Validity of beliefs

One of the groups I'm a member of on Facebook, titled "We can find 1,000,000 people who DO believe in Evolution before June" (which is a response group to "we can find 1,000,000 people who don't believe in Evolution befor June"), posted this comforting little message a few minutes ago:

Alrighty then. I'm gonna tell everyone right now. Quit it with anti religious speak, slurs, etc. There are MANY theists and atheists or agnostics and so on here, and their opinions and beliefs or [sic] no less valid than your own. We're all here because we accept evolution, not because we believe in one god or another, or none at all. So keep it to your self, please and thank you.

[emphasis mine]

No. They. AREN'T!

I face this same sentiment over and over, all the time. "Hey, we can't truly know that God does or doesn't exist, so any opinion on the matter is equally valid." How can this line of reasoning make sense to anyone?

Well, I might have murdered someone when I was in New York thirty-five years ago. I might have burned the corpse and spread the ashes into the ocean, and that someone might have been a homeless bum with no living relatives or friends.

What's this? I wasn't alive thirty-five years ago, you say? I've never been to New York, you say?

That doesn't disprove my claim. Plus, I'm a skilled murderer, so the fact that it doesn't make sense with observable reality only supports my claim that I actually killed that person thirty-five years ago! Also, you can't criticize my claim for being a load of bullshit (or whatever other hateful, intolerant, or ignorant statement you want to make) because, since you can't definitively prove it, my claim just as valid as your paltry rationalistic one.

Now, I understand that religion isn't the point of the group, and there's something to be said about tolerating stupid ideas and playing nice in the sandbox, but DON'T say that atheism is just as valid as theism, because it just isn't. Every aspect of reality can be explained naturally. God is superfluous.

Who started the Big Bang, you ask? I don't know. How can we know? What makes you think that "I don't know, therefore God" is a valid statement?

It reminds me so much of Daniel Dennett's "Belief in belief" idea:



Anyway, fine, Facebook group. I'll play nice in the sandbox, but don't you dare claim theism is just as valid as atheism. Although, I might end up hiding your posts if you keep up the Matrix-esque, "truth is whatever you arbitrarily think it is, since truth obviously isn't based on reality or anything" theme.

Accepting Impermanence

So, lately, I've been toying with this model of philosophy:



The are a few things I need to say before I start explaining this. First, I think the entire subject of philosophy, while not linear, has an end. Second, I think the point of philosophy is to realize one's context in the universe. Third, if you think that "both free will and determinism are valid viewpoints because they've been arguing it forever," go away. Seriously. The only reason people entertain the idea that we have free will is because, philosophically, those people are five years old.

Which, I suppose, brings me to another thing I've got to say first. Philosophy has a starting point and an ending point, and while our progression from start to end might not take the same path, we're all a certain distance away from finishing philosophy. Our philosophical maturity, if you will.

Now, my actual point

We all start in the red circle and, as we do philosophy, gradually work our way towards the outer circles, until we accept and embrace the idea of nihilism.

If you're in the orange circle &mdash meaning you've already accepted that objects don't last forever (possessions can be stolen, cars can break down, etc.) but haven't yet accepted that your existence isn't permanent &mdash you will view those in the red circle, who haven't yet accepted the impermanence of objects, as immature.

I'd argue that most people are in the orange circle. They're aware that they will die (and they might even be aware that, when they die, that's it), but the push it our of their mind and ignore it. In the worst case, these orange-circled people cling to irrational ideas like an afterlife, or reincarnation, or quantum immortality to deny that death even occurs.

Those who truly understand and accept death are now in the yellow circle, believing that their accomplishments and achievements will, to at least some degree, achieve immortality. Therefore, they think, the best course of action in this life is to achieve as much as possible before they die, because they feel their achievements will give their life substance or meaning.

Our actions are governed by our worldview. If we're still in the red circle, we might horde money and objects, believing our possessions to be what gives us value. If we're in the orange circle, we'll endure that crappy job we have, that awful relationship we're in, etc., believing that death will never come to claim us. We'll believe that the meaning of life is simply in its length, therefore our personal happiness or accomplishments are unnecessary. If we're in the yellow circle, we'll frenetically work to achieve and accomplish, believing that value and meaning come from leaving as big a mark on the planet before you die.

Beyond all that is something even more beautiful.

Nihilism.

"Why don't you just commit suicide?" they ask. "If you think life is meaningless, why not just kill yourself?"

Ahh, spoken like a true member of the orange circle. Imagine you find yourself at Disneyland one day. What should you do? You don't have to ride any of the rides, and you're going to leave at the end of the day anyway. You don't have to buy anything, you don't have to wander around the park, you don't have to ask questions. You can even just leave early if you want.

What would you want to do at Disneyland, in that situation? You'd ride as many rides as possible, unless you thought the line was too long or the ride was too boring. You'd wander around looking at everything there was to see, ride some rides multiple times, buy some lunch or something, maybe even take a nap on one of the benches.

Why? You'll only be leaving afterward anyway. None of the rides are yours. No one at the park will remember you next week. Why not just leave without doing anything?

