Existentialism Part 3

Jean-Paul Sartre the French Philosopher who was the primary proponent of existentialism, coined the phrase we are condemned to be free, by which he means you are forced one way or another to make a choice. Freedom is defined as not under the control of another; at liberty or autonomous. However, with this freedom comes responsibility, which means liable to be called to account (to a person (including me) or for a thing. I am afraid of being responsible, because all of my life I have believed that there was an invisible force responsible or who at least would come to rescue me. Carry all your cares to Jesus he will bare them for you, therefore you don’t need to bare responsibility for who you are, we are told to deny who we are and identify with Jesus. Apostle Paul said everyday I decrease that he (that is Jesus) might increase. I am afraid but I am condemned to be free. I must choose and therefore take ownership of my existence. I am responsible for my health, happiness, and for what I become or will be. As far as I am concern unless proven otherwise god is indeed dead.

Existentialism Part 2

I decided to research more the philosophy of Existentialism. I downloaded a book entitled : Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction by Thomas Flynn. According to the description of the book: "One of the leading philosophical movements of the 20th century, existentialism has had more impact on literature and the arts than any other school of thought. Focusing on the leading figures of existentialism, including Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty and Camus, Thomas Flynn offers a concise account of existentialism, explaining the key themes of individuality, free will, and personal responsibility, which marked the movement as a way of life, not just a way of thinking. Flynn sets the philosophy of existentialism in context, from the early phenomenologists, to its rise in the 40s and 50s, and the connections with National Socialism, Communism, and Feminism. He identifies the original definition of "existentialism", which tends to be obscured by misappropriation, and highlights how the philosophy is still relevant in our world today." After I listen to the audiobook in regard to free-will, individuality, and personal responsibility, I asked myself: how does determinism, which is the philosophy that everything or events has prior causes, throw a wrench in the theory of existentialism? I found an answer on ask philosophers.com. The answer was even if determinism was true, existentialism would not be affected because existentialism is about the choices you make in life, whether the events were determined or random, you still have a choice to make, and even if you refuse to make a choice then a choice is still made and if you will accept the responsibility for that choice. I have a choice whether it’s determined or not, and I am responsible for my choices and this is what Jean-Paul Sartre meant when he said we are force to be free. Think about it...

Existentialism

I have been researching a philosophical idea called existentialism. Existentialism is a philosophical theory emphasizing the existence of the individual as a free and self-determining agent. (The Oxford Pocket Dictionary and Thesaurus) I like some features of existentialism but it is counter-intuitive to the theory of human evolution. Most evolutionist agree that we evolved in gregarious social groups in which if we did not cooperate we could have become extinct because we were not always top dog on this planet. Primates live in communities and it took cooperation and co-dependence for us to survive. Also I have been told that no man is an island we depend on others one way or another. The existentialism I agree with is I am responsible for my on life, my own happiness, and I cannot expect someone else or something else (I.e. a god(ess) to be responsible for me. Yet I live with other people and if I did my own thing; couldn't my action directly or indirectly effect others? However before I throw the baby out with the bath, I want to research this philosophical movement more. Think about it.

Black Socrates

Sense of Nonsense

I think life is its own point, if there’s a point to life at all. What do I mean by point? A point is defined as a significant or essential thing or a sense or purpose. (Oxford Pocket Dictionary and Thesaurus American Edition). In other words, our existence is a significant or essential thing in and of itself and does not gives a sense or purpose to something else. For example, if there was a god how would our existence make his existence significant or add anything to a god, therefore if there was a god our existence would be insignificant to this being, I feel no greater than a piece of grass in the scheme of things, if the predictions of science is correct this universe will continue to expand, eventually cool and become empty space with subatomic quarks and leptons being the remnant of the big bang. I breathe a sigh of relief because Christianity, Islam, and all religions are just distractions to take people attention away from these facts, because if they were true, what is the point of an afterlife, if it’s a reward for this one, then why do infants die at birth or are strangled by the umbilical cord in the placenta. To give you analogy, the Turkana boy was 8 to 10 years old when he died, what had he accomplished in such a short time span to be punished or rewarded for. Also, his lineage Homo erectus or ergaster are extinct, in fact we are the only homo lineage left. This should tell us that everyone prior to us are no longer here and evolution does not have an end in mind. All evolution and natural selection cares about is passing on the genes or gene replication and variation and if we are not successful then our individual lineage dies out and if we are not adaptive as a species to change in climate, environment, and/or lucky when it comes to asteroids and other natural disasters then we as a species will die out. This planet has existed billions of years before we came on the scene and will continue to exist if we are not. This is truly a humbling experience. Our existence is a means to its own end and it points directly to itself, which means I am responsible for the meaning life has for me (period) and as Joseph Campbell said in the Power of Myth, this is the way it is, take it or leave it. Think about it...

Civil Rights and Homosexuality

Over the weekend I watched President Obama speech to the HRC. I have heard some comments from family members who are Christians that they thought his speech was wrong and homosexuality is a sin. Also, a few years ago a cousin who is like a younger brother to me came out of the closet to my aunt and every time she gets a chance she preaches to him about living with his lover and so forth, I never thought about his homosexuality because he lived in another state plus his sexuality did not negate the fact that he is still my cousin. As a result of these comments I decided to do some conscience raising to myself, plus as a heterosexual male I did wonder from an evolutionary standpoint why didn't Natural Selection select against homosexuality. I have been listening to the Audiobook called the Greatest Show on Earth Evolution Explained by Richard Dawkins and Natural Selection is about competition, variation, and it’s about successfully passing on genes, we like other species have an innate desire to add our genes to the gene pool of the next generation and in order to do this you need to be attracted to the opposite sex. From my research and conscience raising, I now think homosexuality is a biological difference that occurs in individuals and that it is not a choice, just as being born an African American is not a choice. I think homosexuality comes from a variety of sources, in a recent study a brain scan shows that the amygdala in homosexual males are wired the same as heterosexual women, and Lesbians symmetry scans were similar to Heterosexual males. Moreover, it appears that homosexuality develops in the embryonic stage of the individual fetus because the amygdala is develop early in a fetus, in other words it appears that homosexuals are born gay, also for some reason (there are a few hypotheses being suggested) a male who have older male siblings have a greater chance of being born gay. Some may worry that this will be viewed as a physical abnormality I neither feel this way even as a Black Heterosexual male this would be like saying a person skin color is an abnormality nor do I feel homosexuality is unethical. Therefore if our laws are going to be based on fairness then homosexuality should have equal rights as heterosexuality. As I tried to explain to my family, I don’t know how African Americans who have fought for equality and wants equality can deny it to others, I find that hypocritical and morally reprehensible. Think about it...
References:
Ivanka Savic and Per Lindström. PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0801566105
The Greatest Show on Earth: Evolution Explained Richard Dawkins
Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life by Sam Wang and Susan Aamodt.

