'But we don't know anything about this fruit.' Then Man and his wife took some of the fruit and ate is. Unumbotte came down from the sky and asked, 'Who ate the fruit?' They answered, 'We did.' Unumbotte asked, 'Who told you that you could eat that fruit?' They replied, 'Snake did.' " ' It is very much the same story.
"
I implore you all to read at least the last part of the conversation. Read it and reread it.
If you cannot see the similarities between myths by now, you are truly lost. I'm not implying that every culture tells the same exact story. What I mean is that the problems of mankind are the same everywhere on Earth. From that myth is born, and is told in context to the society. I have reason to believe that myth helps in the survivability of mankind, or at least has up until globalization.
But I am no expert on myth. It is just a topic that has my interest sparked at the moment.
The most important aspect that I think should never be ignored is the fictitious nature of myths. Very easily, people take myths literally. The same way you don't ask your parents why you're not allowed to do dangerous things, you don't question the truth behind the myths they've thought you.
Myths do have purpose, and atheists (I admit) often disregard their power to teach in the same way theists take them a in a literal sense. There was obviously no snake, woman, man, God and fruit gathered in the Garden of Eden(or even a Garden of Eden). The messages in every religion are symbolic.
But here's where I take off my blanket of niceness. We're in the 21st century. Science makes planes fly. Religion makes planes fly into buildings. Science discovers nuclear power, the power of the sun,. Politics levels cities with nukes. Science discovers a way to satisfy the basic need of every man, woman and child on earth. Capitalist economies insist on feeding the already full.
These three major retardants of the progress of man, religion, politics and economics, have found ways to appeal to our animal like tendencies. Religion with the promise to never die(live forever with God), politics with the promise of equality and fairness, and capitalism with the promise of fair trade. All facades for the animal need for an alpha male(a God, the King) and greed.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Prophecies
First(Sorry, you asked for it), an explanation on fulfilled prophecies with the help of David Hume and Nostradamus.
My part of the explanation goes like this. If a thousand people wrote a thousand different stories, each with a vague writing style, and these stories were compiled in a book; after a thousand years, would it be easy to fit any of these stories to an occurrence in history? History, of coarse, is written by the victors, so history can be vague and one sided as well.
That explanation may not have made sense, but consider this;
I once believed the world was going to end in 2012, because of the predictions that Nostradamus made that actually came true(Hitler's rise to power among many others).
Before I allowed myself to fall into the trap of belief without evidence, I read through all opinions on Nostradamus' work. I even read the translated prophecies. It surprised me that about 50% of his prophecies could be related to something that had happened. And they were were VERY vague. One had scrutinize every symbol to get some sort of meaning behind the images and words. What this meant was that prophecies were sort of like horoscopes. They're always vague, but people tend to believe them by fitting them into a situation even if there isn't any concrete evidence.
That was not the reason I stopped believing the world would end in 2012. It was months later when I read Neil Gaiman's Sandman. There was a comic involving the same bar being visited every century from the middle ages till the year 2000. In the first strip(the year 1500), there's a few people saying that it seems as if the world is coming to end the way things are going. Then in the last strip(the year 2000), there are people having the same exact conversation. That comic strip was enough to change my mind entirely.
It showed me that men are subconsciously aware and afraid of their inescapable doom. It is true the world will end; but just for them. Once you die, your world ends. People are generally afraid of losing. Death, being the worst way of losing, brings out the 'bad loser' attitude in people. "If I'm going to die, then so is the rest of the world."
Whether or not the world ends in 2012, it is stupid and wasteful to cling on to prophecies like that.
David Hume's explanation on miracles(which are related to prophecies, since most consider the fulfillment of prophecies to be miracles):
That is all I have to say about prophecies.
My part of the explanation goes like this. If a thousand people wrote a thousand different stories, each with a vague writing style, and these stories were compiled in a book; after a thousand years, would it be easy to fit any of these stories to an occurrence in history? History, of coarse, is written by the victors, so history can be vague and one sided as well.
That explanation may not have made sense, but consider this;
I once believed the world was going to end in 2012, because of the predictions that Nostradamus made that actually came true(Hitler's rise to power among many others).
Before I allowed myself to fall into the trap of belief without evidence, I read through all opinions on Nostradamus' work. I even read the translated prophecies. It surprised me that about 50% of his prophecies could be related to something that had happened. And they were were VERY vague. One had scrutinize every symbol to get some sort of meaning behind the images and words. What this meant was that prophecies were sort of like horoscopes. They're always vague, but people tend to believe them by fitting them into a situation even if there isn't any concrete evidence.
That was not the reason I stopped believing the world would end in 2012. It was months later when I read Neil Gaiman's Sandman. There was a comic involving the same bar being visited every century from the middle ages till the year 2000. In the first strip(the year 1500), there's a few people saying that it seems as if the world is coming to end the way things are going. Then in the last strip(the year 2000), there are people having the same exact conversation. That comic strip was enough to change my mind entirely.
It showed me that men are subconsciously aware and afraid of their inescapable doom. It is true the world will end; but just for them. Once you die, your world ends. People are generally afraid of losing. Death, being the worst way of losing, brings out the 'bad loser' attitude in people. "If I'm going to die, then so is the rest of the world."
Whether or not the world ends in 2012, it is stupid and wasteful to cling on to prophecies like that.
David Hume's explanation on miracles(which are related to prophecies, since most consider the fulfillment of prophecies to be miracles):
- People often lie, and they have good reasons to lie about miracles occurring either because they believe they are doing so for the benefit of their religion or because of the fame that results.
- People by nature enjoy relating miracles they have heard without caring for their veracity and thus miracles are easily transmitted even where false.
- Hume notes that miracles seem to occur mostly in "ignorant" and "barbarous" nations and times, and the reason they don't occur in the "civilized" societies is such societies aren't awed by what they know to be natural events.
- The miracles of each religion argue against all other religions and their miracles, and so even if a proportion of all reported miracles across the world fit Hume's requirement for belief, the miracles of each religion make the other less likely.
That is all I have to say about prophecies.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Part 2; Atheism cont'd and the Unjust God
Cont'd
2. Where religion would rely on belief before justification, atheists practice the opposite. With religion, there is a requirement to believe first. This is common in all religions. The creed is, belief first, then if someone asks you why, then justify. With atheists, we have a total opposite system, if you will, of beliefs. It's not an actual system, it's unorganized, it's decentralized, there are no preachers, there is no system of faith, it's completely up to the individual to keep learning and keep changing the way he or she understand how the universe works. That's why I keep writing.
