Why I stopped writing here

When I first started, I was more interested in expressing my opinion rather than looking at facts.

After a while I realized that most things had already been established, and that I only needed to look for what I needed to know, instead of starting topics off from scratch.

Even though I became an atheist unintentionally, the undeniable logic behind atheism made it very... circular. As in, everytime there was a thought in my head, it would always be filtered through Godless logic.

Apart from losing my ability to express my thoughts using clear explanations and small words, I have also begun to bend facts to support my theories, where it should be fixed facts that change theories.

I hope 2010 sparks something in my head.

On myth

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.

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):

• 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.

Let's keep in mind that religions aren't as constant as they seem. Islam for instance was not represented by the crescent moon and star until the year 1453(hundreds of years after the founding of Islam) when the Turks conquered Constantinople. The crescent moon and star were, in fact, ancient Sumerian symbols of night, so prophecies and histories may be altered and kept sacred so that they seem like fact. Think about it, you're not allowed to question so many aspects of religion. What have they got to hide? And if you bring this up, religious people get angry.


That is all I have to say about prophecies.

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.

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 FACT of gravity(sorry, I published it as "theory", I really meant fact).

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."

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 :

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

“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."

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?"

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.

What matters(everything except energy!)

Allow me to first point out one of Immanuel Kant's mistakes.

Kant makes the same mistake everyone before and after him made. His assumption of moral values being universal. Morals and virtues and ethics should always be regarded as very subjective matters when explaining them objectively. That is, if life began not at the instant of the creation of the universe, but much later on, then anything that mattered once life began to form cannot be relevant to the laws of the universe.

Now, the next and more important problem of Kant's metaphysical world. Nietzsche, my most favored dead thinker, is always best at helping me explain things in the physical, touchable world. But I think I'll go ahead and try to describe something more original(which probably sounds like something I've said before.):

If we can establish a rule, let's say, the rule of the physical world being the ONLY world that has any influence on a person(in whichever way), then would anything metaphysical matter? A reminder, metaphysical actually translates to beyond/after physical. Which means it cannot be matter or energy, meaning it cannot have any influence on the physical world. From what I can tell(which is a pure guessing game in my mind), Kant focuses on God being beyond explanation because we can only objectively explain that which is physical, or present in the physical world. But think about metaphysics for a second, and objective explanations. If a human being cannot be objective in explaining something, meaning something is beyond explanation, then that something MUST be beyond influence. And the moment something is beyond influence(that is, something beyond being influence by OR influencing) of the physical world (that is, the physical world which can always be objectively explained), then it is useless.


How useless?

It is like explaining light to a man who has been blind his whole life, and trying to let him know the importance of light. Therefore,(imagine the entire human race here is that blind man) even IF light does exist, and has an effect as important as described, light cannot matter to the blind man if he cannot be influenced or influence light.

In that same way, if God cannot be explained, it cannot matter.

However, like I've said before, some people like to bend the laws of physics to meet their explanations. To them the 'big bang' was just God flicking the on switch. Which cannot be possible, BUT, because this explanation works for them, God MUST matter.

Now, an atheist is, by definition, a person who does not believe in the existence of God. And since, to most atheists(me, specifically), the physical realm is the only possible realm that can exist(which can be proven by objective study, not subjective imagination), God cannot exist. Since existence in the physical realm requires God to be composed of matter and energy, God is bound by the rules of physics and therefore miracles cannot happen.

2 other explanations of God just came up this week.

1) the reintroduction of intelligent design.
2) the universe being a sort of 'matrix' for the mind.

Intelligent design is very flawed. One of the main ideas behind it is : If something can be THIS complex, then surely it must have a creator. But that would mean the creator would be the most complex thing ever. What created the creator if something complex NEEDED to be created?

The matrix illusion, where the universe is sort of a playing field for us humans is very hard to get around, but basically it's just like metaphysics. Saying that there has to be something beyond the physical world doesn't make it true until it can be proven. I'm not waiting. Objective study has shown no such outer world exists. Don't believe Deepak Chopra.

I know, I probably have half my facts wrong. But this is good progress.

The end of the end. For now.

Disclaimer:
The first argument is rubbish, I know. That was from a bleak moment of my blogging life. But because there was a little something in there that had to be published sooner or later I just decided to add it to this really really long finale post.


Talking about God makes me sick. It never gets anywhere and in the end, no point gets across, instead, after the argument, people who believe in the existence of God believe even stronger, not because their faith is renewed, but because the opposition presented their case so barbarically. The atheists in the argument feel a lot smarter for the same reason.

Instead, I think I'll talk about a question I just can't seem to present well. I've tried at least three time to post something about this question, usually it just branches off into some other topic or gets left as a draft.

The question is, why do we strive for perfection.

You know how that little bit of dirt you just can't seem to get off your new pair of shoes just gets to you? Even though it's tiny and you're the only one who seems to notice it. Even if you make no effort to try and clean it up, WHY does it affect your mind?

That's just one case. In any the bureaucratic systems that we struggle to maintain and keep flawless always fall apart. The thing is, these systems should work perfectly(like law), but the problem is, we aren't perfect. If there was a civilization of robots and machines, then it would all work exactly as planned, but these systems that require perfection simply break down when we use it.

