The Goal of Existance

Is knowledge, science, understanding what we are, where we are and what has and will be.

Self knowledge is part of this, but mysticism as comfortable and fun as it may be has no part. What does it create do or contribute? What is the point of a heaven if all you do is stand around all day and worship. That'd get bloody boring rather quickly I'd hope, both for the one being worshiped and those doing so. And who cares if you might be reincarnated as a bacteria it's hardly useful to worry about that, your not going to remember.

Instead why not seek out real knowledge, how to help others or ones self. Seek to extend your days and minimise your impact while expanding or helping to expand our knowledge.

As in the end, all that may well remain of us is our contribution to knowledge, which should it reach the necessary levels, may end up sustaining us and allow us to remain as we seek to expand it and seek out new wonders.

After all the universe doesn't care about you and chance ain't going to hand you a free survival card just because you believe it should. Learn and grow, expand your capabilities and knowledge and you might just manage to stay ahead of the reaper.

But don't forget to bring the other living things with you, or you'll end up cutting your own throat with out even noticing.

Science

Science is a sublimely human activity and a central part of the best of Western culture…and of every culture on earth that aspires to be something more than a collection of dirt-grubbing subsistence breeders, propagating for the sake of propagating. It's what gives us the potential to reach beyond making do, that gives us the leisure and freedom to flower in the arts and explore the diversity of human experience. Even institutionalized religion itself is an incidental byproduct of the first clever dicks who thought to reroute the flow of a river to irrigate fields and led to centralization, urbanization, hierarchies of leadership, accounting, writing, and the whole avalanche of change that followed. It's important.

Unscientific America and those awful atheists - Pharyngula

Excellent statement, it's well worth reading that article!

Quote: You do not exist!

A Quote from the God Delusion

Steve Grand points out that you and
I are more like waves than permanent 'things'. He invites his reader
to think . . .

. . . of an experience from your childhood. Something you
remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even
smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were
there at the time, weren't you? How else would you
remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there.
Not a single atom that is in your body today was there
when that event took place . . . Matter flows from place
to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of
which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand
up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does,
because it is important.

I've read some SF where stuff like this has been mentioned a little in passing but never as clearly put! A really fun idea to consider that to a certain degree is correct. While some parts of the body are still there many are no longer and have been swapped out to the environment. This means that to a certain degree your simply a traveling informational lifeform that has conveniently managed to piggy back it's self on to a clump of matter that it then rearranges according to a set of rules. :-) Like software in a certain manner you do not physically exist!

Snow Crash

If you've not read it you should, It's a cyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It plays around with a lot of interesting ideas related to linguistics, informational and biological viruses, Sumerian mythology, the rise of civilization and Christianity or Religion. While it's a work of fiction the ideas utilised and the real world implications of some of the ideas are a fascinating alternate view of Civilisation and Religion.

Any way Snow Crash is well worth reading and I'd highly recommend it to those who find such ideas interesting!

God Delusion Again

Yes yes, of course the troubles in Northern Ireland are political. There really has been economic and political oppression of one group by another, and it goes back centuries. There really are genuine grievances and injustices, and these seem to have little to do with religion; except that - and this is important and widely overlooked - without religion there would be no labels by which to decide whom to oppress and whom to avenge.

Does any one else think this is a load of bollocks? They simply would have come up with a new label of some form or another.

Any way apart from that I thought the sections on memes, the origins of religion, religion as a by product and cargo cults to be interesting and well written. Possibly because these sections had more of an academic or scientific focus rather than being directly part of the authors argument against religion, and as a result somewhat more factual rather than heavily opinionated unlike many of his other sections.

The God Delusion Ch 2-4

A few more thoughts from my sporadic (in time rather than order) read through the book. This time it's less of a comment and more a few pet hates.


Darwinian Consciousness Rising

The first one I can't stand is Dawkins use of the idea/term "Darwinian Consciousness rising" and it's variants. Where, he appears to assume a correct understanding and agreement with Darwinian evolution some how gives you this amazing new "Super" mindset (or at least that's the way it appears based on how he uses it in his book). It's almost as if understanding Darwinian evolution is enough to somehow raise your level of consciousness to a step above the majority of humanity (and especially religious people...). A view I highly disagree with. An understanding of evolution may help make considering some ideas easier, as it provides you with a language and framework within which to work, however it does not raise or place you in some elevated mindset. I personally suspect that he's taken a certain type of mindset that handles such scientific and abstract ideas well, and is able to link them to physical reality then, at least in my reading of his use of the term, seemed to suggest that one of the ideas that such a mindset might produce, evolution, is responsible for creating the mindset.