Passion of Christ?

I am thinking about the movie The Passion of Christ by Mel Gibson. I remember when it first came out and my mother and sister went to see it and how bus loads of Christians went to see it at the movie theaters as well. I remember my mother telling me how she and my sister were crying when they saw how Jesus suffered. I thought about this in relation to John 1:1-3 NIV “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”, and as I thought about it, this means that he was responsible for creating evil, because if evil is something then it was created by him. If there was a tree of knowledge of good and evil then the Word created this tree, the Word created the serpent, the Word created the garden and therefore the Word is responsible for the fall. If this is true, then this is the least the Word could do, and so to sit there and cry like a baby is ridiculous in my opinion, I would have cried too, from laughing at all these grown people crying like a babies. Thinking about it.

Health Care reform and our Inner Ape

I think the health care reform issue is a classic example of an idea by Frans de Waal in his book Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are. The idea, in Chapter 2 entitled Power, is a coalition theory called "strength is weakness". In "strength is weakness" the most powerful player is often the least attractive ally. Joining them adds little to their strength which in turns results in fewer benefits. However, if a coalition is formed by throwing weight behind a weaker player it gives one far more leverage and also translates into more prestige and benefits. Using the Paradoxical idea of weakness is strength; minor players can position themselves at an intersection that offers great advantage. Dr de Waals use the example of three chimps, Yereon, Nikki, and Luit in the Arnhem Zoo in Holland to illustrate his point. He tells the story of Luit who was the alpha male and how he was killed. Yereon, who was the alpha, was dethroned by Luit and after Yereon got over his loss, he skillfully aligned himself with Nikki because aligning himself with Luit had little or no benefits because Luit did not need his support. Luit eventually was double-teamed by Nikki (who became the new alpha male) and Yereon when they are all caged together one evening.
I see this "weakness is strength" coalition theory in the so-called "Gang of Six" a group of Centrist Senators. They are calling the shots on health care reform because of the division in Congress (i.e. the conservative Republicans versus progressive Democrats). The democrats who have a majority is in a weaker position than these six Senators because they need them to pass this health care reform, as a result, this small coalition are creating our health care reform.
This also show evolutionary theory is such a powerful explanatory tool, we need to get the chip off our shoulder and wake up to the fact that we are Hairless Apes or Primates (i.e. we are not the central purpose of universe). We evolved in communal societies like other primates, this is why we seek out coalitions and why we are gregarious. We diverged from a common ancestor with our Chimpanzee and Bonobos cousins six million years ago. We are not the only intelligent social primates on this planet as so eloquently illustrated by Frans de Waal in Our Inner Ape. Think about it...

The Word of God?

I often hear people say the Bible is god’s word but I have never read this directly, the closest I have read is that all scripture is given by inspiration or god-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), or gods words are pure (Proverbs 30:5.6), neither statement defines what they mean by inspiration or god's word. When these authors wrote this they were not thinking what they were writing was scripture, they may have been talking about the Torah or the Law (Psalm 19:8). They may not even have been talking about the Hebrew bible because it had not been canonized or decided on when these statements were written. I listened to a podcast by the Non-Prophets recently and they said something I had not thought about before. What is the difference between me saying that god is speaking to me through a box and someone saying that god speak to them through a Bible, Koran, and the Vedas or any so-called sacred text, the only difference people would think I was insane or delusional, while the other is seen as not insane or delusional.. What is the difference? What is the difference if I say god speaks to me from one book over another? Let say I said god spoke to me when I read the American Heritage Dictionary another said god speaks to them when they read the Bible, both of them contain words. What is the difference? Well most believers would say I believe that the bible or gods word is alive, well if something is alive it eats, reproduces, converts energy to one form to another, and so forth, I don’t know if trees or plants breathe but alive is synonymous with to breathe. It is alive because it is you who makes it alive, if the reader did not read it, then it would be another book collecting dust on the shelf. Another thing I am aware of is when a believer states his or her faith, they are acting as the judge and the advocate, when they say the bible is the infallible word of god, if you ask what do you mean by the word of god, and if you follow up with how do you know this is true? Could they give you an answer without circular reasoning? Think about it...

Anselm Argument vs Jehovah or Yahweh

I am quoting this from an article by Roy Jackson on the website www.philosophernet.com.
"Anselm's Argument

`And so, O Lord, since thou givest understanding to faith, give me to understand - as far as thou knowest it to be good for me - that thou dost exist, as we believe, and that thou art what we believe thee to be. Now we believe that thou are a being than which none greater can be conceived.'
(From Proslogion, Chapter 2)

The important part of this quote is what Anselm meant by "that thou are a being than which none greater can be conceived". Two key words here need to be clearly defined. First of all, what did he mean by `conceived' (some translations use the word `thought')? Judging from the Proslogion, the primary meaning of this word is synonymous with that which is logically possible. However, the problem here is that it certainly seems possible to conceive of God's non-existence. As we will examine later, however, the conception of the non-existence of God is, in fact, logically impossible!