I think a little branching out is required here.

It is in our nature to think that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, because that only makes sense and has been proven. But what has also been proven is that no matter what the action OR reaction is, there is no right and wrong. If I push a ball across a surface, it'll move, but there is no good way to push a ball, just as there is no evil way to push one. What there IS, is efficient ways. Ways that have different outcomes, with the most beneficial outcomes usually regarded as 'good' and the least as 'evil'.

When we expand this into a more social setting, for instance, when selling something, there are many ways to sell. Overcharging for something is considered cheating, an evil. But you may argue that I have proved that the most efficient way of doing business should be the 'good' way. And charging a customer more than the actual price is a faster way of making money, and therefore more efficient. But that is not true, the flaw lies in the long term. The customer, obviously will not return if you cheat him. therefore, the most efficient way of doing things is by balancing between too much and too little.

As you can see, I really cannot discuss my initial question without revisiting old ground. So I'll have to skip thay and stop right here. Writer's block.


***********************************1 month later***********************************
I realized the previous argument was a bit boring, so I gave up on it entirely. New argument time!



Often, too often, in fact, we judge by what we see on the surface. If a song is not pleasing to hear, it is immediately said to be a lousy song; the opposite applies.

But what if the 'lousy song' actually took a different sort of approach. One that only a musician could tell was a leap. Does the song switch from being 'lousy'to being 'good'? When the general public listen to that piece of music, they don't catch that smooth phrasing, familiar vocal melody, or safe lyric that they would normally expect. When a musician listens to that same piece of music, they see the true ingenuity that ought to shine through. But that doesn't change the fact that it isn't pleasing to listen to.

Now, what if we bring down that argument to a different place.

If a man murders his friend, to the general public, the man deserves a hanging. But to the detective, the man had an almost valid reason to commit the crime. But that doesn't change the fact that a murder has been commited.

So, should the unspecialized public keep it's nose in it's own business, or should we continue on this road of conflicting views? Should the quality of art be determined by the critic or the commoner? Is there ever going to be a way of either making everyone see through the eyes of the specialist(depending on what is being judged) or making opinion not matter?

Certainly, the first option seems to be the fair one. And that's where the final part of this post begins.


************************1 mug of coffee later******************************





The world most definately isn't fair. The fact that there is no choice makes it that way. The system we live in now gives the illusion of being fair. Even at its best, it is a mere illusion.

This system's purpose is to glorify the lucky. And this part of the post is aimed at proving that purpose.


The most important factors that make a person:

name, gender, beauty, wealth, family, character, belief. To name a few.

How many of you picked out your own name?
How many chose how they looked, how rich their parents were, how patient their family members were, how fast they got angry, which way they prayed when they prayed to God.

Not to say none. Plastic surgery, meditation, conversion. Three of the very few options that allow a man to chose.

It's still EVERYTHING to do with luck. Luck is now the new problem. And I'm not talking about superstitios luck. I'm talking about what happens when random events line up so perfectly with little or no conscious direction from any man.

So, a law abiding man isn't law abiding because he's good, but because he's lucky.
And an unlawful man isn't unlawful because he's evil, but because he's unlucky.

Our system rewards and glorifies people who have simply been born and bred exactly right without them choosing most of their choices, and punishes those who weren't given that privalege.

But what of the few 'good' people who had no reason to commit an act of evil?
And what of the few 'evil' people who strived for perfection even though the odds were stacked against them?

Even in those cases, the presense of luck makes it impossible to determine if reward or punishment should be more extreme.

The cure to this whole problem is simple. The elimination of luck. It has begun. But if God comes in the way of us meddling with genetics, then there is little hope of progress. It is time for the system to change and for the powerful and weak to share equal oppurtunity, and be judged fairly. Luck should not be the deciding factor when it comes to determining who is on top of the human food chain.



P.S. This is sort of a final post. There is nothing left to say or write about that's worth anyone's time. However, if there's an awesome comment to help me find a flaw in my argument, then I may just end up continuing anyway.

What is 'I'?

I wonder what it'll be like to die. It's so weird to think I'll end up in heaven or hell. Even being born again as something or someone else seems a little off to me. I cannot imagine me anywhere else than in my brain, controlling these limbs, writing these words, living with these people. All these memories should be mine. Stored in the brain that I occupy. I can't tell you what people believe the soul is, because the soul doesn't fit into my version of the universe. It's too vague. There's always a little vagary when it comes to words, but the word soul is in a realm of it's own. No pun intended.

Let me try explain my version of what most people would call the soul. In my world, the soul isn't constant, and isn't written. Chance has more influence over the development of the soul than God's grace (yes, there is a God in my universe, but he does not share power, because he is imaginary).

When I say the soul isn't constant, I mean there isn't a soul that can be stripped of it's roots in the mind. And since the mind is always taking in information and rethinking old events, it's always changing. And so is the soul.

The makings of a soul in my universe involves, firstly, the behavioral traits that it inherits from it's parents. This is totally random. There is little control in the natural world when it comes to the right set of genes. So the soul begins it's life out of a random collision. Much like how the universe began, right?

