tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6165167874507687452024-03-08T04:45:06.805-08:00My Sceptical MindAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15498383958734160205noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-616516787450768745.post-67063947832421075322013-01-19T19:50:00.001-08:002013-01-19T19:51:55.332-08:00Board that boat.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When did we get so bored? When did the wondrous thing which is
the world around us become so banal, so dull, that we felt a need to fill our
time with obsessions over celebrity, sports players, fashion, politicians and gossip?
I realize that to a good portion of those who will read this, I am ‘preaching
to the converted’, so to speak, but I think that we are part of a startling
minority, and I hold hope that at least one of the unconverted will read this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have all heard of Kim Kardashian, a woman whose fame
baffles me, since from what I can gather she is famous for being a whore and little else; but whom among you have heard of Louis Pasteur, who furthered
the germ theory of disease and created the first vaccines, or Norman Borlaug, who
developed GM crops which were able to grow in environments in which such crops
would usually succumb to the elements? The number of lives saved as a result of
the combined work of these two brilliant men is said to be counted above <i>one billion</i> people. Explain to me how Paris
Hilton or Channing Tatum are names which everyone has heard, but the above gentlemen, and hundreds of other people who
have actually contributed to society, done important work in pushing us forward
as a species, are never heard of? Why is the science section of the news always
in the footnotes, placed quietly (if at all) after the latest news about a
footballer who got drunk? As I started the post, WHEN DID WE GET SO BORED?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, what I would give to live back to the 60’s for a few moments, and be one of
those people glued to their TV sets watching images of one of our own (for at
the moment of that achievement, it was not simply an American, but a human, an Earthling) stepping foot onto the moon. That was a time during which a nation was
propped up on the shoulders of its scientists; people were fascinated. Enrollments into physics, chemistry, and engineering degrees at colleges and universities rocketed, and a period which resulted in much of the technology which we take for
granted today. But times have changed. Despite that time still existing within
living memories, it would seem to anyone focused on pop culture today,
that it was ancient history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Watch the flight of a bird, and be amazed at its ease, consider the workings of the car you’re driving, read about how the waves are
coming out and in. Give some thought to why the sky appears blue, how a baby
knows not to inhale if placed underwater, or why the moon does not succumb to
gravity and fall back in and annihilate us. Get a little crazy and read some
quantum physics, a field which, after reading, has had me look in wonder at the
fact that I can pick up an object without it falling though my hand (for, you
will discover, everything is made of significantly more empty space than it is
actual matter). Every single facet of the world is fascinating, if you look hard enough. The very fact that you are alive and reading this, is
the result of a startling amount of chance, on a scale which the mere human mind
will struggle to comprehend; for we can, with enough work, trace our roots to
the stars which fill the night sky. Yes, you are stardust. You are the universe,
trying to understand itself. I won’t elaborate on that. You can go and read about
it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I apologize about the rather ranting nature of this post,
but I am constantly bewildered at the nonchalant way that people conduct their
lives. Within us all, to some extent, is that primitive human, thousands of
years ago, no longer satisfied with that which he already knows, looking out
across the shore, rickety wooden boat at the ready. This is, I must admit, a
rather corny metaphor, but I like it. We need to get back to our roots. Climb
into the boat. Learn something new. Had that hairy humanoid not been willing to
get into his boat, where would we be now? I urge you to expand your horizons. Make it a resolution that you can claim at the end of every week that you have learned something new, regardless of how small it may have been. You will find yourself with a level of fulfillment at better knowing the world around you. And it is a good feeling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll end this post with a Youtube clip containing the wise words
of a man who often inspires me, Mr Neil deGrasse Tyson, an American Astrophysicist,
speaking on what he considers to be the most astonishing fact which he knows. This
is a clip which inspires me everytime, without fail:</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15498383958734160205noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-616516787450768745.post-43005532864073925572012-12-28T23:42:00.000-08:002012-12-29T03:43:16.555-08:00Monsters in the shadows<br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m currently enjoying a two week break from work, and,
accordingly finally getting a fair bit of reading done (I have an addiction to
books, and have a bad habit of buying them on a whim, despite a growing list
of books in my book case which I have yet to read). At the moment I’m ticking ‘The
God Delusion’ by the one and only Richard Dawkins off my ‘To read’ list, and am
rather enjoying it. I love the way that this man writes; often while reading I
find myself replicating the self-assured, well-crafted accent with which he speaks.