The second key word is what he meant by `greater'. Although Anselm himself does not define what he meant by this, it seems apparent that he is not merely limiting himself to `goodness', but is using it in the more all-encompassing manner that suggests God's omnipotence; i.e. powerful, able, and so on. It is obvious that he did not mean the greatest being that you or I can possibly think of, or conceive, simply because we are limited in our conceptions. What Anselm meant was the greatest being that it is logically possible for any conceiver to conceive of. The very fact that Anselm meditates upon the property of God as being `the greatest being' means that God must be greater than the human conception of `greatness'."
I thought about Anselm statement and Roy Jackson's interpretation of it, he must have been meditating or describing some other god other than Yahweh or Jehovah, I can conceive of a being greater than the god of the bible: therefore, can one say that the god of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is not god? The reason I ask this rhetorical question, is I can conceive of a god greater than the one described in the Torah, the Christian bible, and the Koran. Therefore the god of these religions do not fit this definition of Anselm's god. Lets look at some characteristics of the Jehovah or Yahweh. Yahweh or Jehovah according to what believers calls his word, he is jealous, unmerciful, not omniscient, not omnipresent, and not omnipotent. Whenever you see the word "the Lord" it means Yahweh or Jehovah or Adonai (which the Jews used as a substitute for Yahweh or Jehovah, because they thought Jehovah/Yahweh was too sacred to be written so they use Adonai when writing) For example, according to Exodus 20:1-5 "1 And God spoke all these words: 2 "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 "You shall have no other gods before me. 4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.." He is not merciful according to Jeremiah 13:14 "And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them." He is not omniscient according to Genesis 3:8 "And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God, among the trees of the garden" and he is not omnipresent according to Genesis 18:20 "And the Lord said, because of the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me, and if not, I will know". Finally,Jehovah/Yahweh is not omnipotent according to Judges 1:19 "And the Lord was with Judah, and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron". Therefore, the god of the bible is not a god in which none greater can be conceived, think about it...
Black Socrates

Heaven must be boring

"Heaven must be really boring, if you think about it logically, all the angels must be snoring, who could stand perfection for eternity...not me... Heaven Must Be Boring by George Hrab.
According to Mark 12:18-25 18 "Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 19 "Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. 20 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. 21 The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. 22 In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. 23 At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?" 24 Jesus replied, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? 25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." (This woman must have been like Blanche Taylor Moore a convicted serial killer who is on death row in North Carolina she was convicted of killing five men, this woman out lived seven husband, I would not want to eat her cooking.)
If we are going to be like the angels, which the passage does not clarify what angels are like, other than they cannot marry. However, can they have sex? If the sons of God in Genesis 6 are the same as angels it does seem they would be capable of having sex, because one can infer if they can impregnate the daughters of men. According to Baker's Evangelical Dictionary Angels "The Apocrypha In the late postexilic period angelology became a prominent feature of Jewish religion. The angel Michael was deemed to be Judaism's patron, and the apocryphal writings named three other archangels as leaders of the angelic hierarchy. Chief of these was Raphael, who was supposed to present the prayers of pious Jews to God ( 1 Tobit 2:15). Uriel explained to Enoch many of his visions (1 Enoch 21:5-10; 27:2-4), interpreted Ezra's vision of the celestial Jerusalem (2 Esdras 10:28-57), and explained the fate of the fallen angels who supposedly married human women (1 Enoch 19:1-9; cf. Gen 6:2). Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel (1 Enoch 40:3, 6) reported to God about the depraved state of humanity, and received appropriate instructions. According to contemporary thought, Gabriel sat on God's left, while Michael sat on the right side (2 Enoch 24:1). The primary concern of these two angels, however, was supposedly with missions on earth and affairs in heaven, respectively. In rabbinic Judaism they assumed a character which, while sometimes dramatic, had no factual basis in divine revelation" This is why Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 say angels were held in dungeons in hell because they married human women. However, Jesus who is supposedly god incarnated says that angels are incapable of marriage or sexual intercourse. So what are humans going to do for eternity? If you read revelations you are going to be professional ass kissers for at least a thousand years, then another war, and finally you get to live in Jerusalem forever (wow, can you feel my sarcasm?). It is interesting after everything goes down it seems like for all your suffering you get to live a city, where you cannot have sex, and where you are a robot, so much for freewill...Think about it.

History

What is history moving us towards or what is the meaning of history? My question implies that there is a point that history is moving towards something significant that is a point, a reason, a purpose, or an end to the story. I was recently watching Countdown to Armageddon on the History Channel International as I watched it, the thought came to me the idea of the end of the world is this innate desire for this life to point toward something that is an end to a story. However, maybe that’s what the bible is a story with an ending that has nothing to do with reality. If I wrote a book and some events in real life happens that was written in the book, this does not make my book a book of prophecy, it was a book written to entertain, to tell a story, I feel the bible is the same, it is a collection of books that some people have mistaken for reality. In Christianity the point is to either be in heaven with Jesus or to return to a new Earth with Jesus. There is suppose to be a new Heaven as well; where God, his angels, and those who were righteous but not a part of the body of Christ will live. From my understanding the bride of Christ who is the Church of God will be the ones who will rule with Christ on Earth. My question is; then what or what is the point of that? Is nothing else going to happen? We want an end, but an end means a stop in evolution or change, no more development. When a book end there may be a sequence but eventually the story should end. Analogy would be Harry Potter will grow up and the story will get stale, in other words, there are only so many plots you can write before you have to come up with something new. J. K. Rowling must feel like she is stuck writing Harry Potter books. If she writes something other than Harry Potter whatever she writes will be compared to Harry Potter, sometimes success is not what it seems. Back to my point, the problem of accepting a story or a series of stories as a point of our existence is that there is nothing that you can do to convince a believer that another story is possible or in other words, religious believers accept that their myths are reality when it is not, it's just a story people used to explain the unknown, nothing more. Therefore, does history have an end? I hope not, this means we no longer exist. Furthermore, with our species still evolving and changing who knows where we will go, in other words, an open-ended history, our potential is unlimited and thus history is not a story it is reality and it can be whatever we want it to be. Think about it...

Fallacy of Judeo-Christianity Freewill

I am thinking about freewill. I have been listening again to an audio book by Dr. Bart D. Ehrman a professor who teaches at UNC-Chapel Hill, he has written several books about the New Testament, but he wrote a book called God’s Problem: How the bible fails to answer our most important question Why we suffer. He wrote something I never considered before, and it was about freewill. Often theist use the argument that we suffer because we have freewill. He mentioned that this argument fails because if heaven exist, and if a being have freewill in heaven, there exist a place where a person can have freewill and there is no suffering. I thought about this deeper, for example, if Satan rebelled against God and took a third of heaven with him (see Revelations 12:6-9), then he and the angels he convinced to join him, had freewill, if not then they could not have rebelled. Furthermore, when mankind supposedly ate the forbidden fruit, The Lord God said, “Mankind has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, we must remove him from the garden, less he should eat from the tree of life, and live forever" (see Genesis 3:22), therefore the Lord God must have knowledge of suffering and yet the Lord God lives in a realm where suffering does not exist i.e. heaven, and if the Lord God could create a place where suffering does not exist and where beings exist with freewill, then he could have created us with freewill without suffering and therefore the whole garden incident was totally unnecessary. On a philosophical idea of freewill, does it exist or are things causally determined or is it both? I am a soft-determinist, I think our nature (environment) and nurture (social training) seems to be causal but our behavior or how we react is up to us. If we are not free to a certain degree then how do we learn new reactions or learn something new? Think about it...