WRONG.

I actually don't know. Moving on.

Other than the random genes involved, there's also the random sequence of events that turn into memories. I don't have to explain how memories help shape people do I? I do. Ok. No matter how calm you're born, people change. The event's are always left to chance. What I mean can be explained this way:

No one chooses how they look, what sort of family they're born into, etc. Contrary to what most optimists think, 90 percent of the time, there is often no choice at all.

Choosing what you want to eat for lunch, for example, may seem like a choice. But that all depends on how much money you have, which depends on your upbringing, etc. It's not as simple as it sounds, but it's not very complicated either.

Consider this; if you clone a person, the clone never ends up being exactly the same as the person. Saying that you can't clone a soul is ridiculous though. The clone may still grow and develop a personality of its own.


There is little choice for us to make. And the 'soul' grows, just as it influences our choices.
We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us. See? We make judgments based on past experience, etc, but after the choice is in itself a new experience.

I'm scared. I don't like using the word 'soul'. In the next post I think I'll talk more about my 'earning it' rule.

Rapture

You probably know I don't believe that all men are born equal. I believe some people are better at some things than other people. But all men are entitled to the same rights. Imagine every man was entitled to the sweat of his brow. There was this game, called Bioshock. It thought me a little bit about the whole system. Somewhere in the beginning, you hear these lines:

Is a man entitled the sweat on his brow?

No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor.

No, says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to God.

No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone.

But seriously though. Maybe people should earn a living. Later in the game Bioshock you end up in an underwater city called Rapture. The people in rapture believed in the concept of earning privileges. But it all got out of hand, because there's always someone who wants to play God or be the king.

In this city called Rapture, the worlds best artists, scientists and surgeons lived together. Thriving and no longer bound by rules of the surface. One surgeon in Rapture said that with genetic modification, there's no longer an excuse for people to not look beautiful. That about sums up what was going on in Rapture. People were playing God. Choosing what race they were, how they looked, etc.

But then that same surgeon later told the story of Picasso in one of his audio journals. He said Picasso was so sick of painting perfection that one day he decided to put the nose where the eyes were supposed to be, and mix things up a little. And so, the surgeon himself began experimenting with his patients.

So you see? Removing God from society is a bad idea. It's a bit of a dilemma that only Buddhism's call for balance can solve. Keeping God as a reminder that some things should remain out of our control but not using God as an excuse should be God's use.

Maybe there is a way of solving the problem of earning a living. Instead of creating a thriving, Godless underwater city like Rapture, I think that people should migrate to other countries after awhile. Immigrants are the ones who earn a living from scratch. Sons and daughters of immigrants have to earn a living off what little is provided for them. But the next generation ends up a little too comfortable.

I'm not sure. This may end up being a terrible idea. Imagine masses of people moving to other countries. It would be bad. Very bad.

And don't worry, I'll be back with a post that's worth a comment soon enough.

Poorly Explained

There was an interesting experiment conducted. People usually ask professional tennis players how they get the ball to spin so well, and the tennis players would always explain that once the ball makes contact with the racket, the 'dip' it inwards. That seems like a completely logical idea, doesn't it? It makes sense, the ball should spin more if that sort of swing is used. The interesting part is this:

A game was recorded using high tech cameras to detect the relationship between the style of hitting and the spin of the tennis ball. It turns out that not one of those professional tennis players used the technique they said they did. Now I don't find this very shocking. When I heard about this experiment, it felt like a prime example of how language gets in the way of everything.

I watched a documentary about the history of comedy and listened as countless comedians tried to explain the techniques they used. Some said timing was everything, some said the best jokes were ones that reflected the anxiety of real life situations(I think Sigmund Freud said that), and some said being able to make people laugh was a gift. But just like the case of the 'top spin' on the tennis balls, these comedians were trying to explain something that they didnt have the capacity to explain. Sure, comedy and hitting tennis balls isn't rocket science, but maybe that's where our answers lie!

You see, the way you'd explain rocket science, or at least make rocket science appear more explainable, is by using math. And something like rocket science pairs up objective terms with math, making it nearly the truth. And I say nearly the truth, because you can actually spell out 5. It's easy, f - i - v - e.

Now, surely maths is universal, or at least more universal than morality and ethics(but more on that some other time). The small flaw that mathematics has is that it incorporates symbolism and needs language to be explained. To put it plainly, imagine if I was right about mathematics being universal, and there was a sentient race of aliens that used mathematics the way we did. One, wouldn't be one to the aliens. And perhaps 10, 11, 12, etc were symbols on their own instead of a repeatition of the numbers 1-9 in more than one digit place. Like, if the number after 9 wasnt 10(think of that as ONE-ZERO), instead it was #(just an example, my keyboard doesn't have much else to use). Sure we could think of numbers in base 10, etc. But the symbolism involved in mathematics is what keeps it from being absolutely true. Or at least absolutely truer than words.

Conflicting truths

Now imagine a set of ideals. Now stop imagining, we'll get back to that later.

I've mentioned my theory of ideas before, in which I stated that anything that isn't matter or energy is simply an idea. And since we can't explain God, religion, the soul, consciousness, etc in terms of matter and energy, then they simply exist as ideas.