Simplicity

Another thing that annoys me is his discussion of simplicity and why it makes the concept of God impossibly improbable. He decides to contrast this to multiuniverse/metauniverse (or my preference to hijack cosmos, and push it's definition out to include every thing that can or might exist) theory (both parallel and serial theories). The multiverse theory he then declares to be simple, because theoretically if it does exist it could theoretically be derived from a "few" "simple" laws and a form of cosmic evolution. God he then declares is obviously, and could only be, irreversibly complex (thus theoretically failing some cosmic form of KISS/Occam's Razor). Seeing as he's already explained previously in the book, complex things don't just come into existence, and evolution is the only currently known way to for a simple system to increase in complexity (non-chaotic complexity obviously). So while he's quite happy to take a theory that explains an increase in complexity in a biological system, and possibly a means of converting nonliving inorganic to living organics and apply it to the development of a "simple" multiverse/metaverse, he is not even at all willing to trying think of anything outside the box for how a "God" like being might come into existence. Instead he's quite happy to stay inside the box described God by traditional religious views...

(What if "God" is an evolved pan/metaverse Intelligence? An intelligence with an interest in other intelligences, sure it leaves a problem with communication and a few other things but hey least we're now also thinking out side the box...)

Underlying fear?

One vibe I'm starting to pick up more and more through out the book seems to be that part of his dislike for religion and a possible reason for his rather aggressive view point is that idea that Religion and Faith, kill Science and Reason. He appears to hate the viewpoint that goes "ohh I don't understand that, so obviously it's God at work, so I don't need to study that!", something I can completely understand such a view is naive, annoying and foolish, and is undoubtedly present in many Christian groups. However I fail to see how converting the world to Atheism would help with eradicating that mindset. Instead I suspect the reason given would simply change from "God at work" to "It's boring", "It's irrelevant", "Why should I care", "it's too much work" and similar. Such a mindset is not a religious mindset, it's a very common human mindset, that is present in the vast majority of the population (Try explaining just about any research that doesn't have instant gratification to most people and you'll see how quickly they lose interest (unless they're trying to be polite for some reason)).

Religion is Bad, It's just bad

Nothing specific in the book has really bought this thought to mind (except maybe a couple of bits in the first chapter, and the "feel" of some sections). But the first part of this comes to mind now and then when reading the book:

Religion is bad, because religious people do bad things in it's name.

Which brings to mind the similar:

Science is bad, because people use it to do bad things.

So there you go a few thoughts after finishing chapter 4.


Hmm 400th post, yawn :-P.

The God Delusion Chapter 1

A few thoughts after having read the first chapter of the God Delusion.

His comments on the undeserved respect the religions seem to get, I certainly agree with for the most part. I think most religions expect this when they don't really deserve it, sure they've all done some stuff that's deserving of respect and continue to do so. However nothing they may have or will do qualifies them for some sort of exalted pedestal, from which they can stand and hurl abuse down at others with out receiving it back. And nothing pardons killing or threaten others who ignore or reject elements of your religion.

The bit on theist and deist was interesting and using those definitions It would seem likely I'm somewhere between the two. ;-)

His initial comments on a world with out religion and how it would or might be lacking things such as the crusades, 9/11, Irish troubles and many other "nasty" things I highly disagree with. It's a shallow statement that completely ignores reality and provides no argument at all. Skipping a head a bit I see he mentions some more on this so hopefully he'll actually make some sort of argument or two rather listing a whole lot of nasty stuff then saying it's all religiously motivated.

Highly enjoyed the bits on Einstein and various other scientists "God" and the wonder of nature. This quoted quote especially:

Carl Sagan, in Pale Blue Dot, wrote:
How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

More foolishness in the name of Religion

Female Muslim medics 'disobey hygiene rules' - Telegraph

Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion.
Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.

Nice to know that it's apparently better to risk infecting someone with a deadly superbug than to be immodest.

With regards to incest

As people may have noticed in Andrews Theo Geek: Jesus and the apostles on homosexuality post the discussion got onto such topics as incest and it was sort of suggested that with out the bible the problems with incest would be hard to spot, thus why would rpimative non christian societies consider it wrong. Well the truth is they're not that hard to spot and enough frist cousin marriages can make such problems evident as can be seen in the following article.

BBC NEWS | UK | Birth defects warning sparks row


When such problems can be observed in marriages with first cousins then it's going to become even more blatantly obvious in marriages between direct family.

How we learned to stop having fun.

How we learned to stop having fun

Not so with the Calvinist version of Protestantism. Instead of offering relief, Calvinism provided a metaphysical framework for depression: if you felt isolated, persecuted and possibly damned, this was because you actually were.