I happened upon a point in the book which I wanted to elaborate upon, that
being the mind’s inherent ability to project consciousness onto that which we don't understand, and the implications which that has.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’ve all experienced it. Lying in bed as a child, looking
at the shadows which a tree blowing in the wind is casting upon the wall, and
seeing a menacing monster within it, or even as adults, having watched a scary
movie, and then being terrified by creaks in the floorboards throughout the
night. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As said in a letter written by J. Anderson Thomson, an evolutionary
psychologist working at the University of Virginia and far better equipped to
word it than I:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <i>We are more inclined to mistake a shadow for a burglar, than a burglar for a shadow. A false positive might be a waste of time, while a false negative could be fatal. In our ancestral past the greatest challenge in our environment came from each other. The legacy of that is the default assumption; often fear, of human intention. We have a great deal of difficulty seeing anything other than an orchestrated, intentional, causation, and when that cannot be brought down to a human action, it has generally been moved into the basket of ‘divine intervention’.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is this rather deeply ingrained sense of fear, and a need to
project some entity upon it, the cause of, if not, a prime contributor for, the
origin of religion? I won’t continue quoting intellectuals in this post; rather
put forward my thoughts on the matter. I am convinced that the origin
of religious belief is fear, in the way stated by Anderson Thomson. It is easy
to imagine it; Homo sapiens, a recently evolved species, carrying a far
superior brain to anything which natural selection has yet to produce, and with
that brain, a need to <i>understand</i>. And
so this poor fellow sees people around him dying of unknown causes, feels the
ground quake beneath him, or flashes of lightning from the sky, and he fears it,
because he cannot understand or explain it. Neither, can he understand or
fathom what happens to those who die, and so, as does a child, he projects an
entity onto these things which he fears, as an explanation for something where
there is none.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, science has filled the gaps on what the flash
from the sky is, why the ground shakes, and what causes us to die. These are no
longer unknown, unfathomable actions, and we have no need to think up some man
in the sky to explain them. This desire
to fill the unknowable with <i>something</i>
is understandable, and explains the multitudes of religions which humans have come
up with throughout our history. It is, to me at least, a shame that a handful
of these religions still exist, when science has brought us so far, and has
filled so many gaps. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To speak my mind: It is an ignorant person who
thinks that there is a ‘god’ who created everything as we see it today, and who
orchestrates our day to day lives, just as it is ignorant to say that it is
Thor who throws down lightning. As things progress, the evidence sits, I feel,
overwhelming against there being a supernatural hand in things, and this seems all but obvious to me, if only people
were more interested in seeking the truth on the subject. We must move beyond this
irrational fear and tendency to assume a supernatural cause, just as a child
grows out of seeing monsters in the shadows. Religion has served its purpose as
a gap filler when, in the infancy of our species we did not understand things,
and should exist only in the annals of history, if we are to properly move on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the record, I take the rather sober stance that there is
no ‘meaning’ of life, so to speak. I was born, thanks to a brilliant, though
somewhat imperfectly evolved reproductive system. I have grown up, and continue
to learn and understand the world around me. I will do my best to make a name
for myself, and do something for which I can be remembered, will hopefully
father some children, but then, I will die. My body will decompose, and the elements
which were once me, will go on to become other things, and I will have no
consciousness of this. And I do not fear it. This is a stance which, I think, makes
a person appreciate the life which they have all the more. It is a beautiful
cycle (in the scheme of things, I am made of star dust), and one which doesn’t
require any prime mover to keep things going. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me know your thoughts. Do you think that religion has
passed its use by date in the same way that I do? Or do you think it is useful? Or do you think that I should turn from my blaspheming ways, and accept the one
true god? Finally, a question to which there are always some interesting
