Thursday, January 01, 2009
New Year's Eve 31 December 2008
I've almost lived past another calendar year. Whoopee!!
I have grown in some fashions this year. I kept up pretty well on some biology blogs like http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ and the http://pandasthumb.org/ . Each of them is out loudly on the evolution side of the education debate. Along with the Catholic Professor, Ken Miller (no relation) at http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/ I completely fall on the evolution side of the debate with them against creationism /slash Intelligent Design. I am a full fledged "no religious faith" man now. I think the supernatural things of religions are simply imaginations made up for many reasons and accepted by many, many people. It's been about 18 months now since I was aware of my loss of faith. Around the end of June of 2007. That is more accurate than when I was "Born Again" in the 1974-5's or so. It doesn't mean anything, it's just something to note.
I worked today. I wear my brother-in-law, Rob's jeans now since my sister passed them on to me. I remember then each day when I get dressed. Rob and Debbie, what a great group of helpers to me. When I got home, my wife had a note on the door saying she was at a girlfriend's house for dinner and a movie. I am sure she will enjoy herself. Kevin wasn't home, but I had stopped off at the grocery store and picked up some of those Slim Jim sticks he likes and left them on the stove top. While I was down here in my room in the basement, he came in the house, called down to me to ask about them. I said they were for him. He yelled thanks and took off again to somewhere. He starts work on Monday the 5th at a book bindery place in Blue Ridge Summit, PA about 15 mile from the house, but on the way to work for me. It's a real job I think where you are expected to show up and they expect it and none of that callin' off stuff with no consequences. Maybe. Oh well I don't care. By that I mean I am confident all will be fine. He's a good kid and will get it together in good time. Well enough of that.
One of my wonderful sisters, she knows who she is, (they are all wonderful to me), sent a book to me that she recommended by George MacDonald, called the Curate of Glaston. MacDonald wrote in the late 19th Century. I have finished reading the first story in the book called, "The Curate's Awakening". He's a nice writer. It's about certain people's belief and unbelief in the Church of England of the 1800s. Now, Barb, didn't ask me to comment, but I think I have something to say about some of the quick tying together toward the end.
First, Helen kicks off one man that loves her because he denies the existence of an afterlife. She asks the question, "Where does my perceived need for a god come from, if there is no god?" MacDonald does not allow her lover to answer this question. MacDonald's implication is that there is a god and we must seek him to find him. There are many other answers to this universal question. At the end of the story, the author has her think that she is not able to live without god. An idea for which she has no evidence. She has determined to search for god until she finds him, or she will die trying. She says that even if there is not god, she would be no worse off than if she continued to be an unbeliever.
This here is a rendition of Pascal's Wager, if god exists, you have everything to gain if you believe and everything to lose if you don't believe. and if god doesn't exist, then the believer loses nothing and the unbeliever gains nothing. Therefore, there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by believing in God.
It is simply not true that the believer loses nothing. If no god then we don't give this life the effort it deserves by preferring the mythical afterlife. One then sacrifices honesty to the maintenance of a lie. And then religion requires time, energy, and money, lots of money, draining resources which could improve this world, the one and only world if no god.
Blaise Pascal was a Catholic and like MacDonald, assumed the existence of the Christian God. What if it is another religion's god that is the real one. What if the Islamic Allah and his terrible hell is the true deal? Or any of the thousands of other gods that humans worship? This Pascal's Wager is more riskier upon a second glance. The Islamic hell might be worse than the Christian hell.
I didn't become an ahhtheist because of these ideas, these are just some ideas I found out about way afterward. Perhaps I may have been persuaded by reason, we will never no because no one every tried to persuade me. I was simply immersed in religion as a child into the Catholic religion, I had no choice. That's just the way it was. I really believed two years ago that parents should get there children to believe something because if the parents didn't, someone else would and the parents should shield the children. Well that sounded all good and right, but now after much afterthought, it was like thinking, "the Kettle is out there roaming in the world and might capture my kids, I'd better introduce them to the Pot before they are trapped by the evil Kettle people. There is a better way. My beloved friends, the Pot is just another type of Kettle.
Don't get me wrong. If some way of thinking about this life gives you comfort and solace and strength and takes away your fear, I don't want to take that away from you. Daddy told me not to pull their comfort and security away from them. I was talking to him about why the people didn't do what the Bible actually said. I confronted them and they kindof poopooed me. "You're young in the faith, young man, wait till you're older then you will understand." That kind of thing. Here I am, New Year's Eve, 4.5 Heineken's in me and blogging away, sortof. Plus a shot of coconut rum. Hope I didn't offend anyone yet, I sure did not mean to if I did. I think I will play some guitar and maybe even put it up on YouTube this time. Love to all, I miss you.