Assumptions

On the way to work this morning I had a thought on some assumptions that are essential for Christianity's existence. I would call these assumptions the pillars of the faith. According to The Oxford Pocket Dictionary and Thesaurus American Edition (The World's Most Trusted Dictionaries) (a statement I am somewhat skeptical, on whose authority is this statement based on)., back to my definition; assumption is a noun, which is defined as 1. Assuming 2. Accepting without proof 3. Arrogance and 4. Reception of the virgin Mary bodily into heaven. I am using the second definition of accepting without proof. Christianity accept without proof 1. There is an afterlife, I don't mean our matter-energy will be absorbed back into the ecosystem, but there will be a life after this one that is similar to this one but in a different realm or invisible to our senses. The second assumption that Jesus of Nazareth, which Christianity believes is the promised Messiah or Christ, physically rose from his death and afterward broke the laws of physics and ascended up to heaven to the right hand of the father. ( According to Luke 24:51 ironically this is the only gospel that makes this claim, since Mark 16:9-20 was not in the oldest reliable manuscripts, therefore we can disregard Mark similar claim). This leads to the assumption that heaven exist, which has conveniently turned into a realm invisible to our senses, but not according to the bible it was a place where Stephen saw Jesus (See Acts 7:55) and where the people of Babel could build a tower to in Genesis 11. The assumption was it's a place were people could see or reach if not why would Yahweh come down and confuse the languages or Stephen, who was still alive although being stoned could have not seen it. The biggest assumption which I think is the foundation of Christianity's existence and therefore upholds it is; there is a god who is involved in human activities and is personally involved in human affairs. Yet there is no physical evidence at least today of a god like Yahweh, the God of the old testament, Yahweh did miracles, he stopped time, parted seas, fed and clothe the people of Israel and so forth, yet this don't happen today where everyone could see instantly on worldwide news. Is there a god who is actively involved in human affairs. Think about this, as I typed and edit this blog which took me about 45 minutes and in this time 781 children have died from starvation and hunger related diseases, (approximately 1,042 children die every hour) because on average 25,000 children die every day from hunger and hunger related diseases (see globalissues.org). This is neither including the 2700 who died from Malaria today (see http:/.cdc.gov/malaria/facts.htm) nor the 100's of people who died from typhoons and mud slides. As a result, if god is actively involved in our lives, I think maybe we would be better off if perhaps he wasn't involved. Therefore, these are assumptions in which there is no evidence today or reasonable evidence that these things are true. ... think about it....

The next leap forward vs fear of spiritual authority

I think we live in fear of going against authority because authority had evolutionary advantages. In other words, we have an innate, natural abhorrence of going against authority because for most of our species history (approximately 3.5 million years ago until recent times i.e. founding of democratic secular societies, we lived in patriarchal or matriarchal hunter-gatherers societies in which there were an Alpha male or female, as well as their individual parents, who led our prehistorical ancestors. For example, if we look at our ancestors prior, to the introduction of agricultural which occurred approximately 9 to 10 thousand years ago, they were all hunter-gathers, and they may had supplemented their meat diet with wild fruits, berries, and proto-agricultural vegetables. Then someone had the idea instead of us going hunting why don’t we domesticate the food we have been hunting (the idea of domestication may have come from our experience of domesticating wolves into hunting companions, then they eventually became the common dog, and the livestock need food so the idea of planting grass and wheat to feed the livestock came into existence which then led to domesticating the wild fruit, berries and vegetables. This new adaptation led to a stationary lifestyle from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. During our hunter-gathering days, we lived in close family units like the African San-bushmen, African Pygmies, and South American native tribes do today, they live in small family units, and so authority was important to survival. We are one of a few species in which our young are helpless until they reach at least adolescences, and some adolescences and even adult are still helpless (how many 30 to 40 years old are still living with their parents when they don't have to). In other words, Homo Sapiens-Sapiens don’t get up and immediately walk like the gazelle or zebra on the African Savannah, that is we are dependent on our parents for a long time and so we take authority figures seriously in our lives, and we assume they are telling us the truth until proven otherwise. As Daniel Dennett or maybe Richard Dawkins may have brought out that when the village elders, shaman, priest told us to kill a goat or if our parents told us not to go to the edge of the water or a crocodile may get us, and if some Johnny-come-lately disobeyed their parent and became crocodile food we had an immediate reinforcement to what was said and so when ever the parents who gave up their authority to the village shaman who was most likely an elderly family member we got use to our elders and shamans telling us things based on authority. Therefore, I think we have a difficult time going against the authority of our families and if your family are Christians or whatever religious faith your family has adopted, there is this evolutionary fear of going against the authority of our parents and religious authorities. We seek out authority, even in science, we name drop (just like I did in mentioning Dawkins and Dennett), for instance we say Einstein said such and such, or this famous scientist said such and such, it is a natural innate drive or desire to seek out authorities, this is why science is often peer-reviewed, we seek out authority, that our hypothesis is right or wrong. Therefore authority acceptance and seeking is a natural thing. Yet when we decide to think outside our narrowed tribal, religious views, our families think we are moving into dangerous territory, like the child who goes to the waterside after they been told not to, they fear for our "eternal souls", we have broken the taboo. However, I begin to think about courage to go against authority, may sometimes be necessary for the survival of our species. Someone in proto-homo Sapient society had the courage to step down from the tree and walk on two feet, someone had the courage to stand up to the leopard, lion, and sabre tooth tiger, and other predators, someone had the courage to migrate out of the African Savannah to populate the world. I know there were deaths in some of these steps of courage. To give you an analogy, during the civil rights movement, Rosa Park refuse to give up her seat, she lived a long time, however Dr King was assassinated, Medgar Evers was murdered, some freedom riders in Mississippi were murdered and many others died fighting for civil rights, as a result today over 40 million people of color have more rights than they had because someone took a courageous stand. Freedom and progress takes courage, and if our species is going to survive it is going to take courage to move pass religion, race, and other differences. It will require us to take another great leap forward and we are going to have to fight our evolutionary fears of going against the things that divide us and may have had a survivability or evolutionary purpose, but they no longer do and these things need to start in this generation if we are going to do something about climate change, exploration of space, and move on to the next evolutionary step in our species.