Anyone who has followed this blog will know by now that I started off very agnostic. I was actually religious before that, and only stopped believing in God somewhere in October last year. Just over a year ago. But back to the subject at hand.
3. There are more contradictions within and between religions than there are within and between fields of science (philosophy not being counted as purely empirical science). Considering there are 3 major monotheistic religions, 1 major polytheistic religion, and possibly hundreds of off-shoots from these 4 religions as well as the hundreds of other belief systems(Scientology included) would imply the chances of one point of view being right would be 1 in a thousand(presuming there are that many different views). I would like to remind everyone that each and every religion presumes itself to be the one true religion. So on the off chance that the Mormons were correct, about 99.5% of the world's population will end up in hell. Think about that.
God is also said to be all-loving. This is almost universal across all religions. Assuming Christianity was the true religion, and God had the sympathy to allow every one from every offshoot of Christianity(collectively, the worlds most wide spread disease/religion) into heaven, that would still mean 2/3rds of the entire planet ending up in hell for simply not being born in the right place at the right time. That's 4,000,000,000 souls in hell. God's will? Maybe he's more of a sadist than a lover of all things.
Now if we change the rules a little bit, while maintaining the all-loving nature of God by saying God will allow any body with good intentions to enter heaven, granted that at the gates of heaven, he or she accepts God(or that version of God). If that were the case, then the most logical approach would be to reject God in our daily existence, and simply maintain benignity.
4. Theories and facts.
With the above text in mind, we can dissect any apparent observation. I will now dissect 4 observations using the power of the internet and some facts that I already know of. The observations are gravity, evolution, emotion, and God. These observations, as you can tell, are increasingly difficult to explain, that is, gravity is explain quite simply, which is not the case for the explanation for God.
Gravity is and was a theory because there was a tendency for objects to fall. The first explanations for gravity by Greek philosophers are now considered obsolete. For a long time Newton's theories were considered as close a match to actual fact as you could get. Then Einstein came along with his theory, and up to this day, it is considered to be the closest you can get to to explain the theory of gravity.
We can observe that changes occur when an organism produces offspring. We observe that a child bares resemblance to both sides of the family, hence, the same organism is not simply being copied and pasted, but recombined with traits from other organisms. The theory here is said to be evolution, that is, the constant test of survivability of genetic traits through the process of natural selection. Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin both had very different theories of evolution. Both of them had produced very close-to-fact explanations that seemed to fit the theory of evolution, but they were both incompatible with each other UNTIL the discovery of DNA. Since then evolution has been rewritten(by combining Darwinian evolution with Mendel's genetic model), tested and confirmed to be a fact; or at least to close to fact to be denied by any one with an ounce of biological knowledge or a Richard Dawkins book. To say that evolution is just a theory is to say that gravity is just a theory. Thus, we can conclude that although we cannot prove evolution, just as we cannot prove gravity, but the ever increasing evidence for both gravity and evolution must compel any sane person to believe they are both true, or at least as close to truth as we can get at the moment.
Emotion is next. We can observe that every living creature,on nearly every degree of sentience, has some degree of emotion or emotional response. The basic one being panic and aggression. We can observe insects to have both of these emotional responses at any rate, which is why I say they are the most basic. Let us also take into account the normal state of being, that is free of emotion, like when asleep(without a dream), or when idle. Since I already rejected philosophy as empirical science, I have to explain the phenomenon of emotion without the will to power theory. This might get messy. To test a basic emotional response such as fear, scientists have used artificially hatched chicks. By disallowing any 'teaching' from a mother hen, these chicks were hatched in a lab. A while later, a silhouette of a eagle(or hawk, I can't remember what they used) was shown to the chicks. As in, a figure of an eagle was made to seem as if approaching the chicks from above. The chicks responded exactly how you'd expect them to; by scattering and chirping madly. For more, read The Making of Memory. What we can conclude is that emotions are genetically imprinted to ensure the survivability of an organism. The moment an organism panics, all it's senses are elevated, it has the will to move with more agility, and therefore have a greater chance of escaping. It is not God's will, it's the organisms. If the genetics that are inherited by the chick(in this case) aren't best at what they do, then they will not survive to be passed down. We can now see that this testable hypothesis on emotion almost fits perfectly, but there is still much room for improvement, there probably already is, but I haven't read it up yet.
I will not go into the more complex emotions such as anger, love, curiosity and etc as I am not intrigued by any of them.
Sorry if I'm going off topic, but a possible theory for the existence of consciousness would be perhaps to master emotion, hence exponentially increasing the survivability of the organism as it should (but in our case only the Buddhists seem to get it) ensure the constant manipulation(control of emotion being a form of manipulation) of emotions to suite the situation.
Ok, last theory. God. We can observe that there are miracles, prophecies that seem to fit perfectly, signs of upper intelligence, a voice in the back of our heads that guides, a void that people need to fill, etc. So, God can be used as a theory. However, with all the theories above(I worked from the ground up, skipping chemistry, first with physics(gravity), then biology(evolution), psychology(emotion)), it can be seen that there doesn't necessarily need to be a higher power that works for the more complex systems of the universe by creating less complex systems.
The argument I'm trying to present here is that there is an assumption that God created us for the universe, which would mean God's objective would be our existence, and for that to happen, God would need to create all the other basics. This is a major flaw in the theory of God, considering the more basic theories already hint that the universe was made ground up, not the other way around.
Blanketing the God theory by saying God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, thereby proving that God could have created the universe for us seeing that for us to survive, a universe would need to be created is absolutely flawed.
The whole theory of God is in fact, absolutely flawed. It is a theory of infinite regress(who created the creator? If God one day said, let's start, what day was it and why that day? What was God doing before that? Did God ever wonder who created him? Why does God seem all too human in our minds?). It is also a theory that can always rely on being untestable. Whenever a testable trait is brought up, religious apologists are quick to argue and bring up revised versions of God's prophecies and methods. In science, revising a theory is ok because, as I've said, our knowledge on the universe is always expanding. Modern science in barely 200 years old, yet it's achieved more in the field of genuine truth finding than religion ever has.
What I'm trying to imply here is that there is something very wrong with religion. It isn't a good thing. I can compare it to a fallback plan for the stupid, cowardly and ignorant. I can relate it to a virus, always looking to spread itself(just think the three religions trying to get into space to convert the first(if any) intelligent alien life form). I can see that it fits the evolutionary failure of believing in those you believe in, where it's original purpose was to make sure people put faith in their parents or trusted friends, they would learn something that would help them survive, religion however has festered and continues to be passed down in the same way.