But then I just stumbled onto something even more(or maybe less) radical. Either way, it's a new idea and I'm still working on a workable answer.

If I've stated that nothing is true and everything is permitted. Just look at how contradictory the whole thing is!

Nothing is true?

Is that absolutely true?

See?

And if Buddhism teaches balance, then why are people so FULLY committed to it, if balance means half and not full.

And if monotheistic religions teach absolute truth, why isn't there just one religion with one God, and not 3 religions that have one God each. That's a math equation I'm sure God has problems with. Ideas? Sounds like bad ideas to me.

And if Karma is real, then to plants get what they deserve? Don't they have lives too? Or souls are the essence of animals? Yeah that makes perfect sense(sarcasm).

But there's always something that catches my eye. In Buddhism, I can pinpoint the exact moment. I was watching a video with my dad a year ago with the French Buddhist Matthieu Ricard. He redefined happiness for me when he separated pleasure from true happiness. Then he went on to say something like this:

When in life, we imagine happiness, we imagine perfection. We think in our minds that if we could have everything to be right, that we could obtain happiness. But this is the utter destruction of happiness. To HAVE EVERYTHING. That means if something is missing we begin to patch that up and soon everything crumbles. Happiness becomes frustration and anger.

Enough about Buddhism, I barely scratch the surface of any religion or science. I don't think I can use any power of rhetoric to make anyone believe i know more than I don about any of that. (what?)

Christianity and Islam are the two super-religions right now. This sounds like a game, but it's not. Not my place to say who's more true, my guess is as good as yours. I've discussed them so many times and got so many comments (ok, just 2 or 3) when I did. It's sometimes so tempting to bring up the subject of God just to get some decent feedback. But not today. Today I'll just say having one God sounds like a good idea, except when you use animalistic terms to describe God. And by animalistic, I mean converting what humans need to progress, socially, into something God needs to simply be God.(there was more on this earlier, but repeating myself would be... repeating myself).

Science has proven to be quite useful. It's objectivity is so appealing. But science alone cannot exist without language. And the fact that more people are more interested in the problems of science than the problems with language is scary. I don't see why language can't be a science.

And so, the problem with truth isn't that it isn't true, it's just that we can't find the right words to say it.

Language, the problem.

As I've mentioned before, everything immaterial is an idea. A subjective, personal idea. Just like how the perception of time, God, good, evil, the soul, the mind, thought, karma, etc are never explainable objectively. Understanding objectivity in explanation is simple, just think of the format of a lab report, and sometimes the format of this blog. Objectivity is about clear concise reasoning based on a universal truth(or reflection of the true nature using language). This cannot be done with the immaterial, for the immaterial cannot be perceived by our 5 senses. We can only experience ideas and make sense of them personally, any attempt to move out of the mind makes immaterial ideas subjective.

The problem is always language, every and any language for that matter. Language allows for misinterpretation. Though some are extremely good at putting into word what they experience in their minds, the problem lies in the reader, or learner who is not as established in language and interpretation.

Writing something down and expecting it to be understood the way the writer understands it is a grave mistake. The writer has put into language his experience, the reader will convert word into 'virtual experience' (basically putting yourself in an alternate reality in your mind), based on his idea of the universe. Virtual experience is where things go wrong. When something is read, virtual experience is always needed. It puts the reader an emulation of the story, if it a piece of fiction. And in this emulation, there is a virtual universe based on the ideas of the reader so far.

The reason why a child cannot enjoy a good piece of fiction and a grown man can is because these virtual experiences require actual experiences.

For example, to imagine something, like a random shape, you must first have already experienced(as in seen) lines and curves. After knowing what lines and curves are(which are the first and only 2D things we see, other than dots, but dots cannot be used to form a closed shape), can we begin to imagine every combination of lines and curves to create the random shape. And this random shape cannot be formed by anything OTHER than lines and curves, because we haven't experienced anything other than lines and curves. You see?

In essence, the more we experience, the more options we have when stepping inside a virtual experience, but to experience text the same way the writer imagined it would be impossible, unless the reader's actual experience is similar to the writer's, which is, sadly also impossible.

In an alternate universe, where language is substituted for something less vague, thought, perhaps, there might be a universal understanding of things.

And that is why language is the problem, now we can proceed with something more interesting.

The idea of an idea

I stumbled onto something new recently. And this was after talking to myself. I needed some time to put it all into words, so here it goes.

What if everything immaterial(not an object or physical thing) were just ideas? Things like Law(scientific and legal), God, thinking, reasoning, religion, relations and theories. All of that. I mean, it is beyond obvious that there are more complex ways of looking at the universe than just through out 5 senses.

Perhaps Nietzsche was right in saying this is the only way our minds can experience the universe without breaking down. Perhaps people have seen the universe in its true form and been driven insane(thus, this way of experiencing the universe being discarded).

But back to ideas. I think everyone has an idea of the way he/she experiences the universe. And these ideas depend on personal experience and how conflicting and similar ideas have influenced it. That's why humans cannot conform to one general idea of the universe. Or at least part of why. Because personal experience can only manifest in the form of a personal idea of the world, which at best can greatly influence another human, but not set another's mind to it 100% without resulting in epic failure.