answers; do you fear death, and what do you think will happen when you die?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have a safe and happy new year, and let it be an abundant
and successful one for you all.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15498383958734160205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-616516787450768745.post-20413057992033355532012-12-22T05:12:00.001-08:002012-12-22T21:45:08.608-08:00I think I might need some help on this one.....<br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I am an atheist. </b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fitting words to start
the blog I think. I was going to have my first post be a rather lengthy
introduction to how I came to be where I am now, but decided against it. I will
instead summarise. I was brought up in a very actively Pentecostal Christian
family. By the age of 16, I was attending church several days a week, and was
one of a few worship leaders for the band, singing and playing guitar regularly
at either the weekly Friday night youth meeting, or for the Church services each Sunday. The church was,
for the most part, my life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the age of 17, for a list of reasons to which an
entire post need be dedicated, things began to slip with my faith. This
prompted me to look at things a little more objectively and consider the
other side of the argument. Through careful thought and consideration,
based on the evidence provided, I have come to the personal conclusion that
there is no 'god'. And while a lot of intelligent people would scoff at that
stance, with the obvious point that 'god' is, largely, neither provable nor
disprovable, I feel that agnosticism is, well, to quote the book Life of Pi, as
stated by the religious character Piscine:</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">"To choose doubt as a
philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of
transportation."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Doubt should exist. It
is required. But doubt should be momentary, only there until a decision is made
in its place.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not all of my posts will
regard religion, I promise you, but today it could not be helped, thanks to a
little near-altercation which happened. Me and my beautiful partner, Fiona (Fi
for short), have spent this weekend in a lovely hotel in the Sydney CBD for
some much needed time away. On our stroll back from lunch we happened upon a
street preacher standing on a corner of George St, who was set up with a rather
loud amp and microphone. At the time that we came into hearing range of him, he
was shouting on about how Christ is the solution to your sicknesses, sadness',
and addictions. Now, before I continue the story, I have to concede that I hold
a certain amount of vitriol towards religion, and the religious, which I am not
altogether proud of, but at the present time, feel I can't shake. As we got
closer to him, I started to feel something swell in the pit of my stomach. I
was in such a good mood prior, and the speed with which this hit was
ridiculous. By the time I was next to him, I was ropeable. After a call that
'we all need to accept Jesus as lord', and as the light on the crossing turned
green, I shouted, though barely loud enough to get over the sound of his amp,
that his god was an imaginary figure. Fi at this point grabbed my hand and
pulled me across the road. Halfway through crossing, I turned to walk back; intent on kicking over the guy's amp and unplugging his microphone (even now, I was inclined to write something
a little less polite than 'the guy'). Had I
progressed any further, I don't think it at all unimaginable that I would have
swung at him. Fi kept a grip on my hand, and pulled me away from it all. I had
something more than a purely emotional reaction, I had had a physiological
reaction. A shot of adrenaline had been called and pumped through my veins. My
mind felt so threatened or enraged by the whole situation, that it called on my
fight or flight response; I would not hesitate to say that it was
intent on sending me into fight. When we got into the bookstore which we were
headed for, I was shaking in rage. And here I call back on the title of this
post. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Only a moment later, I
was completely aware that the way that I reacted was entirely wrong and
idiotic; and yet, I still felt furious. I was still feeling the affects of
the adrenaline for a good 20 minutes after the event. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not the first
time that a religious situation has had this affect on me, nor do I think it
will be the last. And I cannot, for the life of me, properly explain why. I've tried
talking it through, tried pinpointing <i>what the hell it is</i> that
sets me off. But I cannot come up with an answer. I am in every other situation
a very collected guy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is some sorting out to be done in my head.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15498383958734160205noreply@blogger.com0