Black Socrates

Soul Man? Part 2

I think the idea of a soul is not unusual, we don’t know what death is, and it is something we do not have control over. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth you have the story of a person who overcame death by his so-called resurrection. It does not bother the average believer in Jesus that he conveniently ascended to heaven to no longer be heard from or seen again; or at least until his "second" return. He symbolizes our desire to overcome our greatest enemy, death. Mankind have conquered almost everything on this planet except his death. I think it is our imagination and desire to be associated with something that is eternal and supreme. For example, If you listen to any contemporary gospel or "inspiration" station and if you listened to an average song that the words will be how god was worthy of worship because he is holy and if you asked yourself how do we know this is true, that there's a god who is holy and worthy of worship, to be honest we don't, I have yet seen a sea part or a talking snake. I cannot fault Christianity or Islam because they give the answers to one of our greatest fears, the fear of no longer existing. In Islam and Christianity you are given the promise of immortality, which I think is wishful thinking and nothing more. I hate to be the bearer of reality but this is it folks, there is no second chance, no reincarnation, no resurrection, yes your atoms will be absorbed into the natural ecosystem like other natural things but the you who you think you are, this egocentric identity will end when the brain dies. We need to get over the fear of death and live this life, as Epicurus allegedly stated "Death means nothing to us, for when we are, death isn't and when death is, we are not" and that's the way it is. Think about it...

I'm a soul man?

Do we have a soul? What do we mean by soul? Soul is defined as the animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity. (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. ) I don't think we have a soul. The reason I conclude this, if I did not have a brain and nervous system then I as a Homo Sapien Sapien could neither function nor have knowledge or memory of who I am. For example four years ago, Terry Schiavo, a brain damaged woman was unable to feed herself and after two weeks she died from dehydration and starvation because her brain and nervous system could not animate her limbs to feed or hydrate herself. Also, Alzheimer's disease shut down the brain activity over-time until the brain cell shrinks and stop signaling the heart and other key body functions via the nervous system and thus the person die. For an excellent presentation on the brain and Alzheimer see www.alz.org. If I am wrong then I don't lose anything except I had an incorrect conclusion. Apologists like Dr Peter Kreeft and Gary Habermas believe in an immortal soul may disagree with me, but what evidence do they provide that is factual. There is no evidence for an immortal separate soul, because if there was then a person with severe brain damage would be unaffected by the damage, they would be aware of who they are and should somehow be able to communicate this. It is a fact that if the brain is damaged or diseased then my ideas, memory, knowledge, identity of who I think I am will change. This is significant because if I am right then I need to live this life because I won't exist as the personality or identity I currently am because once my brain activity cease at death then my conception of myself dies. Think about it....

To Hell with Hell

Yesterday I was reading one of my favorite blogs called Debunking Christianity which was founded by John Loftus a former minister who is now an atheists. The item on his blog that I want to blog about is a film I watched as a child called the Burning Hell by a Southern Baptist minister who died in 2005 named Estus Pirkle, the film was produced in 1974. I remember as a child my mother who is a minister would have the movie delivered to the house on a movie reel, and she would rent a projector and show it at the small Pentecostal church where she was the pastor. I remember the dread I felt when I would come home from school and see the reel in the house. I remember one year I happen to get home from school before my mother and the reel was waiting at our front door, I took and hid the reel. My mother called the film company and asked them if they sent it and I had to sneak it back to the front door. The scenario was two bikers stopped by a minister's (who they did not know was a minister) house to talk about bible prophecy, it is really not clear why they wanted to stop by a stranger's house to talk about Jesus and bible prophecy. Anyway it appears that both bikers where attending a new church that taught the hell wasn't real but here on earth and a message for the modern age. Then Estus gets up pick up his bible and tell them this bible teaches of a literal hell and that they were going there if they did not change their beliefs, and by the way he just happened to be preaching on the subject of hell for his Sunday sermon. One of the bikers got upset, which I would have too, if someone claimed that I was going to hell, like he knew, he just believed it was true, because he read it in a book. Anyway the biker tell the preacher if he goes to hell he was going to have a party because all of his friends would be there. The other biker apologizes to the minister and they leave. The biker, who got upset and made the partying in hell statement, was driving all erratic and reckless and he wound-up dying in an accident, while his friend just happened to have bike problems and had stopped. The biker leaves his dead friend at the accident site and goes to the minister church (which he never told him where the church was), leaving his dead decapitated friend on the side of the road like road kill. This is one of the worse written movies I have ever seen. This movie scared the heck out of me as a 8 to 10 year old child, you see these demons who looked like the Kiss rock band, people where screaming and all kinds of things where happening showing people who died in the bible stories and went to hell. As I reflected on this movie, I thought about the Christian or Muslim gods (both believe in god and hell), and if hell existed and if god would send people there, god is worst than any recorded despot or serial killer in the history of humanity, this would include Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Rwanda, Bosnia, or Darfur atrocities. If a god who send people to hell existed he is more worst than any of the genocide mass murderers, because when the genocide victims died, their suffering ended. However, god will allow his enemies, nonbelievers, and those who happen to believe in another god, to be tortured for eternity, I don't know how long eternity is, but it is claimed to be forever, with screaming and gnashing of teeth, were the worms does not die, they eat on you forever, just because you thought for yourself and was skeptical of the fall of man, Jesus, and thought the stories of the bible was just another mythology, or you believed in another god by accident of birth. The bottom line is none of the atrocities of known history could not even hold a candle to the biblical or Islamic god, the one who send infidels to hell. Oh but he loves you... Think about it.

Black Socates

Meaning of Life Part 2

I think one of the best quotes I have every read came from a debate between William Lane Craig and Dr. Ray Bradley in 1994. In the Q and A section of the debate an audience member asked Dr. Bradley if there's no God then what's the meaning of life. Dr. Bradley answered "The quickest way I can answer is to invite you to consider the following analogy. You open a book, a good novel perhaps or a history. You read it. What do you read? You find all sorts of sentences that in the book have meaning. The book comes to an end. There's a period at the last page. There's nothing more thereafter. Does this mean that because the book--your life by away of analogy--has come to end, there is no meaning in life? On the contrary, I want to suggest the meaning of life lies in the little things that we do for each other in life. It lies in the texture of everyday existence. It does not lie in yearning for something in an afterlife. If it lay in the latter, if this life had meaning only by virtue of there being another life afterwards which gave it meaning, then what is the meaning of that life? It would have to be followed by a still a third, and so on." The entire debate with the exception of the Question and Answer section can be heard on Common Sense Atheism , this site have over 400 plus debates.