And if we presume religion and the idea of God as an idea, then it must have been a very comforting idea. To not be in charge of things. Sure, we aren't in charge of much. But we must not forget to not allow another persons idea influence us or anger us too much. Moderation is key. Extremes are always harmful.

What I mean is, if another person's idea seems to make sense, do not take it in fully, instead, allow it to influence the way you perceive the world, but do not live through someone else's idea of the world.

And if another person's idea contradicts your idea of the world, do not hate it, but instead find a reason why your idea makes more sense to you than the other persons.

We must remember that ideas are simply ideas. They are words that seem to make sense when put together in a general idea of the universe. The law is an interesting idea. A very useful one. But because it is treated as an absolute, in a more of humans, it isn't as effective as it should be. I think there is a better idea out there. A system of law that is strict and bound to robot-like rules will appear to restrict freedom. And a system of law that isn't strict enough will be too permissive and the criminally inclined will not have second thoughts. As I've mentioned, extremes never work.

But maybe the entire system of law needs a relook. Right now we're so caught up with it that it has trancended the realm of ideas into something more divine and less maleable. The first step would be to demonstrate how imaginary the law really is before thinking up a new system. But without responsible humans, that would be crazy.

This post contains ideas. Remember what I've mentioned.

Talking to myself - Chapter 3

Sub2. Are morals to be thought of the same way as ethics then?

Sub1. Yes and no. I will explain. First of coarse, we must remember that the human race is trying, and has been trying to survive as a whole. We must remember how often humans group together. No one person can cater to his needs and wants if he lives alone. Instead, when grouped, each human plays a part in a whole system, with some specialising in administration, some in farming, and etc.

Sub2. And where do we find these sort of people?

Sub1. Everywhere, idiot! Any place on earth with humans. There is almost no such thing as men making a living away from other groups of people. For the men who do live alone die alone, and therefore are disqualified from the game of survival that is life.

Sub2. So what does morals have to do with all of this grouping?

Sub1. Everything, idiot! We must presume the ideal society of humans to be flourishing and prosperous. And for this to happen, the people must be not greedy, but selfish in the long term. As in, even when exploiting, they must be careful to not take too much.

Sub2. Because the powerful must still be responsible over the week, because both need each other in order to survive?

Sub1. Precisely.

Sub2. Then why is it that even if ethics and morals are so important to humans, being the most powerful creatures on earth, there are so many who do not follow these codes of conduct?

Sub1. You presume that humans are the same wherever you go. This is an entirely wrong way of thinking, friend, for friend I consider you to be. We must presume that genetics is a workable theory and a workable idea. Meaning, genetics may make sense the way mathematics makes sense, but isn't as universaly acceptable as mathematics.

Sub2. And why is it that mathematics is so much more acceptable than the logic behind most of the sciences?

Sub1. As I've mentioned, the problem is language. But that is a topic for another time. Genetics shows us that perfection isn't possible without human intervention. For nature, as we discussed, has no consciousness, and is therefore random and often unfair. Especially since humans hold perfection so highly.

Sub2. You have strayed off topic.

Sub1. Yes, yes I have. But I blame you. Anyway. We must presume that long term selfishness is what seperates the strong from the weak. And the weak are presumably the less evolved. With this theory, we now see that because of the randmoness and inconsistency when it comes to genetics, oppurtunity, and so many other factors, some humans are not as evolved as others.

Sub2. You mean to say they are physically lacking?

Sub1. No, I mean to say their genetic memory is lacking. People presume evolution to always be about 'sprouting new limbs'. The mind has every right to evolve too, you know.

Sub2. And by mind, you mean our way of thinking?

Sub1. More or less that.

Sub2. So, now that we've established the use of morals, what does the law have to do with all this?

Sub1. Next post, my dear.

Talking to myself - Chapter 2

Sub1. Why.

Sub2. Why? Why what?

Sub1. Why, you've forgotten haven't you? You asked me why we should think so hard instead of being barbaric and making sure only the fittest survive. And why ethics and morals exist.

Sub2. Yes, I remember now. Please, explain.

Sub1. Could we first presume that nature isn't God, as in, isn't the personal God that some people hold.

Sub2. You mean to say nature has no consciousness?

Sub1. Exactly! No ethics, no morals. Nature itself is not a being. There is no 'mother' nature. Instead, we must presume that life is a game of survival, with earth and perhaps the universe as the arena, every living organism the contestants. There are rules and goals.

Sub2. And what might these rules and goals be? And does every living thing have to follow these rules, or are they permitted to bend or break them to achieve their ends?

Sub1. You ask to many questions, boy. The goal would have to be, as we've discussed, survival of the fittest. And the rules are the same rules that we find in our sciences. As in rules of gravity apply to every creature, and so on. And I'm sorry, but we cannot allow God to be the overseer of this whole game. That would be giving nature a consciousness and every living being would have to play fair.

Sub2. But isn't that fair? As in, wouldn't it be fair if the creatures that break or bend these rules be punished or disqualified?

Sub1. And from your questions, we have inferred that life isn't fair.

