Commencement Speech

This is a speech I gave as the Distinguished Student when I got my Associates Degree:

Hello teachers, staff, fellow students, and parents and friends of fellow students. I’d like to thank my parents, P and E, for my existence and their love support, along with my grandmother B, who did so much to foster my intellectual development, and my grandparents C and C, all of whom provided me with so much love, knowledge, and support, and who I can’t leave out since they are sitting in the audience. I’d also like to give a shout out to my brother, M, and all my friends. And thank you, faculty and staff of NVCC, President Daisy Cocco De Filippis and Dean Mitch Holmes, for giving me this education, and this honor. I must admit I feel vaguely like Obama accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: I’m not entirely sure why I should have been chosen over any other student, and I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge all my fellow students who have worked and continue to work hard, both inside and out of class.
So, I should probably tell you all a bit about myself. I was homeschooled since the beginning of my education: I never went to public or private school. Mostly unschooled, I was free to pursue whatever I was interested in, although my parents certainly required that I learn certain subjects that may not interest me as much as others. But it wasn’t hard: I loved gathering information. I would wake up in the morning to a pile of assignments on the table: when I was done, my schoolday was done, which could take as little as a few hours or as much as several days. If I needed help, I would ask them.
However, there was a point where my parents could no longer help me the way they had, specifically in math. They reached a point where they were only giving me the odd-numbered questions out of textbooks, since those were the ones that had answers in the back. So when I was thirteen I started taking classes here, well, not here, but at NVCC. We chose NVCC not only because of the beautiful campus and the caring, professional atmosphere we felt from the staff, but also because of the school’s adept system for dealing with homeschoolers. I was not to be treated any differently from any other student: teachers didn’t even have to know my age (fortunately, at thirteen, I could pass for much older than I was). I only took College Algebra the first semester, but after that I started taking other classes that appeared interesting, and even though I still considered myself homeschooled, my education pretty much entirely took place at NVCC.
Perhaps it is just my own temperament, but I have had no bad classes at NVCC that I can think of. A couple weren’t excellent, but none were terrible. Most all of the teachers I have had cared about teaching, and were often thrilled to have a student as talkative and interested in the material as I was. This is probably a good time to mention some of the teachers who meant a lot to me. I almost feel bad about doing so: if I had a could without boring you, I’d mention every single teacher I had. But there are a few that come to mind: Sandra Pettinico and Anthony Prushnicki, the teachers I alternated between during my four semesters of trig and calculus, both clear, fun, and engaging, and the latter the most hilariously curmudgeony person I’ve known. Students of higher level Calculus definitely constitute something of an exclusive club, and my relationship with my fellow students and these two teachers probably constitute my closest and most favorite times in the classroom. Patricia Pallis, my English 102 teacher who through her love of my work helped me realize my abilities as a writer. Peter Benzi, my physics II teacher, with his dry humor and his intelligence. Richard Gard, head of the music department, who’s, well, you have to know him, and Kirsten Peterson, my infinitely patient one-on-one music composition teacher. Christine Mangone, head of the theater department, who I’ve never taken a class with come to think of it but who has been a wonderful, patient, caring director in the two shows I’ve done with her. And I’ll also add two teachers who aren’t at the school anymore: Mark Priest, my Music Theory II teacher, and Ed Wierzbicki, my Acting I and II teacher.
NVCC has prepared me for the rest of my education. It allowed me to explore my interests at an early age, which I certainly did to, some might say, excess: I have after all been a nearly full-time (I was usually a few hours short) student here for 5 years, and only got the last two requirements for a Liberal Arts degree out of the way this last semester. I have made friends, and even those friendships that didn’t last beyond the end of classes were some of the closest relationships with other human beings I’ve ever experience. I’ve had the opportunity to be in numerous shows, which is wonderful, since I never got that through school. This school has been my life for five years: it’s going to be hard for me to leave, although I take comfort in the fact that, being a student in both the theater and music departments, I’m just going to keep coming back, whether I want to or not. On the last day, I bought a large french-fries at the caf, and ate every single one, ‘cause as I’m sure you’re all aware, those things are ridiculous, and I may never have them again. I’m going to miss the friends who are still here. All in all, I’m going to miss this place.
So what now? I’ll continue learning. I have always felt that knowledge is an end of its own. We are, as human beings, incredibly lucky to be able to understand the world around us, and to take it’s materials and create something new. We are, as Carl Sagan said, a way for the cosmos to know itself. I have always felt that with these abilities that we are, as humans, lucky enough to have comes a responsibility, and responsibility to understand, to think, to create. Doing otherwise, we are turning our back on the universe that created us, and provides us with life and infinite mysteries to be discovered and explored. There is, I think, to much beauty in knowing to not know. However, not all are going to be interested in, or even capable of, this pursuit of knowledge. But if we are to learn more, we, as a species, must survive, and this survival is the responsibility of all. We must feed eachother, care for eachother, entertain eachother, understand eachother. As Carl Sagan also said, if you disagree with another human, let him be. In the entire universe you will not find another like him. I would add that if another human needs your help, help them, for once again, they’re like no other. This would be my message to all.
Thank you.