2. Where religion would rely on belief before justification, atheists practice the opposite. With religion, there is a requirement to believe first. This is common in all religions. The creed is, belief first, then if someone asks you why, then justify. With atheists, we have a total opposite system, if you will, of beliefs. It's not an actual system, it's unorganized, it's decentralized, there are no preachers, there is no system of faith, it's completely up to the individual to keep learning and keep changing the way he or she understand how the universe works. That's why I keep writing.
Anyone who has followed this blog will know by now that I started off very agnostic. I was actually religious before that, and only stopped believing in God somewhere in October last year. Just over a year ago. But back to the subject at hand.
3. There are more contradictions within and between religions than there are within and between fields of science (philosophy not being counted as purely empirical science). Considering there are 3 major monotheistic religions, 1 major polytheistic religion, and possibly hundreds of off-shoots from these 4 religions as well as the hundreds of other belief systems(Scientology included) would imply the chances of one point of view being right would be 1 in a thousand(presuming there are that many different views). I would like to remind everyone that each and every religion presumes itself to be the one true religion. So on the off chance that the Mormons were correct, about 99.5% of the world's population will end up in hell. Think about that.
God is also said to be all-loving. This is almost universal across all religions. Assuming Christianity was the true religion, and God had the sympathy to allow every one from every offshoot of Christianity(collectively, the worlds most wide spread disease/religion) into heaven, that would still mean 2/3rds of the entire planet ending up in hell for simply not being born in the right place at the right time. That's 4,000,000,000 souls in hell. God's will? Maybe he's more of a sadist than a lover of all things.
Now if we change the rules a little bit, while maintaining the all-loving nature of God by saying God will allow any body with good intentions to enter heaven, granted that at the gates of heaven, he or she accepts God(or that version of God). If that were the case, then the most logical approach would be to reject God in our daily existence, and simply maintain benignity.
4. Theories and facts.
A scientific theory is a well supported body of interconnected statements that explains observations and can be used to make testable predictions
Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence is so strong
With the above text in mind, we can dissect any apparent observation. I will now dissect 4 observations using the power of the internet and some facts that I already know of. The observations are gravity, evolution, emotion, and God. These observations, as you can tell, are increasingly difficult to explain, that is, gravity is explain quite simply, which is not the case for the explanation for God.
Gravity is and was a theory because there was a tendency for objects to fall. The first explanations for gravity by Greek philosophers are now considered obsolete. For a long time Newton's theories were considered as close a match to actual fact as you could get. Then Einstein came along with his theory, and up to this day, it is considered to be the closest you can get to to explain the theory of gravity.
We can observe that changes occur when an organism produces offspring. We observe that a child bares resemblance to both sides of the family, hence, the same organism is not simply being copied and pasted, but recombined with traits from other organisms. The theory here is said to be evolution, that is, the constant test of survivability of genetic traits through the process of natural selection. Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin both had very different theories of evolution. Both of them had produced very close-to-fact explanations that seemed to fit the theory of evolution, but they were both incompatible with each other UNTIL the discovery of DNA. Since then evolution has been rewritten(by combining Darwinian evolution with Mendel's genetic model), tested and confirmed to be a fact; or at least to close to fact to be denied by any one with an ounce of biological knowledge or a Richard Dawkins book. To say that evolution is just a theory is to say that gravity is just a theory. Thus, we can conclude that although we cannot prove evolution, just as we cannot prove gravity, but the ever increasing evidence for both gravity and evolution must compel any sane person to believe they are both true, or at least as close to truth as we can get at the moment.
Emotion is next. We can observe that every living creature,on nearly every degree of sentience, has some degree of emotion or emotional response. The basic one being panic and aggression. We can observe insects to have both of these emotional responses at any rate, which is why I say they are the most basic. Let us also take into account the normal state of being, that is free of emotion, like when asleep(without a dream), or when idle. Since I already rejected philosophy as empirical science, I have to explain the phenomenon of emotion without the will to power theory. This might get messy. To test a basic emotional response such as fear, scientists have used artificially hatched chicks. By disallowing any 'teaching' from a mother hen, these chicks were hatched in a lab. A while later, a silhouette of a eagle(or hawk, I can't remember what they used) was shown to the chicks. As in, a figure of an eagle was made to seem as if approaching the chicks from above. The chicks responded exactly how you'd expect them to; by scattering and chirping madly. For more, read The Making of Memory. What we can conclude is that emotions are genetically imprinted to ensure the survivability of an organism. The moment an organism panics, all it's senses are elevated, it has the will to move with more agility, and therefore have a greater chance of escaping. It is not God's will, it's the organisms. If the genetics that are inherited by the chick(in this case) aren't best at what they do, then they will not survive to be passed down. We can now see that this testable hypothesis on emotion almost fits perfectly, but there is still much room for improvement, there probably already is, but I haven't read it up yet.
I will not go into the more complex emotions such as anger, love, curiosity and etc as I am not intrigued by any of them.
Sorry if I'm going off topic, but a possible theory for the existence of consciousness would be perhaps to master emotion, hence exponentially increasing the survivability of the organism as it should (but in our case only the Buddhists seem to get it) ensure the constant manipulation(control of emotion being a form of manipulation) of emotions to suite the situation.
Ok, last theory. God. We can observe that there are miracles, prophecies that seem to fit perfectly, signs of upper intelligence, a voice in the back of our heads that guides, a void that people need to fill, etc. So, God can be used as a theory. However, with all the theories above(I worked from the ground up, skipping chemistry, first with physics(gravity), then biology(evolution), psychology(emotion)), it can be seen that there doesn't necessarily need to be a higher power that works for the more complex systems of the universe by creating less complex systems.
The argument I'm trying to present here is that there is an assumption that God created us for the universe, which would mean God's objective would be our existence, and for that to happen, God would need to create all the other basics. This is a major flaw in the theory of God, considering the more basic theories already hint that the universe was made ground up, not the other way around.
Blanketing the God theory by saying God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, thereby proving that God could have created the universe for us seeing that for us to survive, a universe would need to be created is absolutely flawed.
The whole theory of God is in fact, absolutely flawed. It is a theory of infinite regress(who created the creator? If God one day said, let's start, what day was it and why that day? What was God doing before that? Did God ever wonder who created him? Why does God seem all too human in our minds?). It is also a theory that can always rely on being untestable. Whenever a testable trait is brought up, religious apologists are quick to argue and bring up revised versions of God's prophecies and methods. In science, revising a theory is ok because, as I've said, our knowledge on the universe is always expanding. Modern science in barely 200 years old, yet it's achieved more in the field of genuine truth finding than religion ever has.
