Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Choices

There is a "scientist" who wrote a book called "The God Delusion". He is incredibly arrogant and dismissive of people who do not agree with him. I have met many people like him in the last few years. I watched a video of him talking and just had to laugh.

In the same way that the gnostic beliefs have just been repackaged, the slavery of atheism has not changed. If people choose to be non-believers or agnostics or Luciferian or anything else, it is their choice. I can even deal with a Solipsist. But, the arguments are still tired.

I have heard the argument that if there was a loving God then the world would be a place of non-stop joy and happiness. This is one of the most childish answers. Growth involves pain, always does, always forces us out of our comfort zone. Beyond that, it assumes all sort of silly things about the nature of existence.

I have also heard the argument that there are all these religions that cannot agree and therefore how can any of them be correct. How does that apply to any other belief, it isn't used for politics or business.

Another frequent comment is how more people have been killed for religion than anything else; besides being bad math it is irrelevant. If one counts how many people were killed by the Chinese Communists, the Russian Communists, the Cambodian Communists and the Nazis, I assure you atheists have killed far more. Still, it doesn't prove anything about God, it proves something about how cruel we can be regardless of the things we say we believe. The argument basically comes down to whoever killed the most people has the wrong idea about eternity.

One can neither prove nor disprove God with science alone. Quantum physics definitely brings into question our beliefs in science. It shows that our "scientific laws" contradict themselves; but, it does not prove God. I believe the proof of God is inside us, it is our self awareness, our ability to have emotions. There is no scientific explanation for that. They try, oh how they try, but they prove nothing.

You exist, you know this and nothing they say can tell you that you do not exist as a self aware being. Free will does exist and all the nonsense that we are told cannot change that, the truth is inside of you. The attempts to compare us to worms and trees and rocks are meaningless, the simplest answer is the best, you exist and you know it, you have meaning and experience this life.

So why are people adamant on "proving" that we are not important, that our lives are not meaningful and that we should just seek out pleasure? Why do they ask us to ask us to act like lower animals when we can be so much more?

When I was in High School I smoked pot. I decided to quit before college. It irritated my friends, they kept trying to get me to smoke with them. It was if they felt my choice not to smoke was an attack on their choice to smoke. By the way, I am not Bill Clinton, I inhaled and got high more than once. If Bill Clinton had been arrested for having pot, would the courts have let him off for saying he did not inhale? He continued to keep pot illegal, sort of a double standard.

If I believe that the ten commandments are really just ideals and that they don't need to be followed, I might not like it if you say that they do need to be followed. The purpose behind all atheist arguments are that they want to do what they want to do and do not wish to have a moral judgement placed on them. This is even the belief of pederasts. Child molesters say that all love is good and we should not judge them.

Whether one believes in the big bang theory or creationism, neither can be proved by science. We were not there. If science cannot prove either than we must turn to philosophy and scientists do not like that. Logic rather than an ability to duplicate. Stephen Hawkins said he could prove that everything came from nothing using science alone, good, follow the scientific rules and duplicate it. Oooooops.

If Mr Hawkins did duplicate it, would he be a God? Would he be a God to the new universe? Why do we want to be God rather than ourselves, is it so that we don't have to follow the rules and can just live off the cookies we create. Club Med religions, no growth just cookies.

God either is or is not, what is interesting is our reasons for believing or not. I was agnostic, I researched all religions. I also researched atheism. I dismissed atheism as any good philosophy student would. You cannot prove something does not exist that has not been experienced BY YOU. That is science 101.

There was a man who was a UFO investigator, he wasn't interested in UFOs as much as he was interested in the UFO societies culture, their reasons for believing. I am sort of like him. I don't care what you believe as much as I am interested in the reasons you believe something.

I believe in God. I believe I have a personal relationship with him. That is not why I believe in God. Every belief we hold should be held against a light, the light should ask why we believe. I shall say why I believe.

I heard a man talk once about the resurrection. He said there were only so many choices:

1. Jesus never existed and there were no apostles. This is a tough one because Paul was a Roman citizen and he and other Christians died at the hands of the Romans. Paul existed, Peter existed, Mathew existed, Mark existed, Luke existed, John existed. Many of Jesus followers died and their deaths were recorded by the Romans and the Jews.

2. Jesus existed but did not die on the cross. This is a problem also. We are asked to believe that thousands of people who lived in Jesus' time and saw him die, professed his resurrection to the Romans knowing they would be tossed to death by lions and tigers and bears, oh my. I don't think I want to die for something I know didn't happen.

Jesus is a historical problem. While I was an agnostic, my major was History. There are rules to writing about history. Assumptions are made based on rules. History is also a science. The conclusions we draw from it are social science; but, archeology and geology are sciences. Denying that Jesus existed is really bad science.

Now, here is scientific problem. The Ethiopians have an ark, they say it is the ark of the covenant. If they bring it out and it is carbon dated to have been from the time of Moses, will that prove God? My answer is no; but, what an annoying historical fact it will make. We will have to accept that the Hebrews did in fact carry around an Ark of the Covenant from the time they said that God commanded them to.

If such a thing were to occur, would atheists become at least agnostic and examine the implications. They would not because in the end it is the implications that they fear. What they fear is that there is wrong and right, that we have a duty to each other and consequences for our decisions, that free will has a price tag. That is the real fear. The fear is that free will has a price tag and that the price tag is consequences for being selfish.

The real argument is not over science, it is over responsibility for our deeds. We know we are not perfect. Some choose to believe that they will never be held accountable for their imperfection. Some choose to believe that they are perfect. And some choose to believe that there is no price tag for the things we do in this life. I believe there is a God and I believe there is a price tag. I have sinned and I have done wrong, I believe the price tag can be guilt or pain, I prefer the truth of guilt, it changes us and we seek to be less guilty.

With the type of thinking that I see in the world, I am surprised that we do not have a national "Adulterers Pride Day". I am surprised we do not have a pride day for every sin, perhaps someday we will. Someone talked to me today about two of my posts, one was serious and the other was about my post on Legs. He pointed out a woman with nice legs and rubbed his the way I described in my post. It was very funny. I admitted, I like nice legs, nice shapely legs, smooth legs and soft legs.

I have lusted after many women. I cannot lie, I am a man and I like the look of women. It is true that I have not taken advantage of them; but, I like the way they look and smell and feel. Two thumbs up to there being women in the world. I actually feel guilty for lusting after the lovely little creatures. Not because they would be offended; because I fall short of perfection. Perfection would be loving only one and her loving only you. Anything that falls short of perfection is sin. That is what the word means. We hate not being perfect.

We are imperfect, not because we are bad, we are not imperfect because we are not all powerful, we are imperfect because we are not all knowing. The perfection of God is in his lovingness, it is in his concern for others, his concern for us and his willingness for us to choose our own way. If you love something, let it go, if it is yours it will return.

I will tell the truth, I have been asked to write books on many things, it is not going to happen. I write the blog because it is quick. I can get out thoughts and don't have to do all the filthy work of proving everything and notating. I can do it and do it for a living, I just want to be free of the requirements sometimes, I like my free will also. Problem with free will is that you are responsible for what you do with it.