An article looking at an apparent change in behavior ~3-400 years ago, where people moved to a much more individualistic world view. Suggesting urbanisation and a market-based economy are partially responsible for this.
Also interestingly suggests there may have been a link between a Calvinistic world view/faith and Depression/Suicide.

God Debate: Sam Harris vs. Rick Warren

God Debate: Sam Harris vs. Rick Warren

The God Debate
At the Summit: On a cloudy California day, the atheist Sam Harris sat down with the Christian pastor Rick Warren to hash out Life's Biggest Question—Is God real?

Well having read the whole thing I'm rather impressed, Rick manages to do rather well. Personally much of what he says seems a lot less confrontational than the other chap, though I certainly don't agree with some of what he says regarding his views on certain aspects of Christianity. Any way here are a couple of interesting/amusing bits from the article, and I highly recommend you have a read of it!


WARREN: I say I accept that by faith. And I think it's intellectually dishonest for you to say you have proof that it didn't happen. Here's the difference between you and me. I am open to the possibility that I am wrong in certain areas, and you are not.

HARRIS: Oh, I am absolutely open to that.

WARREN: So you are open to the possibility that you might be wrong about Jesus?

HARRIS: And Zeus. Absolutely.

WARREN: And what are you doing to study that?

HARRIS: I consider it such a low-probability event that I—

WARREN: A low probability? When there are 96 percent believers in the world? So is everybody else an idiot?

I wish he'd let the chap finish that statement, it would have been more interesting than the "idiot" charge.

Another Section:

So, parse that. God gave you an immigration attorney, but God killed a little girl.
WARREN: Well, I do believe in the goodness of God, and I do believe that he knows better than I do. God sometimes says yes, God sometimes says no and God sometimes says wait. I've had to learn the difference between no and not yet. The issue here really does come down to surrender. A lot of atheists hide behind rationalism; when you start probing, you find their reactions are quite emotional. In fact, I've never met an atheist who wasn't angry.

HARRIS: Let me be the first.

WARREN: I think your books are quite angry.

HARRIS: I would put it at impatient rather than angry...

Fundamentals of Christian Faith

What do you think the critical key points of Christian faith are?

Thinking about it I can only really think of 3 that I consider completely and utterly required for one to consider ones self Christian:

• That God exists.
• That Christ existed and was the son of God or God incarnate or something similar (what ever the correct theological term is for that).
• That he died and rose again.

I do not however consider these to be requirements for admittance to heaven (should it exist) or to be a good person and so forth.

Can any one think of any other absolutely fundamental ideas for a Christian or disagree with any of the ones posted above?

Personally I'm not so sure that the 3rd one listed above is critical.

Sketches of a Mind - Communication & A Changing God

We seem to be quite a hard species to communicate, we certainly have enough problems occur within our species due to communication failure. Following this sort of line of thought I was thinking about how God has attempted to communicate with us some many times and how so many times it has failed miserably due in most cases to humans losing interest or going off to do there own thing.

Any way here are some of what I think are different methods the bible portrays God using to communicate with us through out history, in a rough sort of chronological order.

1. God the Immortal Farther: Walking with us, teaching us, showing humans this world. Problem being first time he goes on "holiday" or something and stops paying attention for a little bit what do you know? People have started doing stuff he suggested was a bad idea forgotten the message!
2. Distant, Wrathful, Almighty God: Resetting the world (perhaps?) because only one chap will listen and things have deteriorated to a point It can't stand! Chosen people/family's tested to see if they're worthy and truly follow It. Third party non-human messengers and so forth, a God who seems at home in Myth and Legend. Seemed to work fine for small groups of people or individuals, but didn't seem to scale up.
   
3. Classical Mythical God: Chosen leaders, hero's and nations. Miracles Pillars of fire, rescuing and creating an entire nation. Establishment of structured religion, High Priests, Sacrifices. Punishing those who stuff up or turn from them, and those who oppose It's chosen people and nations. Unfortunately doesn't seem to work very well at all even while the miracles are happening people turn away or want more.
   