What I'm trying to imply here is that there is something very wrong with religion. It isn't a good thing. I can compare it to a fallback plan for the stupid, cowardly and ignorant. I can relate it to a virus, always looking to spread itself(just think the three religions trying to get into space to convert the first(if any) intelligent alien life form). I can see that it fits the evolutionary failure of believing in those you believe in, where it's original purpose was to make sure people put faith in their parents or trusted friends, they would learn something that would help them survive, religion however has festered and continues to be passed down in the same way.
"[Religion has made] a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are intellectual slave holders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction."
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Ultimatum - Will to Power and Atheism
Before I start I would like to make clear a few things.
I am an atheist, you should know that by know.
I KNOW that I'm an atheist not because I chose to be one, but because I had no other choice, which makes me my case as hard to argue as a religious person's one.
I have limited scientific knowledge, and I'm very bad at math on paper. But I always look for scientific and mathematical analogies that help me better understand the nature of the universe.
I am not a completely closed-minded atheist. If God one day popped up and said, "here I am", I would question first, then, if satisfied, embrace God. In this sense, I am very VERY SLIGHTLY agnostic (there is almost certainly no God).
This is only because atheists have a tendency to put ego before truth, just as theists do, and so a lot of truth gets lost in between. This does not make atheists are as bad as theists(as some would put it). It simply means we are as human as theists.(something I wish to talk about later in this post).
This also means that as far as I'm concerned, no man can convince me of the existence of a God.
I have a passion for expressing explanations by writing them down, and on rare occasion, actually talking them out. However, every thing I write on this blog, I question. Some of my posts, I admit have very major flaws. The only reason I keep them on is to remind me that I make mistakes. And just like evolution, my blog has no ultimate goal. It is simply the progress of how I interpret everything. It can get better or worse. That which is better, I keep, that which is worse, I discard. For what purpose, I can only speculate.
If any christians aren't happy with what I have to say, then forgive me. (doesn't your religion deal forgiveness in spades?). As for offended Muslims and Jews, i urge you to remember who your true enemies are.
Now, let's start this post off. (I am aware this post contains a billion references to "will to power", which cannot be tested objectively. Will to power, being more of an analogy than a theory does not require objective explanation, because it is not truth)
Will to power is very easily understood. It is, to me, a leading candidate in the reason of existence. Nietzsche describes will to power very well. He states :
Trust me, there probably is a more mathematical or physical explanation for will to power or an alternative that is more objective but probably less understandable. Therefore, will to power must be used as the platform for the arguments below.
I have already disproved logically the Abrahamian God in past posts, now for the attributes that are common to other Gods. (some of these are derived from Richard Dawkin's, The God Delusion, which in my opinion completely destroys any potential theory of the existence of God but fails to show a proper solution to the God problem, it also disregards the purpose of God to less fortunate people)
Anyway, most of the time, God is said to be the ultimate being. Meaning a being more powerful than God cannot be imagined. But this is what Douglas Gasking says(from The God Delusion):
"
1 The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable.
2 The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3 The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4 The most formidable handicap for the creator would be non-existence
5 Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being- namely, one who created everything while not existing.
6 An existing God therefore would not be a being greater than which a greater cannot be conceived because an even more formidable and incredible creator would be a God which did not exist.
Ergo:
7 God does not exist. "
I will not dwell on the existence of God further(unless required later).
Emotions can be described using will to power. If each individual has a will to power, then obviously, there must be tools to manipulate this power. This perhaps is the reason of consciousness and emotion. I am a firm believer that emotions are tools.
We do not all ways smile when we are happy. Sometimes, a smile can invoke happiness.
Think about it. If you're in a group of friends, and you don't understand the punchline of a joke, you are still likely to laugh. If a stranger smiles at you, you are likely to smile back. If a person is screaming in pain, you're likely to 'feel' that pain too. If a person is crying, you also feel sadness. This all depends on a few things.
1)in all of the situations above, there must be a balanced will to power; that is, in the case of the stranger smiling, both you and the stranger must be of equal social status, emotional condition, etc.
2)both parties must be sane, that is, the empathic level of both parties must be high enough to qualify a person as sane.
We can derive from the explanation above that emotion is a tool of an individual to manipulate his will to power, his (or her, sorry for the use of "his") will to exist. A slave or lesser being will allow himself to be bullied because his will to power is low. However, it is not non-existent. Therefore, the slave or lesser being will willingly allow himself to be discriminated or abused in order to survive a little longer(presumably to increase his will to power later on).
There are obvious methods of ensuring the exponential growth of will to power of an individual. I have explained this using the short term and long term greed theory. To summarize; an individual(or collective depending on the case) needs to understand the consequence of his actions in the long run even if the short term feedback seems to indicate he is in power. Shouting at workers, for instance, may increase productivity in the short run, but in the long run, the workers will have too little will to power to conform and will realize that unless they challenge authority, they will have no chance of working on their own terms. If the workers revolt too early, they will have no way to justify or reason with their employer.
On the open mindedness of Atheism
It is said that there is no "open mindedness", only opposing views, and that we either choose a side and then close our minds.
This section is dedicated to justifying atheism. The primary attribute of a religion is in it being a collective thought. Religion is then more akin to a social tool than a truth finding tool.
As I have mentioned, personal truths are not learned, they are experienced and thought to be true by the individual. This same subjectivity can be used to understand why religion is said to be a form of truth. It is easy to believe in a group, because humans, being social, tend to find emotional comfort in groups.
Groups of people have obviously, a higher degree of will to power than individuals. This is partly because they are a collective of common interest. Perhaps this may seem imply the whole Atheism vs Theism a battle for power, but I think that there is a lot more to this(I will elaborate more on the battle for power between the two views in a later post).
Will to power represents every common want of the human race. Every one, or at least almost everyone wants justice, a sense of identity, recognition, respect, to be wanted. Justice is a way of returning a balance or power between two parties.That is why a trial is said to be unfair(unbalanced) when a criminal is set free or an innocent man is executed. Without going on and on with examples of the application of will to power, I will just say this: Religion offers to people more power than any individual belief.
This means that indeed, religious groups have more power than individual believers. That is why there are laws in place that allow freedom of speech, and if not, we have the internet. Like I said before, these laws return the balance of power, so that atheists, and individuals with opposing views are allowed to speak up.
So is there a reason for a person to leave the power that he finds in religion? Well, yes. People do it every day. Some convert, some drop out, some have their faith renewed. All of them do what they do, because the alternative either grants them more power.