God's Problem a short review.

Recently I listen to an audiobook by Dr Bart D. Ehrman, a renown Bible Scholar and Professor of New Testament at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, called God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer. I enjoyed the audiobook, in it he shows that the Bible offers at least five answers that often conflict with each other. 1) The prophets think God sends pain and suffering as a punishment for sin and also that human beings who oppress others create such misery; 2) the unknown writers who tell the Jesus story and the Joseph stories think God works through suffering to achieve redemptive purposes; 3) the writers of Job view pain as God's test; 4) the writers in parts of Job and Ecclesiastes conclude that we simply cannot know why we suffer; and 5) the apocalyptic belief (a dualistic ideology) that was popular during Jesus' ministry in which suffering is caused by the forces of evil (the Devil and his angels) and therefore, God is not responsible. When the kingdom of God comes, God will make things right, and the righteous will inherit the earth. He shows how these answers fall short of answering why we suffer, especially if you take into account gratuitous suffering of innocent infants like those who died in the Nazi's death camps, who were cooked alive in the fires of the Nazis when they did not have enough time to kill them with their mothers in the gas chambers; or the children who died when the 2004 Tsunami that occurred in the Indian Ocean which killed thousands of infants and children; and those infants and children who were killed by God's commandment in the old testament flood, and God's authorized genocides of land claiming by the Israelite Armies. One of the things that really hit home for me that Dr Ehrman brought out was about praying or giving thanks for your food. If you are thanking god for giving you your food, you are at the same time implying that god failed to provide food for someone else, why don't god provide food for the starving infants and children in the refugee camps in Darfur today or even the 25,000 people who die daily from hunger and hunger related diseases and illnesses; why didn't god provide food in Ethiopia during its great famine of the 1980's (he did in the Old Testament for the children of Israel in the desert, when he provided manna and quail). This is why I left the faith of Christianity, because I don't see any evidence for the god it claims to exist, a personal god who is active in the world would be a failure if such a god existed. Think about it...

It is what it is

I think at the moment that life is its own point, and to me that is significant enough. I came to this conclusion: because if life pointed to something else then what is the point of what it is pointing to? For example, if I say the point of life is to go to an afterlife paradise some call heaven or suffer in a torture chamber called hell, I need to ask what is the point of heaven or hell? If someone say to praise and worship a god, still I would continue to ask, and what is the point of that? And to think about the torture chamber of hell, what is the point of that? ( Especially if it does not have a rehabilitation function.) An analogy would be a fly being conceived from an endless chain of ancestors for billions of years, just to hit my windshield, was that the fly’s point? Think about it, for billions of years if the fly ancestors had not met and copulated with the next fly, avoided being food for whatever its natural predators are; if this fly ancestors prior to passing on their genes had died before passed on their genes then this fly would have not existed. All of these string of events happen just to see their lineage end on my windshield, is that the point of life? I think the point (if there is a point) of the fly was to live and be a fly nothing more. The point of a human is to live and be a human (period) nothing more. As a result, if someone ask me: Where did I come from, why am I here and what am I here for, I know how I would answer. Where did I come from? I would reasonably answer that everything in the universe is either matter or energy, and from science I understand that they are two forms of the same thing and that something has always existed, so I did not come from any where, I emerged from the existing universe. I exist because I think, therefore I am, and thus I reasonably conclude that I am a form of matter-energy or as Carl Sagan stated we're "star-stuff contemplating star-stuff". In other words, if there is a point to life it would be that we are one of the many ways the universe is aware of itself. I come from the union of my parents and every ancestor that preceded them; I received half of my genes from each. Why am I here? I am here because the conditions for existence exist; if they didn't exist then I would not exist. What am I here for? I am here, if lucky, to pass on my genes to the next generation. MOST IMPORTANTLY, I AM HERE TO LIVE, TO EXIST, Exist means to stand out, stand forth or emerge. I think its best summed up by Epicurus for he stated about life and death, "Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not" or to put it into today terms or slang: Death is nothing to fear because when I am alive I aint dead and when I'm dead I aint alive so why should I fear death. The point of a thing is what the thing do (so the point of life is to live), and that’s the way it is, or I would say "It is What it Is". Think about it...

Supernatural vs a Natural Uncaused Caused and Occam Razor

I just read something that I have been thinking about and it deals with a naturalistic view versus a super-naturalistic view of the cause of the universe and Occam Razor. Occam Razor simply means when you have two competing ideas that equally explains an observation go with the one that requires less explanation or the shorter explanation. In both ideas it is believed that the universe has a self-contained uncaused cause; in the naturalistic concept the universe itself is the self-contained uncaused cause while the super-naturalistic concept is a god is the self-contained uncaused cause of the universe, and thus Occam Razor would mean the naturalistic view should be accepted because it is the shorter explanation because of the one additional explanation of god for the theistic view. In other words, naturalism advocates the universe is itself the self-contained uncaused cause; while super-naturalism advocates that a supreme being is the self-contained uncaused cause. Now you have added something that requires an additional explanation: what is a supreme being?, who is the supreme being?, what evidence does god give for this supreme being’s existence? (I refuse to use a gender for god.) In all honesty both view may be false, we simply don‘t know, however I digress one of them is true because if a third alternative is given it would either be natural or supernatural. I too believe that there is an uncaused cause, because you would have to get to a point where there is something that was uncaused or you would have an infinite regression which is meaningless, because you would never explain anything, however using Occam Razor one would lean towards the universe itself being the self-contained uncaused cause because it requires one less step for explanation., therefore I accept the naturalistic point of view.

How do I know it's true?