I have grown in some fashions this year. I kept up pretty well on some biology blogs like http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ and the http://pandasthumb.org/ . Each of them is out loudly on the evolution side of the education debate. Along with the Catholic Professor, Ken Miller (no relation) at http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/ I completely fall on the evolution side of the debate with them against creationism /slash Intelligent Design. I am a full fledged "no religious faith" man now. I think the supernatural things of religions are simply imaginations made up for many reasons and accepted by many, many people. It's been about 18 months now since I was aware of my loss of faith. Around the end of June of 2007. That is more accurate than when I was "Born Again" in the 1974-5's or so. It doesn't mean anything, it's just something to note.
I worked today. I wear my brother-in-law, Rob's jeans now since my sister passed them on to me. I remember then each day when I get dressed. Rob and Debbie, what a great group of helpers to me. When I got home, my wife had a note on the door saying she was at a girlfriend's house for dinner and a movie. I am sure she will enjoy herself. Kevin wasn't home, but I had stopped off at the grocery store and picked up some of those Slim Jim sticks he likes and left them on the stove top. While I was down here in my room in the basement, he came in the house, called down to me to ask about them. I said they were for him. He yelled thanks and took off again to somewhere. He starts work on Monday the 5th at a book bindery place in Blue Ridge Summit, PA about 15 mile from the house, but on the way to work for me. It's a real job I think where you are expected to show up and they expect it and none of that callin' off stuff with no consequences. Maybe. Oh well I don't care. By that I mean I am confident all will be fine. He's a good kid and will get it together in good time. Well enough of that.
One of my wonderful sisters, she knows who she is, (they are all wonderful to me), sent a book to me that she recommended by George MacDonald, called the Curate of Glaston. MacDonald wrote in the late 19th Century. I have finished reading the first story in the book called, "The Curate's Awakening". He's a nice writer. It's about certain people's belief and unbelief in the Church of England of the 1800s. Now, Barb, didn't ask me to comment, but I think I have something to say about some of the quick tying together toward the end.
First, Helen kicks off one man that loves her because he denies the existence of an afterlife. She asks the question, "Where does my perceived need for a god come from, if there is no god?" MacDonald does not allow her lover to answer this question. MacDonald's implication is that there is a god and we must seek him to find him. There are many other answers to this universal question. At the end of the story, the author has her think that she is not able to live without god. An idea for which she has no evidence. She has determined to search for god until she finds him, or she will die trying. She says that even if there is not god, she would be no worse off than if she continued to be an unbeliever.
This here is a rendition of Pascal's Wager, if god exists, you have everything to gain if you believe and everything to lose if you don't believe. and if god doesn't exist, then the believer loses nothing and the unbeliever gains nothing. Therefore, there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by believing in God.
It is simply not true that the believer loses nothing. If no god then we don't give this life the effort it deserves by preferring the mythical afterlife. One then sacrifices honesty to the maintenance of a lie. And then religion requires time, energy, and money, lots of money, draining resources which could improve this world, the one and only world if no god.
Blaise Pascal was a Catholic and like MacDonald, assumed the existence of the Christian God. What if it is another religion's god that is the real one. What if the Islamic Allah and his terrible hell is the true deal? Or any of the thousands of other gods that humans worship? This Pascal's Wager is more riskier upon a second glance. The Islamic hell might be worse than the Christian hell.
I didn't become an ahhtheist because of these ideas, these are just some ideas I found out about way afterward. Perhaps I may have been persuaded by reason, we will never no because no one every tried to persuade me. I was simply immersed in religion as a child into the Catholic religion, I had no choice. That's just the way it was. I really believed two years ago that parents should get there children to believe something because if the parents didn't, someone else would and the parents should shield the children. Well that sounded all good and right, but now after much afterthought, it was like thinking, "the Kettle is out there roaming in the world and might capture my kids, I'd better introduce them to the Pot before they are trapped by the evil Kettle people. There is a better way. My beloved friends, the Pot is just another type of Kettle.
Don't get me wrong. If some way of thinking about this life gives you comfort and solace and strength and takes away your fear, I don't want to take that away from you. Daddy told me not to pull their comfort and security away from them. I was talking to him about why the people didn't do what the Bible actually said. I confronted them and they kindof poopooed me. "You're young in the faith, young man, wait till you're older then you will understand." That kind of thing. Here I am, New Year's Eve, 4.5 Heineken's in me and blogging away, sortof. Plus a shot of coconut rum. Hope I didn't offend anyone yet, I sure did not mean to if I did. I think I will play some guitar and maybe even put it up on YouTube this time. Love to all, I miss you.
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