For example, if you leave Hinduism for Christianity, there is an immediate sense of dominance over polytheists, who are constantly put down by monotheistic religions. If you follow the way of the Buddhist and give up on nihilistic atheism, you are simply living with principles that make you feel enlightened. Nothing is wrong with any decision, it just gives people more power, or at least the illusion of superiority over other people. Whether this is acknowledged by the individual or not, does not matter.
This brings up the question :
If all belief is simply a tool of will to power, then those belief itself have anything to do with truth?
I acknowledge that atheism too gives me the illusion of superiority. That much I can say is the downside of atheism. Agnosticism however is simply saying : "Nothing is true, so everything is permitted, so no one should influence or change my belief that nothing is true."
What agnostic people fail to understand is that, if the above statements are to be taken into account, then agnosticism is just as much a way of manipulating will to power as atheism or any other belief.
I would argue that on some levels I am agnostic. It feels as if it's a battle that I don't want to lose(otherwise I lose my power), so being agnostic gives me that safety of not being able to lose.
However, upon further examination, I have found that agnosticism is appalling. It is the most cowardly approach to dealing with curiosity.
"I am too afraid to lose, so I'll not take part."
Sure, I agree the whole Atheism Vs Theism debate has gotten barbaric and stupid at times(for both sides). But of the most agnostics I know are more atheistic than theistic. They are simply atheists who don't want to lose.
Their argument really does sound fair when you look at the atheists we have. They're all so aggressive in dealing with the issue of God that it almost sounds as preachy and stupid as religion.
This is where I can start to justify Atheism as a more open minded way of looking at things.
1)Atheism itself, even though it sounds like believing, but without God (as opposed to theism's Belief in God) is actually just a belief that life and the universe is real(we believe it is, even though we cannot say that every living thing experiences life the same way objectively) and that we don't use God to explain every damned thing.
If an atheist believes in that fairiest invented the universe, then he's a fairyist(or something). If he believes that chance created the universe, then he's a chancist(ok, maybe not, but you are getting the idea already). To clarify, Atheism is NOT a belief system of unquestionable facts of life. Most, almost all atheists rely on scientific proof to justify their arguments. It is not a criteria that we have to meet to be atheists, because I have known of Buddhists who are atheists and Hindus who are atheists.
However the term 'atheist' has already put people into a group of their own, making it seem as if there are facts that we never question, etc. But this is too much of a sweeping statement. In reality, atheists often are as divided in their points of view as Hindus and Buddhists are. The main point of atheism being the general rejection of God for explanation of everything. It's not like a rule we made that we do not believe in god because Darwin was right, or because chance could work, or because real men don't believe in Gods. (For example, my reasons for being an atheists conflict with Richard Dawkins' because I rely more on the philosophical, chemical physical, mathematical aspect rather than the scientific biological aspect, that is natural selection. Not to say I don't believe in Natural Selection, but I would much prefer to work from the top down, not the other way around)
It's not like that AT ALL. Atheists generally believe that God is not real for very individual, personal reasons. There is no recruitment center, there is no center at all. We only seem to group or organize ourselves because it gives us more power to oppose religious views that, you have to agree, have a frightening amount of power.
That, was just my first point.
Be sure to read up next month's part 2, which will include all other reasons for the justification of atheism as a more objective truth finding system, how faith exists in all levels and must be ultimately broken down, and balance in the economic system of man to ensure controlled and balanced progress.
I am an atheist, you should know that by know.
I KNOW that I'm an atheist not because I chose to be one, but because I had no other choice, which makes me my case as hard to argue as a religious person's one.
I have limited scientific knowledge, and I'm very bad at math on paper. But I always look for scientific and mathematical analogies that help me better understand the nature of the universe.
I am not a completely closed-minded atheist. If God one day popped up and said, "here I am", I would question first, then, if satisfied, embrace God. In this sense, I am very VERY SLIGHTLY agnostic (there is almost certainly no God).
This is only because atheists have a tendency to put ego before truth, just as theists do, and so a lot of truth gets lost in between. This does not make atheists are as bad as theists(as some would put it). It simply means we are as human as theists.(something I wish to talk about later in this post).
This also means that as far as I'm concerned, no man can convince me of the existence of a God.
I have a passion for expressing explanations by writing them down, and on rare occasion, actually talking them out. However, every thing I write on this blog, I question. Some of my posts, I admit have very major flaws. The only reason I keep them on is to remind me that I make mistakes. And just like evolution, my blog has no ultimate goal. It is simply the progress of how I interpret everything. It can get better or worse. That which is better, I keep, that which is worse, I discard. For what purpose, I can only speculate.
If any christians aren't happy with what I have to say, then forgive me. (doesn't your religion deal forgiveness in spades?). As for offended Muslims and Jews, i urge you to remember who your true enemies are.
Now, let's start this post off. (I am aware this post contains a billion references to "will to power", which cannot be tested objectively. Will to power, being more of an analogy than a theory does not require objective explanation, because it is not truth)
Will to power is very easily understood. It is, to me, a leading candidate in the reason of existence. Nietzsche describes will to power very well. He states :
We can infer that no individual form of matter or energy can master the universe by itself, but must try by all means to do so. Do not mistake will to power for human ego, will to power is more like a rule that applies to things that exist, for if it does not exist, it has insufficient will to exist, ergo, no will to power. Though I admit the will to power hypothesis tends to bring up more questions than it answers(like, "why exist?, whose game are we playing"), it does explain on a less than objective level many aspects of chemical, biological and social behavior.
My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (its will to power) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on.
Trust me, there probably is a more mathematical or physical explanation for will to power or an alternative that is more objective but probably less understandable. Therefore, will to power must be used as the platform for the arguments below.
I have already disproved logically the Abrahamian God in past posts, now for the attributes that are common to other Gods. (some of these are derived from Richard Dawkin's, The God Delusion, which in my opinion completely destroys any potential theory of the existence of God but fails to show a proper solution to the God problem, it also disregards the purpose of God to less fortunate people)
Anyway, most of the time, God is said to be the ultimate being. Meaning a being more powerful than God cannot be imagined. But this is what Douglas Gasking says(from The God Delusion):
"
1 The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable.
2 The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3 The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4 The most formidable handicap for the creator would be non-existence
5 Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being- namely, one who created everything while not existing.
6 An existing God therefore would not be a being greater than which a greater cannot be conceived because an even more formidable and incredible creator would be a God which did not exist.
Ergo:
7 God does not exist. "
I will not dwell on the existence of God further(unless required later).
Emotions can be described using will to power. If each individual has a will to power, then obviously, there must be tools to manipulate this power. This perhaps is the reason of consciousness and emotion. I am a firm believer that emotions are tools.