I don’t believe that what Christianity professes is true, not just Christianity but any religion that make an unproven claim. What do I mean by true? True is something that is a provable or proven fact. Christianity is a faith or is based on faith, it is something that you have to accept on the word of another, but I have a difficult time just blindly accepting someone’s opinion that don’t have any provable evidence to back up it’s claim. How can we prove the tenets of Christianity’s claim? How can I prove that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of his father? As I type this it is almost laughable that people actually believe this, that is, that a god impregnated a virgin in a village in what was a Roman providence in the so-called middle east area that is now called Israel, this semi-divine being walked on earth, did miracles, knew he was going to be killed and he was going to rise three days later, and if you believe this you will be saved from the punishment this semi-divine being‘s father has created for people who don‘t accept this, believe something else, or even perhaps never heard. The reason this semi-divine being did this is because two naked people in a garden ate some fruit that his father had put in a garden and told them not to eat and they ate the fruit after they were convinced by a talking serpent. It is like me as an adult actually believing in Santa Claus and his eight tiny reindeer, without me being mentally ill or handicapped. However, a believer don’t think this is delusional but it actually happened because of a book put together by the Roman Catholic Church, the remnant or what is left of what was the Roman Empire. I can understand how someone can believe in an uncaused cause, an unknown intelligence that is innate in the universe or that is the universe, that caused the big bang or was the big bang, that goes from simplicity to complexity over an infinite amount of time, however, science hypothesizes that this universe will stop evolving and will one day die. This leads me to ask questions about science. How do I know science is true? How do we know the age of the universe? How do we know the age of the earth? How does science come to its conclusions? Why is this significant? Why do science believes that it is right? What happens if science is wrong? These are things which we should think about...

The Big Bang

I often hear apologist, discuss how it is impossible for the universe to have an infinite pass, this is one of the favorite arguments of William Lane Craig's Kalam Argument for the existence of god. Yet he uses the big bang for his argument. However, for there to have been a big bang there must have been something to bang. You cannot bang anything, if there's nothing to bang. Apologist also like to use the second law of thermodynamics, which in a close system energy experience entropy or things gets worse over time. They argue that if energy has existed forever then entropy would have destroyed everything by now. However, the apologist forgets the first law of thermodynamics which states in a close system energy is neither created nor destroyed, it changes from one form to another. If something is created then it comes into existence and did not exist before and if something is destroyed it no longer exist. Therefore if energy is neither created nor destroyed then it is reasonable to conclude that they have always existed, and if something has always existed then it does not have a creator or destroyer or point to something else. Therefore one could argue that energy could have always existed based on the first law of thermodynamics. Think about it....

Pope Benedict (Is-a-dict) goes to Africa!

I am writing about an article I just read on AP (Associated Press) (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090318/ap_on_re_af/af_pope_africa ) about Pope Benedict 16's first and current trip to Africa. His name should be Is-a-dict. Here is a man, telling Africans who have the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world to not use condoms, to use abstinence. Just because the last time he saw a vagina was birth does not mean everyone is cut from the same cookie mold, if it has been proven that condom use reduces the chance of HIV/AIDS infection it should be on the table for the fight against its spread. (please read: http://www.unfpa.org/hiv/programming.htm) If it has not been proven then his argument may have sustenance. Another thing that I disagree with Pope Benedict who is-a-dict is his statement of "the growing influence of superstitious religions". Is he kidding? Catholicism and its offspring of non-Catholic Christianity is not a superstitious religion? Superstitious comes from the word superstition, which is defined as a belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance. (American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition). First, according to Catechism of the Catholic Church about Holy Scripture "107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." " Therefore, if they accept that scripture is without error this means they believe that the earth was created in six literal days; women come from a man's rib; a snake convinced two people to doom humanity, or that a donkey, and a burning bush spoke human language; the entire world was flooded, covering the mountains to drown evil (this included little babies and children, innocent animals that did not get on the because only 2 were allowed); all animals, insects, and reptile species, millions of them, rode on one boat ; language variations stem from the tower of Babel; Moses had a stick that could part a sea or turn into a snake; the Nile turned to blood; that bats are birds; food rained from the sky in the middle of a desert; people were cured by the sight of a brass serpent; the sun stood still to help Joshua win a battle, and it went backward for King Hezekiah; men survived unaided in a fiery furnace; a detached hand floated in the air and wrote on a wall; men followed a star which directed them to a particular house; Mary was a virgin, she had Jesus and became a virgin again; that a cracker and wine turns into the actual body and blood of Jesus; Jesus walked on water unaided; fish and bread magically multiplied to feed the hungry; water instantly turned into wine; mental illness is caused by demons; that their founder, Jesus, died and rose three days later; that dragons, unicorns exist; people were healed by stepping into a pool agitated by angels; a disembodied voice spoke from the sky; Jesus vanished and later materialized from thin air; people were healed by Peter's shadow; angels broke people out of jail; a fiery lake of eternal torment awaits unbelievers under the earth ... while there is life-after-death in a city which is 1,500 miles cubed that will descend to earth and fit in the country of Israel, with mansions and food, for Christians only. If this isn't superstitious what is? This is as we say "the pot calling the kettle black", in other words, it is a superstitious belief system calling another superstitious belief system "superstitious", while thinking it's beliefs are not superstitious, this is bullsh!t. What hypocrisy and arrogance! If any of what I just wrote is based on logic and reason, help me find it. Think about it....

Black Socrates

Faith is not Truth

I think to understand something you need to define it. I think Faith is not truth. Faith means to persuade, it is defined as belief; the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his authority and veracity; reliance on testimony. Truth comes from the word true which means firmness, moreover, according to Word History: "The words true and tree are joined at the root, etymologically speaking. In Old English, the words looked and sounded much more alike than they do now: "tree" was treow and "true" was treowe. The first of these comes from the Germanic noun *trewam; the second, from the adjective *treuwaz. Both these Germanic words ultimately go back to an Indo-European root *deru- or *dreu-, appearing in derivatives referring to wood and, by extension, firmness. Truth may be thought of as something firm; so too can certain bonds between people, like trust, another derivative of the same root." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from Dictionary dot com website. True is define as conformable to fact; in accordance with the actual state of things; correct; not false, erroneous, inaccurate, or the like; as, a true relation or narration; a true history; a declaration is true when it states the facts. Faith is a declaration that has not yet been proven. When something has been proven it is no longer faith, it becomes a fact or something true. This is why Mark Twain once stated or wrote " Faith is believing what you know ain't so", because it has not been proven true, it could be a prerequisite to truth but it could also be a prerequisite to something false. However, faith is useless if it cannot be testable, that is, I have a hypothesis, I believe or have faith that it is true, when I think of a test for my hypothesis then it moves from faith to something that is true or false. Once proven true others should be able to follow my methods and receive the same results. Faith is not truth and it is useless until it can be proven. I know some would say, that you cannot prove your going to be paid on payday, this is a true statement, they would say I have faith, I would however disagree, because I have a way of proving that I will be paid, if I have access to the accounts balances from which payment is made, I can reach a conclusion. Also, I have pass experiences of being paid and this is another form of evidence. Now compare this to faith on the religious view point, I have been told by others that Jesus is coming, they say if you believe on the Lord Jesus you will be saved, can these statements be proven? What evidence both past and present do they present? Therefore, until they provide a way to test or prove their claim, their claims are useless. Think about it...