Sub2. I do not understand.

Sub1. That's because you're slow. You see, in order for one species to flourish, sometimes another must perish, or at least degenerate. Say in the case of predator-prey relations.

Sub2. But surely the predator must strike a balance, or risk having overeaten and not left anything for its long term survival.

Sub1. Quite true, but we've not taken into consideration the fullness of my statement.

Sub2. Explain.

Sub1. If the predator can exploit the prey, and give the prey the illusion of luxury, as in having a rich supply of food, etc, then a balance is struck. Here we see that the predator has not been greedy by eating all its prey, instead farming it. You see where I am going?

Sub2. Almost, I still don't see how the prey is degenerated if it's survival is ensured in such a paradoxical way. As in, for the survival of the prey as a species, it must be killed for the predator.

Sub1. You see, although the prey has the advantage of surviving, so long as the predator survives, that is, it cannot develop and is therefore born to die and not born to live. Pardon the ambiguity of my words.

Sub2. So...

Sub1. My dear, the predator here is clearly the superior species. And here on earth we represent the predator. The superior species that holds the fate of every other animal.

Sub2. Oh. That would mean, we'd have to be extra careful. In fact, I should think our brains will set rules and lines to not cross so that we do not abuse this power. For our own good. As you say, if we get greedy and not think of the long term, we might swallow the prey whole.

Sub1. Precisely my point. Ethics. There isn't anything divine about not wanting to destroy every other species on the planet. Even if we could do without some. It has developed in our minds, and can sometimes be used as proof of evolution of the mind.

Sub2. How so?

Sub1. How differently cultured people treat animals. It shows the genetic instruction of 'don't be stupid, don't kill everything, your grandchildren might need this' from one generation to another. This sort of inconsistency between cultures is the reason why there is no hard and fast rule in ethics. The reason why not everyone feels the same about eating killing an animal. You see?

Sub2. And morals, how would you...

Sub1. Enough. Good night.

Talking to myself - Chapter 1

Subhash 1. Before diving into any other topics, can we first establish the most basic rule, and not simply ignore it?

Subhash 2. And what rule is that?

Subhash 1. That humans are animals.

Sub 2. But how do we prove this?

Sub 1. The only obvious way is by observation and comparison.

Sub 2. Why not any other way?

Sub 1. My dear Subhash, you are beginning to dive into an unrelated topic. However, I will answer. It's simply because by observation and comparison we eliminate the need for any extravagant theories.

Sub 2. Although I do not yet see your point, I beg you, continue.

Sub 1. I will. Firstly. An animal breaths, eats, drinks, sleeps, defecates and reproduces. Am I right in saying this?

Sub 2. Quite, but you have used the word 'animal' and not anything more specific. However, you are right in saying that.

Sub 1. And humans do the same things as an animal?

Sub 2. Almost, but not quite.

Sub 1. How so?

Sub 2. Animals have brains, but not minds.

Sub 1. That is to be inferred. However, humans do breathe, eat, sleep, defecate and reproduce. Am I right?

Sub 2. Yes. And sometimes we see a lot more similarities. This, however, does not change the fact that we are almost completely different from animals in the way we think.

Sub 1. I would like to clarify something then. Animals, as in most animals move. Am I right?

Sub 2. If you mean moving from one spot to another, then yes, you are right.

Sub 1. And birds and certain insects have very unique ways of moving. Birds hardly use their legs to move. In fact, birds move so differently from most animals, you'd not be terribly stupid to think it was more than an animal. In fact, some cultures don't clasify birds as animals. That is until further examination, birds were found to function, in most ways, like most animals.

Sub 2. I see where you are going with this. But please continue.

Sub 1. So I conclude that even though some animals might do things differently, sometimes so different, it would appear to be beyond most other animals, upon further investigation you will find that there isn't anything that would make them more than just animals. Now I must bring up another question. Most animals think.

Sub 2. If you mean think, as in make decisions, then I cannot agree with you until you have proof.

Sub 1. Have you not noticed hesitation in animals? The second before an animal strikes, or runs away from danger? Surely this whole process cannot be automatic. Decisions in animals might be basic, but they are decisions.

Sub 2. I see. Animals think. That is to be inferred.

Sub 1. And humans think very differently from most animals.

Sub 2. I see your point now. You have no need to end that statement.

Sub 1. But I want to. I conclude that, just because humans think in a totally different way, it doesn't mean we are anything beyond animal.

Sub 2. That must be inferred. Now please, tell me why SHOULD we think this way? As in, shouldn't there be a reason for all this thinking, when we could happily spend it being barbaric and unreasonable. That is, after all, the natural way of things.

Sub 1. Are you implying that we should be natures hand in it's scheme of 'survival of the fittest?'

Sub 2. Not exactly, but you are catching my drift. I am implying that there should be a reason for ethics and morals and advancement in technology.

Sub 1. That is a topic for another night Subhash. This is only chapter 1, and we have many nights ahead of us.

Sub 2. Goodnight then. And thank you for your company.

