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