We do not all ways smile when we are happy. Sometimes, a smile can invoke happiness.
Think about it. If you're in a group of friends, and you don't understand the punchline of a joke, you are still likely to laugh. If a stranger smiles at you, you are likely to smile back. If a person is screaming in pain, you're likely to 'feel' that pain too. If a person is crying, you also feel sadness. This all depends on a few things.
1)in all of the situations above, there must be a balanced will to power; that is, in the case of the stranger smiling, both you and the stranger must be of equal social status, emotional condition, etc.
2)both parties must be sane, that is, the empathic level of both parties must be high enough to qualify a person as sane.
We can derive from the explanation above that emotion is a tool of an individual to manipulate his will to power, his (or her, sorry for the use of "his") will to exist. A slave or lesser being will allow himself to be bullied because his will to power is low. However, it is not non-existent. Therefore, the slave or lesser being will willingly allow himself to be discriminated or abused in order to survive a little longer(presumably to increase his will to power later on).
There are obvious methods of ensuring the exponential growth of will to power of an individual. I have explained this using the short term and long term greed theory. To summarize; an individual(or collective depending on the case) needs to understand the consequence of his actions in the long run even if the short term feedback seems to indicate he is in power. Shouting at workers, for instance, may increase productivity in the short run, but in the long run, the workers will have too little will to power to conform and will realize that unless they challenge authority, they will have no chance of working on their own terms. If the workers revolt too early, they will have no way to justify or reason with their employer.
On the open mindedness of Atheism
It is said that there is no "open mindedness", only opposing views, and that we either choose a side and then close our minds.
This section is dedicated to justifying atheism. The primary attribute of a religion is in it being a collective thought. Religion is then more akin to a social tool than a truth finding tool.
As I have mentioned, personal truths are not learned, they are experienced and thought to be true by the individual. This same subjectivity can be used to understand why religion is said to be a form of truth. It is easy to believe in a group, because humans, being social, tend to find emotional comfort in groups.
Groups of people have obviously, a higher degree of will to power than individuals. This is partly because they are a collective of common interest. Perhaps this may seem imply the whole Atheism vs Theism a battle for power, but I think that there is a lot more to this(I will elaborate more on the battle for power between the two views in a later post).
Will to power represents every common want of the human race. Every one, or at least almost everyone wants justice, a sense of identity, recognition, respect, to be wanted. Justice is a way of returning a balance or power between two parties.That is why a trial is said to be unfair(unbalanced) when a criminal is set free or an innocent man is executed. Without going on and on with examples of the application of will to power, I will just say this: Religion offers to people more power than any individual belief.
This means that indeed, religious groups have more power than individual believers. That is why there are laws in place that allow freedom of speech, and if not, we have the internet. Like I said before, these laws return the balance of power, so that atheists, and individuals with opposing views are allowed to speak up.
So is there a reason for a person to leave the power that he finds in religion? Well, yes. People do it every day. Some convert, some drop out, some have their faith renewed. All of them do what they do, because the alternative either grants them more power.
For example, if you leave Hinduism for Christianity, there is an immediate sense of dominance over polytheists, who are constantly put down by monotheistic religions. If you follow the way of the Buddhist and give up on nihilistic atheism, you are simply living with principles that make you feel enlightened. Nothing is wrong with any decision, it just gives people more power, or at least the illusion of superiority over other people. Whether this is acknowledged by the individual or not, does not matter.
This brings up the question :
If all belief is simply a tool of will to power, then those belief itself have anything to do with truth?
I acknowledge that atheism too gives me the illusion of superiority. That much I can say is the downside of atheism. Agnosticism however is simply saying : "Nothing is true, so everything is permitted, so no one should influence or change my belief that nothing is true."
What agnostic people fail to understand is that, if the above statements are to be taken into account, then agnosticism is just as much a way of manipulating will to power as atheism or any other belief.
I would argue that on some levels I am agnostic. It feels as if it's a battle that I don't want to lose(otherwise I lose my power), so being agnostic gives me that safety of not being able to lose.
However, upon further examination, I have found that agnosticism is appalling. It is the most cowardly approach to dealing with curiosity.
"I am too afraid to lose, so I'll not take part."
Sure, I agree the whole Atheism Vs Theism debate has gotten barbaric and stupid at times(for both sides). But of the most agnostics I know are more atheistic than theistic. They are simply atheists who don't want to lose.
Their argument really does sound fair when you look at the atheists we have. They're all so aggressive in dealing with the issue of God that it almost sounds as preachy and stupid as religion.
This is where I can start to justify Atheism as a more open minded way of looking at things.
1)Atheism itself, even though it sounds like believing, but without God (as opposed to theism's Belief in God) is actually just a belief that life and the universe is real(we believe it is, even though we cannot say that every living thing experiences life the same way objectively) and that we don't use God to explain every damned thing.
If an atheist believes in that fairiest invented the universe, then he's a fairyist(or something). If he believes that chance created the universe, then he's a chancist(ok, maybe not, but you are getting the idea already). To clarify, Atheism is NOT a belief system of unquestionable facts of life. Most, almost all atheists rely on scientific proof to justify their arguments. It is not a criteria that we have to meet to be atheists, because I have known of Buddhists who are atheists and Hindus who are atheists.
However the term 'atheist' has already put people into a group of their own, making it seem as if there are facts that we never question, etc. But this is too much of a sweeping statement. In reality, atheists often are as divided in their points of view as Hindus and Buddhists are. The main point of atheism being the general rejection of God for explanation of everything. It's not like a rule we made that we do not believe in god because Darwin was right, or because chance could work, or because real men don't believe in Gods. (For example, my reasons for being an atheists conflict with Richard Dawkins' because I rely more on the philosophical, chemical physical, mathematical aspect rather than the scientific biological aspect, that is natural selection. Not to say I don't believe in Natural Selection, but I would much prefer to work from the top down, not the other way around)
It's not like that AT ALL. Atheists generally believe that God is not real for very individual, personal reasons. There is no recruitment center, there is no center at all. We only seem to group or organize ourselves because it gives us more power to oppose religious views that, you have to agree, have a frightening amount of power.
That, was just my first point.
Be sure to read up next month's part 2, which will include all other reasons for the justification of atheism as a more objective truth finding system, how faith exists in all levels and must be ultimately broken down, and balance in the economic system of man to ensure controlled and balanced progress.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The truth about truth
According to my father, the human mind learns things by recognizing a pattern. Instead of explaining something that I don't understand clearly, I'm going to use (or misuse) some of what he told me about to explain where God comes from, or more accurately, where the need for God comes from.