Sub 1. Goodnight. I hope I can go to sleep after eating all those peanuts.

random rant

From what I can deduct, the reason why a God would want followers is because a God would want Its followers to be 'nudged' in the right direction. Most of us live with the illusion that God has allowed us freedom to choose. As in, we're given a choice between good and evil. With this illusion, the worthy are seen as the ones who choose good. Good, generally being harder to do, but with long term rewards and evil generally being the easy way out, with immediate rewards.

Breaking down greed is easy. Greed is natural selfishness with immediate rewards in mind. Hence,a larger profit margin is seen as greed, because the rewards are immediate, and unlike the not greedy(but not unselfish) smaller profit margin, does not yield the long term rewards like customer commitment.

However, long term or immediate, selfishness is present. Therefore selfishness cannot be ruled as an evil trait. Greed however can.

Back to the subject of God and his followers.

Before diving into the matters of a God, we must first be sure to NOT associate any human emotion, reaction, want, or instinct.

A God would want It's followers to be good. But I see no reason why it would want to be worshipped.

In my opinion, to worship is to limit human potential by conforming to the illusion that there is a conscious, and more powerful force out there. Obviously, there are many factors and oppurtunities out there beyond the control of one human and often beyond the control of all 6 billion of us.

In an alternate universe, where Gods, religions, and superstitions are cast aside, the human race would strive and likely be more in control of these currently beyond control forces.

If you still do not my drift, I will simply create another alternate universe where every human is commited to religion. And by this, I mean pure submission. Not questioning even the basics that most religions get wrong. This would be utter chaos. Natural disasters would be so beyond control that rescue efforts would be uncoordinated.

Now why would I say something like that if every human would be out to do good? And if everyone did good, then more people from this 2nd alternate universe would extend a helping hand than from my 1st alternate universe.

This is because in this 2nd alternate universe, there isn't any technology!
Just as Evil can exist so long as good men do nothing.
The limitlessness of technology can be left unexplored so long as smart men do nothing.

So I beg you all please. Most of you who read this have even more potential than me. Potential in mathematics and science and law. Don't leave oppurtunities behind. Every effort made makes us humans more in control of this universe.

We could barely predict weather a few centuries ago. Now we're always 2 steps ahead. People used to sacrifice goats and pray to the winds for rain. Now we have more control over the weather than ever before. Think about that.

Life is a game of survival. Instead of being the species that died off because we were too busy praying, we can be the species that conquers.

thank you

I'm recovering from a lot now, so forgive to shortness and uncoolness of this post.



We've already established that 'thank you' and 'you're welcome' are ways of showing superiority, and the reasons behind them are never sincere. Though anyone can mean a 'thank you' and anyone can fake a 'thank you', it is almost always a way of getting even.

If you receive a gift that you really don't like or already have, and have no intention of using, you'd still be inclined to saying 'thank you'.

When you get something you truly want, 'thank you' is said but is thought to be meant sincerely.
This is of coarse a lie.

For, if YOU give a really good gift to someone, the least you want in return is a thank you. It is sort of a way of getting a person to show you they owe you something, but take this 'thank you' until I can repay in full.

Now, what I'm trying to show here is not that 'thank you' isn't right. I'm trying to show that there really isn't much divinity or sincerity in a 'thank you'. That shouldn't make you not want to say 'thank you', now at least we all know why and what use a 'thank you' has. It is an 'I owe you' card.

Intermission, to get things straight

Okay, I need to reset my mind. The past week has been rough, so now I need to just do a simple post.

I think, no matter how you go about it, God should not resemble anything human at all. Why? Because humans are animals (like it or not, we ARE). I want to make it very clear. We eat, we sleep, we poop. The main difference is that we THINK. Sometimes very hard. That should not be enough to make us be THAT different from animals. Just because a bird can fly well, a fish can swim well, and a bear can smell well, doesn't make them not animal. Just as they all have their special niche, we have ours.

The general idea that everyone is equal is quite flawed, the idea that every human deserves equal RIGHTS is more acceptable(but still only just an idea). No one chooses their traits.

Culture is also not always a choice. Other than the occasional heretic(me!) or convert, no one actually chooses what they want to believe in. It's very hard to let go of something if it's been shoved into your mind ever since you were born. You cannot rightly say you have chosen to believe in (insert religion here) even after you've given it some thought. However, I don't want to mingle in this topic for too long. It get's people upset, and if I present my points badly, religious people get a little more faithful, simply because I gave atheism a bad name.


Could it be, that the only person who deserves an ego is God himself, the creator?
Then again, he's not a person.

The thing is, we can't tell who or what created the universe (but let's all agree that everything after the creation of the universe is quite explainable without the presents of a God, more on random chance some other time), but we can tell, or accurately guess when and where it began, and sometimes poke fun at how it was created.

Nietzsche once wrote about common sense. It's not the normal common sense that I'm talking about. I'm actually talking about the way nearly all humans put two and two together using our 5 senses, our brains and (allow me, just this once) the soul. What Nietzsche said is that common sense is, basically, what keeps us from going insane.

He also mentioned, that perhaps someone,(or some primitive being, earth bound, no less) HAS actually seen beyond common sense, and thus seen(more accurately, experienced) the universe in 4D, or even 11D(according to the string theory). But this ability to see beyond 3D most likely complicated early evolution of brain, and so was discarded, in favor of a much easier to use just sound, sight, touch, smell and taste(and all those other sub-sensations).

