For reasons I can't even fully define, I've been looking forward to today. I don't think I've ever been so eager for nothing to happen.
It's not like today is going to be a particularly important one. It's not going to make the history books. Most people will go about their business today and not even think about the Rapture; of those that do, most people will do little more than chuckle to themselves, shake their heads at what some people believe, and go on with their lives. Even most Christians think that ol' Harold is a nutcase, so it's not like today is going to have a good chance of mass deconversion.
But what -is- going to happen? That's what keeps me so interested. My curiosity has ever been my bane, and I'm going to be watching the news like a hawk today and for the next few days to see what happens. Will Harold release a statement? Will he backpedal? Will he set a new date? What about his followers? There's that couple with a small child and another on the way who quit their jobs and calculated their finances to dry up today, just in time to be raptured. What's going to happen to them? I feel bad for those kids, and I hope they won't be too proud to accept the charity that will likely start floating their way, if only for the children's sake. Will they, at least, reconsider their beliefs? How about the elderly gentleman in New York who liquidated his life savings to buy rapture billboards?
It's going to get interesting. I can't wait to see what happens after nothing happens.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Friday, 20 May 2011
A Thought Occurs.
When the anti-evolution crowd make their 'arguments' for intelligent design, a common one is that you wouldn't expect a computer to assemble itself if the parts were jumbling around in the back of a truck, or an airplane to be assembled by a tornado hitting a junkyard, or a watch to piece itself together.
Beyond the obvious failing with this line of thought - that the mechanical is far, far different from the organic - there's another basic fallacy that has just occurred to me. It's possible I'm the last person on Earth to realize it, but it makes a certain amount of sense.
It's a disconnect in modes of thinking at a very basic level: These people see humanity as the perfect form. The ultimate, if you will, because they believe we were made in the image of their God. Understanding this, the analogy becomes a bit more understandable. A computer, or a watch, or a plane, has a specific form that we're creating when we put the bits together. Similarly, ID proponents believe that humankind has a specific form, one that is the goal of all those bits being put together.
A thought for those ID'ers reading this: Please understand that we do not believe that human beings are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process. It's a process that is ongoing, and had our evolution taken us down a slightly different path - if, for example, we'd wound up with six fingers as the norm instead of five - that this wouldn't have much affected how we view the world. Even if we were drastically different from what we are now, we would have gotten to that state via the mutations selected for by chance and our environments; we'd still consider ourselves human.
In that, your analogy falls apart. There is no end-state that can be achieved; there is no watch we're trying to assemble. We are what we are. If we were something else, we'd be that.
EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that intelligent design and an anti-evolution stance do not necessarily go hand in hand. True enough. I suppose this post, then, is primarily aimed at those who are both.
Another point of curiosity for me; are there any secularists who would argue against evolution? Why? What are the arguments? Makes me curious.
Beyond the obvious failing with this line of thought - that the mechanical is far, far different from the organic - there's another basic fallacy that has just occurred to me. It's possible I'm the last person on Earth to realize it, but it makes a certain amount of sense.
It's a disconnect in modes of thinking at a very basic level: These people see humanity as the perfect form. The ultimate, if you will, because they believe we were made in the image of their God. Understanding this, the analogy becomes a bit more understandable. A computer, or a watch, or a plane, has a specific form that we're creating when we put the bits together. Similarly, ID proponents believe that humankind has a specific form, one that is the goal of all those bits being put together.
A thought for those ID'ers reading this: Please understand that we do not believe that human beings are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process. It's a process that is ongoing, and had our evolution taken us down a slightly different path - if, for example, we'd wound up with six fingers as the norm instead of five - that this wouldn't have much affected how we view the world. Even if we were drastically different from what we are now, we would have gotten to that state via the mutations selected for by chance and our environments; we'd still consider ourselves human.
In that, your analogy falls apart. There is no end-state that can be achieved; there is no watch we're trying to assemble. We are what we are. If we were something else, we'd be that.
EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that intelligent design and an anti-evolution stance do not necessarily go hand in hand. True enough. I suppose this post, then, is primarily aimed at those who are both.
Another point of curiosity for me; are there any secularists who would argue against evolution? Why? What are the arguments? Makes me curious.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
What if God did exist?