Superstition exists on nearly every level. Even de facto atheists commit some mild form of superstitious practice every now and then. Think about it. The average person has had at least one lucky charm. A lucky pencil, or pair of underpants, for example.
We recognize or want to recognize a pattern where when a certain outcome is obtained whenever a seemingly useless item is being wielded (in this case, lucky pencil may have to do with the lucky pencil being more physically suited for a task than a regular one, so it is disqualified). I think it's the way our brain learns. By learning patterns through repetition.
This means that the human brain doesn't actually learn the true nature of things when learning through 'experience patterns'. Which changes the entire meaning of truth. Is there a metaphysical world? A layer so beyond imagination that most people either fail to even acknowledge the possibility of its existence or use a God with physical-bound characteristics to imagine it.
To me, it's all psychological. The whole idea of a meta physical world was conceptualized by a human mind. The metaphysical world was not something shown by empirical or objective studies. The metaphysical world, like God, is a human idea that has made itself immune to empirical/objective study.
It's just as unfair to propose that there is a tiny particle, so tiny that it cannot be physically detected, that floats around and dictates every action and reaction through supernatural means.
Let's put aside the small problem of language and communication in science and math and try out a thought experiment in which the variables are the existence of humans, the metaphysical world, and the physical world.
If there weren't any humans, we can safely presume the physical world would still exist. But the metaphysical world, without humans to explain and discuss it would probably just die, just as all ideas, just as God dies when humans die.
From this one-sided argument, I can conclude that truth IS a little overrated. People don't look for truth - for truth must mean the actual nature of things- they look for personal truths, which aren't actually true. Even my personal truth is not the truth. Sigh, this brings me back to that annoying, overused saying, "nothing is true, everything is permitted."
That doesn't mean I'm going to stop though. Only totally agnostic people (people who believe true truth can NEVER be obtained) give up, I hope I never fall into that group of people.
Superstition exists on nearly every level. Even de facto atheists commit some mild form of superstitious practice every now and then. Think about it. The average person has had at least one lucky charm. A lucky pencil, or pair of underpants, for example.
We recognize or want to recognize a pattern where when a certain outcome is obtained whenever a seemingly useless item is being wielded (in this case, lucky pencil may have to do with the lucky pencil being more physically suited for a task than a regular one, so it is disqualified). I think it's the way our brain learns. By learning patterns through repetition.
This means that the human brain doesn't actually learn the true nature of things when learning through 'experience patterns'. Which changes the entire meaning of truth. Is there a metaphysical world? A layer so beyond imagination that most people either fail to even acknowledge the possibility of its existence or use a God with physical-bound characteristics to imagine it.
To me, it's all psychological. The whole idea of a meta physical world was conceptualized by a human mind. The metaphysical world was not something shown by empirical or objective studies. The metaphysical world, like God, is a human idea that has made itself immune to empirical/objective study.
It's just as unfair to propose that there is a tiny particle, so tiny that it cannot be physically detected, that floats around and dictates every action and reaction through supernatural means.
Let's put aside the small problem of language and communication in science and math and try out a thought experiment in which the variables are the existence of humans, the metaphysical world, and the physical world.
If there weren't any humans, we can safely presume the physical world would still exist. But the metaphysical world, without humans to explain and discuss it would probably just die, just as all ideas, just as God dies when humans die.
From this one-sided argument, I can conclude that truth IS a little overrated. People don't look for truth - for truth must mean the actual nature of things- they look for personal truths, which aren't actually true. Even my personal truth is not the truth. Sigh, this brings me back to that annoying, overused saying, "nothing is true, everything is permitted."
That doesn't mean I'm going to stop though. Only totally agnostic people (people who believe true truth can NEVER be obtained) give up, I hope I never fall into that group of people.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
God's funeral
God doesn't matter. Simple as that. Nietzsche said it decades ago for white people, the superior people, that God is dead. God is dead for everyone strong enough to realize that spirituality should be a supplement for the physical world, and NOT the other way around.
What use is there for worship? If God existed in the perfect form it's described in, then God is not some child who loves being worshiped and praised and highly regarded. Do you actually think God created a GIGANTIC universe, made just a speck of a planet with potential worshipers, then threw in natural disasters, other religions, and greed to confuse them, so that he could see if they still liked him after leaving them in the mess he made?
It's illogical for God to want worshipers for any reason. But then again, EMOTION is contagious, logic isn't. It's EMOTIONALLY comfortable to believe in God(and God can only be believed in when it's emotionally comfortable), but throw a little logic in, and the whole equation tumbles down.
This isn't about scientists being right all the time. They aren't. Religious people love nitpicking on every little mistake scientists have made. It's almost as if religious people are bad losers. Science isn't about killing God. It's about finding something close to truth, and the truth we're talking about isn't a personal truth, or an emotional truth. It's an objective or at least empirical one. Sure, language and numbers tend to dim down the 'truth' value of things, we're talking about a physical world in which animals(us humans) are actually trying to understand the world.
Speaking of animals, let's get this post over with.
Today I realized that man is an animal dying to emulate perfection. No sane person hasn't a perfect world in their minds( imaginary worlds where personal truths are universal truths). In mine, German tanks from the second world war are Kings and Queens, silly, I know. The problem comes when man attempts to separate himself from responsibility.
It's like this;
If you're going to do something, you'd better be ready to accept both the positive and negative outcomes.
For example,
If Shell Petrol decides to sanction the massacre of Nigerian tribe leaders, they'd better be ready to face the music as well as control the oilfields of the Niger Delta.
I'm not just talking business ethics and things like that.
In my experience, nice people are everywhere, but so few of them know why it's nice to be nice and why they do what they do. Bad people are everywhere, but so few of them know why it's bad to be bad and why doing what they do is regarded as bad.
It's because the basic need of an animal is short term gain. Long term gain is left to genes, the non-conscious entities, that decide through trial and error, NOT opinion, what's good and what's bad.
Back to a point I was trying to make. Man is an animal trying to be Godlike. To be all knowing, always happy, and always in power. But without separating the man from the animal, no long term gain can be had.
From this argument, I can prematurely conclude that man needs God as a sort of model of perfection. It just so happens that man also needs a reason to exist, and for the universe to exist BECAUSE of the evolutionary mistake of allowing our short term gain system to have control over our long term gain systems(it was a mistake because we won't allow evolution to take away this control). God fulfills the need of man for an ideal role model, a creator(and therefore giver of purpose), an emotional pillar of strength.
Why God is dead to the ubermen(or at least people who strive to be uber) is because they recognize emotion as a social tool, realize the unimportance of being important. In short, the uselessness of God to them.