A Debate about God, and involving Evolution, Biblical Accuracy, Meaning, Comlexity, Morality, Chance, and whether water is needed for alien life.

(This is an extended comment [it was long enough that I wrote it as a note] I wrote in response to comments on one of my friend's notes on FB, along with the discussion that followed. The responses are to comments by 3 people. It has been edited for grammar, spelling, and clarity, and also to protect people's identities [I use initials for their names] [and also removing anything that is irrelevant to the discussion or to anyone outside my circle of friends]. Obviously the context of the comments I'm responding to is missing, but I doubt that's essential.)

"Nothing backs up evolution except the claims of people who don't want to believe the Bible. Thing is if there is evolution we would have seen it happen and proven it but we haven't and we can't so I think its BS."
We have. On a miniscule scale, of course, but that is what we would expect given the fact that our observations are made over relatively miniscule periods of time. I can give you several examples if you want them. Plus there's the fossil record, which has holes, but that's to be entirely expected: the amount of life that becomes fossilized and where those fossils survive to the present day is a small, small fraction of all the life that was, and by no means a necessarily representative fraction either.
Or there's the vestigial body parts, such as the remnants of legs in some types of whales, or the muscles that allow some people to wiggle their ears--indicative of some former, forgotten use.
Or the inductive conclusions you can draw from the similarities and dissimilarities between species, which was obviously noticed on a subconscious level even before Darwin (as he pointed out, naturalists had always classified species as if they were related to each other, even though that was not their intention. After all, we have "Families" of animals.)
Or the evidence from the genetic code.
Shall I go on?
Oh, and also the fact that natural selection is obvious if you just reason it out: if for various reasons some animal (and human) babies turn out a bit better at surviving and reproducing than their peers, which you can't deny is the case, then they are going to leave more offspring. That's basic natural selection in a nutshell, and many of its intricacies logically follow.

"I would rather live my life a fool than end it going to hell. So you can choose which you would rather do, take a chance and roll the dice or play it safe as a fool."
"I'm saying that I would rather be a fool and believe the Bible than doubt it and go to hell. The odds are not for me. I am all for acquiring knowledge."
You're rolling the dice anyway. You could believe in the wrong God and still be screwed. Besides the number of Gods people around the world believe in, there are also an infinite number of hypothetical Gods, and even if most of these Gods would be merciful even if you didn't believe in them exactly, that still leaves an infinite number of Gods who would not be (and infinity divided by infinity is impossible to determine). So not only are you rolling dice, you have no clue what your odds are (and they are no better or worse than an atheist's).

"There are facts on god, you just need to believe the facts are facts. It's called the Bible for a reason."
Many theologians throughout history have denied this, pointing out that God, if it does exist, must be so utterly transcendent that it is impossible to understand it in any human terms, and all Biblical language describing it must therefore be highly figurative. And it's obviously not true that "the fact are facts", since there are so many different religions and individuals that dispute or interpret the facts in highly different ways, and claim incontrovertible Biblical support for their views.

"If we can't trust the Bible how can we trust any historical books? All the books we see in the library are put together by a group of people or one author by using supposed historical sources--how do we know these sources aren't fictitious?"
They could be. However, the historical record has been corroborated by the independent examination of numerous records (at least ideally, more on that later): some parts of the Bible have, some haven't, and even those that have the miraculous details have not. Also, it is recognized that the historical record can contain human error, and is therefore open to revision and improvement in light of new evidence: again, your beliefs regarding the Bible imply this cannot be done. Also, why do you trust the Bible by default?

"...and you know what, I am NOTHING without my lord God. Without him what is there worth living for? There is no real ownership of anything, there is nothing to look forward too, except to attempt to please yourself in your life and then bring your kids into a world with only the hope they will live to suffer before they die?"
"To me if there was no God I wouldn't be here right now. (I would be dead) God gives me hope and something to live for, otherwise everything I go though would be somewhat of a meaningless pain."
There are many other possible sources of meaning in life. The search for meaning itself can provide meaning. Here is a document of my own search: www.dervine7.blogspot.com.