How would you act right now if you knew all of humanity would be destroyed four hundred years from now? How would you act right now if you knew that there is no meaning or value that comes inherently from existing, accomplishing, or owning?

I know what you'd do. You'd do whatever the fuck you wanted to. Nihilism isn't only the most defensible worldview, but it's also the most liberating one.

Now, most people would read that and think, "What's to stop this maniac from stealing, killing, and raping everything he comes in contact with? Isn't that what humans all instinctively want to do?"

Ahh, spoken like a true member of the orange circle. No, I wouldn't, and here's why: I need people to like me if I want to get what I want. If I want a Ph.D., a widescreen TV, or Mass Effect 2, I'm going to have a hard time getting it if everyone hates me for being a stealing, murdering rapist.

Or, succinctly, in the words of Mordin Solus: "Life is a negotiation. We all want. We all give, to get what we want."

But anyway, my intent was to posit my little picture up there, not to defend nihilism. Plus, defending nihilism is just like defending atheism; there's only, like, ten objections to it &mdash most of which are of the "why not kill yourself?" or "why not just steal and murder?" variety.

Time to get political

Lookit what I happened to find on the front page as a woke up this morning. Michael Newdow, continuing on his unholy crusade to destroy all that our Great Nation stands for, just got trashed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Reading the comments on the Yahoo News version of this story makes me want to cry, though. It's the same tired arguments over and over again:

1. Fuck you, you anti-God atheists!


2. This is a Christian Nation™.


3. This is a trivial issue, and we shouldn't waste time and money on fixing it.


4. Don't believe in God? Then GTFO! Don't ruin our country!

Please. This is actually a matter of honesty. Saying we're a nation "under God" is a lie, because I happen to be a voting U.S. citizen, and am in no way monotheistic. And I'm not alone.

There are lots of people who are not monotheistic. The agnostics (read: "Atheists who are too afraid to admit it") aren't under God. The "spiritual" people aren't under God. The pagans aren't under God. The Hindus and Buddhists aren't under God.

They're either "under no God", "under a few Gods", or "under many, many Gods." Plus, when you consider that the Protestant and Catholic Gods are different enough from each other, "under many, many Gods" is actually more appropriate to our Christian-dominated country.

But why stop there? To be the most honest, we'd have to add "one nation, under many, many Gods, and also under many other foolish pseudo-scientific, nonsensical claims, and under paychecks, and under our own hedonism, and under hopes and dreams, and..."

Isn't that what the "under" means, anyway? "That which guides or influences our actions"?

And don't even get me started on the "In God We Trust" thing on our currency.

When I enjoy music...

... I analyze it to death. This is the music that runs under the credits of Mass Effect 2, the greatest game the world has ever seen.



It's kinda like a chaconne, in that it uses the same harmonic progression over and over and over again. Here's the bass line, which you hear played on its own starting seven seconds in, followed by the basic melody:



That, of course, is just the skeletal framework of the whole thing, and the composer (Jack Wall) does some epic things with that repeating bass line.

If you know anything about music theory at all, what captivates me the most about this whole song is the G in the fourth measure. The melody could easily have been resolved with a D in the bass instead... but Oh, how beautiful it sounds as it's written!

Anyway, enjoy.

Free Agency, The Atonement, and Time Travel

The Atonement makes no sense. Asserting (like the Mormons do) that we have Free Agency at the same time makes even less sense.

But you already knew that, and that hardly serves as a hook to keep you reading. Here's the actual hook, and I'll put it in red just to make you look straight at it, instead of reading this introduction:

We can't have Free Agency if Jesus died for our sins. Why do I say that? Well, let's look at the history of the world:



Now, let's pretend for a moment that the second coming is soon after we discover the Mass Relays, so that we can safely say my little picture encompasses the entire history of human sinning. Our situation looks like this:

1. Humans are sinful creatures, and sin at least once in their lifetime.


2. Jesus took all these sins upon himself in the garden of Gethsemane.


3. ... including the ones that hadn't been committed yet.

So history actually looks like this:

Great Scott!

Now, there was a shit-ton of sinning going on in 2004, but did we really have a choice? Are we really accountable for our sins? How can we have the Agency to choose right from wrong if Jesus took upon himself the sin 1,971 years before we committed it?

If Jesus literally took upon himself the actual sins we committed, then either:

1. time isn't a causal chain, but instead is like a road we can move back and forth on.

or


2. we were predestined to commit those sins, and had no choice in the matter.

If we have Free Agency, then God wouldn't have known the exact sins we would commit. In which case He must have just guesstimated ("I think, by the time the Second Coming rolls around, humans will have committed 10,436,280 major sins") and punished Jesus accordingly. Therefore:

1. If we hurry up and sin a whole bunch, we could use up our 10,436,280 Freebie Sins and fuck everyone who's born after us. "Haha, suckers! You're stuck with your sins 'cause we used up all the ones Jesus died for!"

Given that Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world, we're either temporally linked to A.C.E. 33 or we have no Free Agency. And don't even get me started on how God's "omniscience" fits into all this.