4. Prophetic God: Prophets and Prophetic Kings, divinely appointed leaders, direct but less flashy miracles, working through the Prophets. The established religion supports and follows the prophets. Cycles of punishment and intervention announced and guided by the Prophets. People connect with the prophets they may not like the messages but they understand them and follow them while the prophet survives. Slowly gets less and less effective though until only a few people accept and follow the prophets.
5. Distant God V1: Steps back from human affairs reduces intervention lets people cope for them selves. Suddenly some people realise that some things missing and fall back to the Established religion, placing greater and greater importance on it. Eventually though the religion becomes to established, less about God and more about the man made rules, laws, tradition and appearance.
6. Human God: The next/final step up from Prophets. Christ. God becomes human, takes human form. God living with us experiencing what we are, eating, drinking, sleeping and ageing with us. Eventually dieing for us. Humanity fully embraced, Mortality experienced the uncertainty of human existence comprehended and the uncertainty of what comes after! A tragedy of miscommunication finally understandable in human terms. Something that reaches out and touches the human "soul" in a manner that we can comprehend. This provides a personal human faith, a real flesh and blood being we empathise with, comprehend to a degree, someone we can seek to understand, to follow, to love and believe in. Promises that it isn't the end that there is hope for a future.
7. Distant Loving God V2: The message delivered in an understandable form, allow it to remain a human faith something people hold to as a matter of faith and belief. Reduces the temptation for humans to blame every thing on God and seek God to do every thing. Waiting till the promised time when humans have truly understood the message.

The Future what comes next?
The End?
Another form and stage should humans forget the current one?

What do people think?
Do you agree disagree with this sort of series of views of God?

More links, Gui's and Isaac Asimov on Religion

Don Norman's jnd.org / UI Breakthrough-Command Line Interfaces - The second coming of the CLI? well worth a read if your interested in computing.



The Reagan Doctrine by Isaac Asimov - Isaac Asimov looks at a statement by Ronald Reagan saying

"that one couldn't trust the Soviet government because the Soviets didn't believe in God or in an afterlife and therefore had no reason to behave honorably, but would be willing to lie and cheat and do all sorts of wicked things to aid their cause. "

The Myth of the Flat Earth

The Myth of the Flat Earth

The Myth of the Flat Earth

So apparently the idea that christians thought the world was flat in the middle ages, is a modern myth.

Blogs – and God’s Youth, Blogging un-Christian?

Ambassador Youth - Blogs - and God’s Youth

Amusing and some what wierd. Blogging un-Christian?

Found via The Register

Theological thoughts in Fiction.

Recently one fantasy series I've been rereading has highlighted some interesting ideas about the nature of freewill and how it affects our dealings with any superior being or beings who who are unwilling or unable to override that freewill no matter what the consequences are for the being with free will. Any way here are a couple of quotes from the books that I particularly like dealing with freewill and other stuff.


Mercy:
Whatever sins the stranger had committed, he had surely paid. Mercy, High Ones. Not justice, please, not justice. We would all be fools to pray for justice.


Heaven:
“If the gods saw people’s souls but not their bodies, in mirror to the way people saw bodies but not souls, it might explain why the gods were so careless of such things as appearance, or other bodily functions. Such as pain? Was pain an illusion, from the gods’ point of view? Perhaps heaven was not a place, but merely an angle of view, a vantage, a perspective.”

Through the eyes of a God:
“He opened outward, and outward, and outward still, till all the world lay below him as if seen from a high mountain. But not the realm of matter. This was a landscape of soul-stuff; colors he could not name, of a shattering brilliance, bore him up upon a glorious turbulence. He could hear all the minds of the world whispering, a sighing like wind in a forest—if one could but distinguish, simultaneously and separately, the song of each leaf. And all the world’s cries of pain and woe. And shame and joy. And hope and despair and aspiration... A thousand thousand moments from a thousand thousand lives poured through his distending spirit.
From the surface below him, little bubbles of soul-color were boiling up one by one and floating into a turning dance, hundreds, thousands, like great raindrops falling upward... It is the dying, pouring in through the rents of the worlds into this place. Souls gestated by matter in the world, dying into this strange new birth."


Freewill:
Umegat pulled on his queue. “Do you think your steps were fated from that far back? Disturbing. But the gods are parsimonious, and take their chances where they can find them.”
“If the gods are making this path for me, then where is my free will? No, it cannot be!”
“Ah.” Umegat brightened at this thorny theological point. “I have had another thought on such fates, that denies neither gods nor men. Perhaps, instead of controlling every step, the gods have started a hundred or a thousand Cazarils and Umegats down this road. And only those arrive who choose to.”


Annihilation and Mercy:
“I understand the poor ghosts much better now than when they first terrified me,” said Cazaril diffidently. “I thought their exile and erosion was a rejection by the gods, at first, a damnation, but now I know it for a mercy. When the souls are taken up, they remember themselves . . . the minds possess their lives all whole, all at once, as the gods do, with nearly the terrible clarity that matter remembers itself. For some . . . for some that heaven would be as unbearable as any hell, and so the gods release them to forgetfulness.”
“Forgetfulness. That smudged oblivion seems a very heaven to me now. I pray to be such a ghost, I think.”