I find that because we cannot 'feel' or 'experience' the true universe, then surely we can imagine it. Here, mathematics comes into play. But because I do math like a 5 year old, all I can say is that maybe the only way is to calculate and imagine(using calculations) how the universe really is, in all its dimensional splendor.

Some say that THIS universe is just a fraction of another much more complex one. If that were true, I myself can safely chuck God out of the window. Why? Simple.

Right now, I cannot safely say the universe has no age, because, quite frankly it does. God however(or most ideas of the creator) is ageless, therefore, making sure no one can ask who created God.

If this universe is part of a much much much more complicated, and ageless multiverse, then I can put my mind to rest, because my questions will most likely find their answers in random chance. If we can find out how the universe fits into a much bigger picture, an ageless picture, then perhaps we can rule out God as the creator.

The thing is, most of us cannot escape the idea of us being animals. How social interactions have been so mixed up with all other complications of having a brain to eventually make us feel like we have a soul. Truth be told, the soul is VERY explainable. It is what happens when animals get complex. Watch Richard Dawkin's The Genius of Darwin. It's all on youtube.

After this post, I will no longer try to find truth, instead, I will find use. As in, not if reliogious beliefs are true, but if they are beneficial.

What it is to be human_part 5

Using Nietzsche's will to power theory and part of the selfish theory, it can be said that there is nothing divine(as in magically unselfish) in any human interaction. We give respect to great people who have contributed NOT because respect is more admirable than material wealth, but because we are trying to show that we can give back too. As in, as I have pointed out before, when a rich man gives money to a beggar(here the rich man is showing his power, showing that he is superior to the beggar), and then receives thanks from the beggar(here the beggar is showing that he is superior by giving something back. Also, when a person demands pity, there isn't any divinity in his sadness (as in sadness is not exactly as unexplainable magical as it seems to be), instead, the aforementioned person is showing his superiority by pulling people down to his level, because at least he can still do that in his state.

Respect is equally explainable. We don't respect people who haven't done anything for us. Even if we don't know someone like Einstein, we still can respect him because he has shown that he is superior to us, our natural instinct is to show that we can respect. Either we respect, or we get jealous(which is the more animal-like reaction, and therefore less human reaction).

When we do something great(or just something admirable, depending on the degree of greatness), and not expect something material in return, subconsciously, we expect respect or at least for another human to be in debt to you (again, please remember to ditch any metaphysical ideas when reading this blog) . This is a feature only present in animals, or more accurately, complex animals. And has a lot to do with ego, but more on ego later(next post, I think).

The thing is, ego is only present in animals.

The idea of a creator always states that God is beyond human, meaning beyond animal. This is quite clear, as animals clearly are quite a new thing compared to things like the universe and the fundamental idea of God.

So why would a God need to have an ego? Would a God beyond human emotion and thought be in need of things like respect, worship and human submission? That would be bringing down God to a very human level.

So to worship a God is to insult one with something a human would want.

I can't tell you how to treat a God. If it gives you comfort to think that you are not in control of your destiny, then by all means, worship.

But being human, being able to conquer nature and do things our own way, we must be responsible for our destiny. Think of life as a scrabble game(stupid analogy, I know);

rules - represents things like law and social rules, MUST be learnt to survive

vocabulary - represents things like skills, wisdom, knowledge, up to individuals to learn up

7 letters - represents random chance, beyond human control, could be good, could be bad. Also has much to do with genetics (including genetic memory)

You can see clearly see that one must not simply submit to random chance. The most admirable people are those who have overcome random chance and achieved greatness. The least admirable people are those who have failed in life despite having the advantage of good luck.

With all that out of the way, I don't think there is a real need to worship a God, unless you have bad luck. In that sense, Nietzsche was wrong in saying God is dead. People will always find a need for God, because random chance is sometimes very random.

I'll be back with a more solid post when I get back home. I'm not in my perfect mind when away.

What it is to be human_part 4

Let us first establish some rules : It is an animalistic feature to be impulsive. And if impulsive behaviour is the true nature of an animal, then certainly, the initial reaction of a thinking being is its true nature, and not a lie.

With that rule established, we can now begin to see the tie that bonds lying with being human.

Maybe the word lying is a little too vague. The word reasoning is more accurate. But if the initial rule applies, then surely, to act out of reason is to lie.

In most cases, as in most human interactions, if it is a good conversation, as in a conversation in which both parties are pleased, there is much rationalization. The bad conversations are those with little in the way of compensation and rationalization. But, again, if the first rule applies, then the bad conversation is one with less lying involved.

Remember, that the lie I am trying to establish is the lie beyond good and evil. It has nothing to do with doing the right thing, for if rational thinking was indeed lying, then obviously, rational thinking is the right thing, the human thing. But when a lie is done to decieve another human, it is a lie done out of the basic animalistic selfishness, and is surely makes one less human and more animal.

If to rationalize is to lie and if to decieve is to lie. Then we all need to choose our lie, and live with the choice.

Continued in part 5