And even if there is no meaning without God, that is not evidence that he exists, simply evidence that it's useful to believe in him in order to provide meaning.
Let me digress for a moment and point out that certainty and sensation of God don't prove anything. Members of Al Quaida are as certain of their God as you are of yours. And sensations can quite obviously be illusory.

"...for example, it seems as if even through examining one cell we find evidence of a creator. Everything is so complex--how could it possibly have formed in the life of this planet? There isn't enough time."
There's 4.5 billion years, 15 billion (they think) if you count the entire history of the universe. Timescales utterly inconceivable to human beings (4.5 billion is 4,500 times the entire lifetime of humanity, and many more again times the existence of civilization).
Also, the observable universe has 3 to 7×10^22 stars (3 to 7 followed by 22 zeros, or--if stars were money--more than 30 to 70 billion stimulus packages :P ). There's probably more universe than what we can observe. So even if the chance is teeny-tiny of complex life appearing, the amount of stuff over the amount of time given means that it's probably going to happen at some point. All you need is a molecule capable of making copies of itself that manages to make enough copies of itself so that it doesn't die off, and then the molecules that happen to be a little better at surviving and reproducing, which seem to be the more complex molecules, make more copies of themselves than their fellows, etc. etc., you have life.

"If god doesn't exist what is my motivation to be good? I could be the worst scum on earth, and in the end nothing horrible would happen. And if I was ever tortured for being a scumbag, all I would have to do to stop my tormentors is die."
"When I eventually have kids I plan to love them and to teach them my religion so they have a chance of going to heaven. If there was no God, then why should anyone not kill?"
So you're only a good person for entirely selfish reasons, i.e. to avoid punishment? That's kind of disturbing. Actually, I believe people, and the basis of morality, are ultimately selfish too, but I think this selfishness has much less to do with the avoidance of punishment than with the achievement of reward, that reward being the feeling of pleasure that comes from doing good and helping other people--an instinct that exists to insure the continued existence of humanity, and that we must nurture so that it can accomplish its end.
It is also obvious to me that morality is more fundamental any particular religion, since there are moral systems such as the Golden Rule that exist in completely independent religious traditions (such as Judeo-Christianity and Buddhism)--many of which have conceptions of God so different from ours that we would be unlikely to consider it "God" at all--and even independently of any religious tradition at all (Humanism). If many different things possess attribute X, but are different in other attributes, it is natural to assume that X is the more fundamental attribute.
Will your children really be true believers if they did not have to choose to believe? The beliefs will not be truly theirs: they will be yours, given to them. They will not have earned them for themselves.
It is possible to develop ethical systems without God in them, based on logical principles: once again, you can see my own explorations in this regard (link above).

(the following is the discussion that followed this note:)

T C:

"Members of Al Quaida are as certain of their God as you are of yours."
I love this. Because not only are they both certain of their god, that particular god is exactly the same one... Jews, Muslims, and Christians all worship the God of Abraham. And yet, somehow, they all believe that their God is the right one, and the God of the other two is wrong...

That one, I just don't get.

F H:

There is zero merit in being good in hope of the reward of heaven, and out of the fear of hell. Besides, what would lead you to think that the rest of us would allow you to get away with being rotten? Who is that yoyo? To paraphrase Twain: Hell is where the interesting people will be. So I'd prefer to go there.

T C:

You know, as a well-educated Christian, I see so much wrong with this, I almost want to write my own. He's wrong on almost all points from both the scientific and the theological point of view. A decent Christian Education class might do some good.

Me:

Most of the comments are R D's, except for the first and second to last, which are by C M and A K, respectively. All more or less good friends (not more or less good, more or less friends, i.e. I only sort of know some of them :P ) that I (obviously) disagree with--and I'm all the happier for it! (It makes life much more interesting.) [note to commenters on this blog: please don't attack my friends.]
I'm wrong or the person who I'm responding to is wrong?

T C:

The person you're responding to is wrong... I didn't realize there were multiple originals.

You're fine, at least from the debatable starting point of the non-existence of God.

My response would be very much like yours, except for the inclusion of several Biblical verses and theological arguments showing where they're original premises are ALSO completely false.

Me:

I don't think I actually claim there isn't a God (although it's obviously implied)--just that their reasoning for its existence is flawed.

R D:

[...]and what I have said is what I believe to be true. I am not saying that I am nice because God exists, I am nice because I LOVE my God.