I never used to like Twitter, but the people I follow on there sometimes come up with some neat stuff that makes me think, in many different ways. In this particular case, I was goofing around with the #IfGodWasReal hashtag, and headlessBortok expressed some incredulity at my line of reasoning. As an aside, I'm fine with that; Bortok's a reasonable, inoffensive guy. But the brief conversation we had made my mind swing onto a path it had been skirting in the few hours since I tweeted that tweet. The question, quite obviously, is largely meaningless to theists, but I pose it to other atheists:
What if God actually did exist? How would the world be different? The potential for answers to this question, at least as far as my speculation goes, is enormous. You can range from enormous implications (We'd all be of one religion, because there'd be actual evidence) to tiny ones (Churches would have better attendance). Or anywhere in between. Or bigger. Or smaller.
The potential here is quite literally unlimited, at least to me. Once you allow an omnipotent being into the picture, violating natural law as he pleases, what isn't possible? He could intervene at any point in time, and do or change anything. The would might be exactly as it is now - which is what theists will, quite naturally, argue - or it could be absolutely anything else.
It's a neat thought exercise. Does anyone have any ideas? How would the world be different if God existed? Let's also assume that he's far more willing to reveal himself than current theists believe him to be. He intervenes; how often? To what degree? What does he change? How does it change our lives?
What if God actually did exist? How would the world be different? The potential for answers to this question, at least as far as my speculation goes, is enormous. You can range from enormous implications (We'd all be of one religion, because there'd be actual evidence) to tiny ones (Churches would have better attendance). Or anywhere in between. Or bigger. Or smaller.
The potential here is quite literally unlimited, at least to me. Once you allow an omnipotent being into the picture, violating natural law as he pleases, what isn't possible? He could intervene at any point in time, and do or change anything. The would might be exactly as it is now - which is what theists will, quite naturally, argue - or it could be absolutely anything else.
It's a neat thought exercise. Does anyone have any ideas? How would the world be different if God existed? Let's also assume that he's far more willing to reveal himself than current theists believe him to be. He intervenes; how often? To what degree? What does he change? How does it change our lives?
Thursday, 12 May 2011
Why are we here?
I don't think I mean that in the way you might think I do.
I really like that last sentence, just for the sheer 'huh?' factor.
Anyway, this is a question that occurred to me last night, and it's directed primarily at those that believe in both a Creator and some sort of afterlife, with a specific focus on a paradisaical afterlife. The question, more specifically, is:
Why has your Creator deity put us, human beings, on Earth, rather than simply having us be born in [Heaven]? Why have a life, followed by an afterlife, instead of just having the after- and skipping the before-?
Removing all the religious aspects, the answer from an atheistic perspective is very simple; we live on Earth because Earth formed in an appropriate area around an appropriate star out of appropriate ratios of elements that then came together to form self-replicating molecular structures which then, over time, became more and more complex, eventually resulting in us. We're not in Heaven because there is no Heaven; this is all we get. It doesn't sound all that simple, but in essence all it means is that we're here because 'here' is capable of supporting us.
This question, for me, is kind of half-and-half. On the one hand, I see it as the kind of question that many atheists throw at the religious, trying to convince them of the errors in their logic (this isn't typically a tactic of mine, but I see it used all the time). On the other hand, part of me is genuinely curious. Why muck about being mortal when we could just come into being in spirit forms in Heaven? What's the reasoning there, for whatever religion you happen to subscribe to?
I really like that last sentence, just for the sheer 'huh?' factor.
Anyway, this is a question that occurred to me last night, and it's directed primarily at those that believe in both a Creator and some sort of afterlife, with a specific focus on a paradisaical afterlife. The question, more specifically, is:
Why has your Creator deity put us, human beings, on Earth, rather than simply having us be born in [Heaven]? Why have a life, followed by an afterlife, instead of just having the after- and skipping the before-?
Removing all the religious aspects, the answer from an atheistic perspective is very simple; we live on Earth because Earth formed in an appropriate area around an appropriate star out of appropriate ratios of elements that then came together to form self-replicating molecular structures which then, over time, became more and more complex, eventually resulting in us. We're not in Heaven because there is no Heaven; this is all we get. It doesn't sound all that simple, but in essence all it means is that we're here because 'here' is capable of supporting us.
This question, for me, is kind of half-and-half. On the one hand, I see it as the kind of question that many atheists throw at the religious, trying to convince them of the errors in their logic (this isn't typically a tactic of mine, but I see it used all the time). On the other hand, part of me is genuinely curious. Why muck about being mortal when we could just come into being in spirit forms in Heaven? What's the reasoning there, for whatever religion you happen to subscribe to?
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Friday, 6 May 2011
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