What use is there for worship? If God existed in the perfect form it's described in, then God is not some child who loves being worshiped and praised and highly regarded. Do you actually think God created a GIGANTIC universe, made just a speck of a planet with potential worshipers, then threw in natural disasters, other religions, and greed to confuse them, so that he could see if they still liked him after leaving them in the mess he made?
It's illogical for God to want worshipers for any reason. But then again, EMOTION is contagious, logic isn't. It's EMOTIONALLY comfortable to believe in God(and God can only be believed in when it's emotionally comfortable), but throw a little logic in, and the whole equation tumbles down.
This isn't about scientists being right all the time. They aren't. Religious people love nitpicking on every little mistake scientists have made. It's almost as if religious people are bad losers. Science isn't about killing God. It's about finding something close to truth, and the truth we're talking about isn't a personal truth, or an emotional truth. It's an objective or at least empirical one. Sure, language and numbers tend to dim down the 'truth' value of things, we're talking about a physical world in which animals(us humans) are actually trying to understand the world.
Speaking of animals, let's get this post over with.
Today I realized that man is an animal dying to emulate perfection. No sane person hasn't a perfect world in their minds( imaginary worlds where personal truths are universal truths). In mine, German tanks from the second world war are Kings and Queens, silly, I know. The problem comes when man attempts to separate himself from responsibility.
It's like this;
If you're going to do something, you'd better be ready to accept both the positive and negative outcomes.
For example,
If Shell Petrol decides to sanction the massacre of Nigerian tribe leaders, they'd better be ready to face the music as well as control the oilfields of the Niger Delta.
I'm not just talking business ethics and things like that.
In my experience, nice people are everywhere, but so few of them know why it's nice to be nice and why they do what they do. Bad people are everywhere, but so few of them know why it's bad to be bad and why doing what they do is regarded as bad.
It's because the basic need of an animal is short term gain. Long term gain is left to genes, the non-conscious entities, that decide through trial and error, NOT opinion, what's good and what's bad.
Back to a point I was trying to make. Man is an animal trying to be Godlike. To be all knowing, always happy, and always in power. But without separating the man from the animal, no long term gain can be had.
From this argument, I can prematurely conclude that man needs God as a sort of model of perfection. It just so happens that man also needs a reason to exist, and for the universe to exist BECAUSE of the evolutionary mistake of allowing our short term gain system to have control over our long term gain systems(it was a mistake because we won't allow evolution to take away this control). God fulfills the need of man for an ideal role model, a creator(and therefore giver of purpose), an emotional pillar of strength.
Why God is dead to the ubermen(or at least people who strive to be uber) is because they recognize emotion as a social tool, realize the unimportance of being important. In short, the uselessness of God to them.
Monday, September 7, 2009
I wonder if Christ said BRB before he died
I've been trying all month to post something non-God related, but it's been really hard. My last attempt left me hanging with two paragraphs(which I still think have a point) of the theory of the illusion of choosing and deserving. I'll publish that when I'm not too busy.
Today, I stumbled upon something new while surfing the godless internet:
I could answer:
"A near fatal car crash turned my world upside down, literally, the car somersaulted and was upside down at one point."
OR
"I was intrigued by the possibilities of the random and apparent mindless nature of particles"
OR
"One day I looked up at the sky(it was a Friday, I remember) and realized it CAN'T be that simple"
I could probably come up with another reason if I thought long and hard, but just off the top off my head, those three reasons seem to make the most sense. Yet none of them are a true answer to the question. I may believe that one or all three of those answers are true because they make sense. The same way a person who believes in God or doesn't believe in God may try to explain why he or she does or doesn't believe in God. They'd probably give very logical answers.
The same goes, I think for anything to do with criticizing art. There may be a dozen reviews that praise a movie or an album, but only a handful can capture the true spirit of it.
Where was I going with this...
Oh yeah, a person who 'believes in God' actively believes that God is the creator of all things...(that's how all Godefinitions start off, but they trail off soon after) must believe that God knows everything and whatever God does,(He usually puts the task to some 'chosen' one, to avoid full responsibility I presume) He's doing it for the greater good.
So if you don't kill your baby when God tells you to, you don't believe in God, making you apathetic, atheistic, or agnostic because in your fear, you've drop all emotional comfortableness in the belief in God and embraced logic. Logic is not contagious, but emotion is.
Haha, got you now you God-loving son's(and daughters) o' guns! Well Gabs, discussion time, this post was written completely alcohol free, so there's bound to be a lot more holes than usual.
Today, I stumbled upon something new while surfing the godless internet:
Even though there are so many flaws when it comes to the meaning of words in that quote, the fundamental idea makes a little sense. People rely on God for so many reasons. Reasons and excuses are made-up half the time. For example, someone may ask me, "why did you become an atheist?"
“If God (however you want to believe in God, I don’t care what it is, you make the definition of what that word means), if God told you (and you make any sort of way that is, whether that’s in revelation or however way you know or by scripture), if whatever your God is communicated to you that you were to kill your child, would you do it?And if your answer is “No,” then in my mind you’re an atheist.
If the answer is “Yes,” you’re dangerous and I stay away from you."
I could answer:
"A near fatal car crash turned my world upside down, literally, the car somersaulted and was upside down at one point."
OR
"I was intrigued by the possibilities of the random and apparent mindless nature of particles"
OR
"One day I looked up at the sky(it was a Friday, I remember) and realized it CAN'T be that simple"
I could probably come up with another reason if I thought long and hard, but just off the top off my head, those three reasons seem to make the most sense. Yet none of them are a true answer to the question. I may believe that one or all three of those answers are true because they make sense. The same way a person who believes in God or doesn't believe in God may try to explain why he or she does or doesn't believe in God. They'd probably give very logical answers.
The same goes, I think for anything to do with criticizing art. There may be a dozen reviews that praise a movie or an album, but only a handful can capture the true spirit of it.
Where was I going with this...
Oh yeah, a person who 'believes in God' actively believes that God is the creator of all things...(that's how all Godefinitions start off, but they trail off soon after) must believe that God knows everything and whatever God does,(He usually puts the task to some 'chosen' one, to avoid full responsibility I presume) He's doing it for the greater good.
So if you don't kill your baby when God tells you to, you don't believe in God, making you apathetic, atheistic, or agnostic because in your fear, you've drop all emotional comfortableness in the belief in God and embraced logic. Logic is not contagious, but emotion is.
Haha, got you now you God-loving son's(and daughters) o' guns! Well Gabs, discussion time, this post was written completely alcohol free, so there's bound to be a lot more holes than usual.
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