Black Socrates

Why Pray?

Why do theist, especially the theist of Abrahamic based religions, which are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, pray? According to the American Heritage Dictionary, God is a being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions. My argument and conclusions are:

Premise: Most theist conceive of their god as omniscient.
Premise: Omniscient is defined as having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things.
Inference: God already knows what a theist need, because he perceives all things.
Conclusion: Therefore, there is no need to pray to god for a need, because he knows your need because he perceives all things.

Premise: Believers pray for healing, guidance, and other needs.
Premise: God is omniscient
Inference: God does not hear prayer because he already knows
Conclusion: Therefore, god does not answer prayer.

As a result, when I see believers leaning their heads on the temple walls in Jerusalem, praying prostrated to the east, or standing up with their heads bowed and eyes close, I laugh. I have never heard a Christian (this is the religion of my upbringing) pray, "God I thank you for everything you are doing or about to do, because you already know, amen". I am 40 years old, and I have never, heard an old deacon or a minister or anyone who's leading a group prayer get up and say a prayer like this in my life. Unless, deep down inside they don't believe in an omniscient god, and I think this is really the case, because if you believe in an omniscient god, why pray? Therefore, when I see a believer praying, I must conclude their god is not omniscient. Think about it...

The Elijah Challenge

Yesterday, on my drive home I thought about god and if there is such a being as we humans define him or her, i.e. omnipotent, omniscience, and omnipresent. This led me to ask; why does this being with these attributes seems so inept and impotent: I would ask a terrorist, why do you have to act on behalf of your god, why doesn't this being do something himself or herself without the aid of the terrorist, why does a christian need to witness or proselytize on behalf of their god to an unbeliever, the best way to convince a skeptic is by evidence, why doesn't this supernatural being or supreme being do anything to authenticate his or her existence? How is it, that we humans have to act on our god(s) behalf, for example, Joyce Meyers and Creflo Dollar and others Christians have missions to feed, clothe, and built shelters in so-called developing countries, why doesn't their god do it himself to prove to these people that he exist, then his believers can start from that point. Why are there apologist like William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, Frank Turok, Norman Geissler, and Lee Strobel? Isn't this proof that their god does not exist, that he cannot prove himself directly, how is it, he always needs a middle man? The Christian will say, god gave us dominion over the earth and he watches over his word, so that it will not come back to him void, in other words, for him to go back on his declaration of giving humanity dominion is something he will not do, and therefore he does not interfere in human affairs, if the so-called death and resurrection of his son Jesus is not the biggest interference in humanity then what is? In other words, We are told that god does not interfere in human affairs but he did in Jesus, isn't this a contradiction. I think religious skeptics should have what I coin, the "Elijah challenge", if the believer's god(s) exist, the believer should be able call down fire from heaven. In 1st Kings 18 Elijah challenged the priest of Baal to prove whose god was the true god. Why don't skeptics challenge the next apologist to a fire calling contest with the believer having to prove their god(s) existence (the unbeliever does not have the burden of proof), this would end the debate. Think about it...

Reason Driven Life

A couple of months ago I was listening to a pod cast called The Reason Driven Life (this podcast no is longer podcasting) and it was a podcast based on the book by Robert M. Rice, PhD. It is a contra-book to the Rick Warren's mega-selling book called the Purpose Driven Life. I have not read neither the Purpose Driven Life nor Reason Driven Life but from what I heard that day, it confirmed something that I have been thinking for a long time. I am lucky that I was born (period). The odds of us even being conceived is astronomical, if you think about if one event in earth history prior to your conception had been different, you would not exist. Life is the cosmic lottery, we happen to be on a planet that is life supporting, evolved from a species that can type on a computer, that another of my species created. I am able to think about the past, plan for the future, and live in the present. Personally, I am lucky to be in the wealthiest country in the world, even though some of my ancestors came on slave ships, if one of them had made the decision to jump overboard, I would not be typing this sentence. I don't think there is a higher purpose, this is enough, just to be born and experience life; is good enough. Our evolution could have took another route, for example, I could be a starving child in a developing country or even here in the U.S., I could have been born with mental retardation or a rare incurable disease. I am writing these things or thinking about these things NOT to make me feel good at the expense of others, if anything it should make me strive to fight for scientific research and development that may one day find a cure, fight for prenatal care that could prevent some diseases, and strive to find solutions to end world hunger and disease, that is, to seek world peace. The chimpanzee or bonobo chimps could have been the ones who evolved the large brains and we could be the ones living in the trees in a jungle in Africa, Asia, or South America, all of these are possibilities in the realm of the potentiality inherent in matter-energy. As one of the guys said, this is heaven and looking forward to another life and missing this one is hell and is unreasonable. We should love our children, our spouses and everyone we meet. I am pro-life, in the sense of thinking about the possibilities of not being born, but what about a stillborn child, or one who is born but is swept away in a tsunami or another natural phenomenon. Life is a precious gift, I feel bad when I kill a spider or run over an ant hill with my lawn mower, however it seems that these events were determined to a certain extent, they could not have happen any other way, because if they could have then why these series of events come to this outcome, I guess it could have in the realm of potentiality but it didn't. All I can say is Wow! When I think about another life after this one and in the Christianity's afterlife, this one is going be eternal, to live forever, singing to and worshiping God, it would seem that after singing the same songs for a million years and saying the same praises another million years, I would have rather not existed any more, it would seem to be a bore after awhile to sing the same old songs and say the same old praises, no wonder Satan rebelled, he probably got tired of the bullsh!t, but I don't believe in the Judeo-Christian mythology as true factual, historical events, and if we would look at them as the myths they are, then the world would become a more rational place. Think about it, I and ever sentient being that exist, had an astronomical chance of not existing at all...I am not writing this to say this is proof of a higher power or purpose, but I am thinking that life is too precious to waste worrying about an afterlife that could or could not exist. In other words, I am going to play the hand I have than to worry about one I don't...Think about it....