Me:

I know their your beliefs, I'm just debating. I've always been of the opinion that it is important to examine beliefs thoroughly and adjust them if reason requires. I don't want to attack anyone's beliefs, I just want to get them to do what I've stated above.
OK, but that was not how you put it in your original comments.

F H:

Yow! Well, it is perhaps a fine point - I start at the null hypothesis - There is no God - all I ask for is evidence. - The bible, both Old and New Testament, is not evidence for much of anything, except that the jews were good at syncretism and adapting other peoples mythologies when it suited them. And the fact that so many people believe isn't evidence either. To date I have been presented with 0 evidence for the existence of any deity. So I'll be your atheist.

A K:

I do believe in natural selection--I think in that way we have "evolved"; however, I really don't believe we came from monkeys. I heard someone actually mathematically disproved such evolution but apparently it's so engrained in the minds of scientists.
But even if we did come together by some sort of collision in space..where did the universe come from? Are there other universes? How do you explain the fact that somewhere around 98 percent of matter is unaccounted for?

Me:

We do share over 99% of our genetic material with chimpanzees.
I wouldn't be surprised if the mathematical proof you're talking about has to do with entropy, and if it is, it's nothing new (my physics teacher discussed the flaws in its reasoning). I can't think of any other ways someone could attempt to disprove human evolution mathematically.
If God created the universe, where did God come from? If you say nothing created God, and he just exists of his own accord, why can't I say the the same about the universe? It's as if someone said a billion is the biggest number, but when someone else said the biggest number is a million, the first person told them that that makes no sense. They're both arbitrarily choosing limits on how big number can get, and similarly the two of us would be arbitrarily choosing limits on the chain of causality.

F H:

Good questions, and science is working on them. Darwin knew that evolution was real, it was the only rational explanation of the evidence. But he didn't know the mechanism, and admitted that to be an argument against his theory. (Darwin actually stated, in print, that there were several arguments against his theory, and should any of them prove true, it would be a serious blow. To date, NONE have proved true). And no other theory was (is) better at explaining the evidence. But just because they didn't know the mechanism was no reason to stop working and say "God did it." There HAD to be a mechanism, and along came Crick and Watson and the discovery of DNA.

Me:

There might be other universes: we don't have enough evidence right now to know for sure, but my understanding is that such a possibility is actually very likely.
The situation is the same in regards to dark matter: we don't have enough evidence yet to reach a definite conclusion. We probably will eventually though, which points to the danger of invoking God to explain things we don't understand: when we do finally understand it, God ends up having one less thing to do. To go back in time to the extreme, it used to be believed, for instance, that there were no laws of nature, and everything happened due to God's (actually, at that point, several gods') direct interference. There is a trend here, and I think if the idea of God is to survive, we'll probably have to stop considering it as an explanatory causal agency altogether--even in regards to morality--lest the deeper, most sublime aspects of the idea of God disappear along with our need to invoke it in explaining things.

(If at the moment anyone is thinking "wait, I thought you were an atheist", I call myself an atheist because if I said I believed in God, my conception of God would be so radically different from anyone else's that I might as well say I own a dog when I actually own a cat.)

R D:

Organized religion is the third or fourth step in the transformation from roaming tribes into true civilizations, so whether you do or do not believe in God he has played the biggest role of any being ever

Me:

I don't deny that. In fact, I whole-heartedly agree with it. But it doesn't prove his existence, and it's also entirely possible that God is a stage of development that is highly important, but that we need to move beyond, or at least alter significantly (kind of like how our parents play the biggest and most important role in our childhood, but there comes a time when if we are to become healthy adults we must sever the bonds to some extent, or at least alter our relationship to them [it's a very imperfect analogy]).

Another analogy would be the several ideas about the world around us that as children we NEED to have in order to be healthy, and are important to our development, but that we must alter and/or discard as we become older.

Me:

Found another "mathematical disproof" you might have been talking about. Once again, it's nothing new, and the reasoning is flawed.
"When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been [randomly] dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable." -John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences

By the way, T C, I'd be really interested in seeing the biblical and theological points you talked about.

T C:

For some reason, people fail to read the Bible with historical perspective. Which is strange, since parts of it were written 4,000 years ago.

For instance, the creation story. If you read it, you'll notice that there are actually two of them. there's the one everyone knows in chapter 1. and there's the one in chapter 2.

The one in chapter 2 was written first. It's the actual Hebrew creation story from forever ago. The first one was written much later, during the Babylonian occupation. It's the Babylonian creation story. The Babylonians say that the Sun (they're main god) created the world in seven days. The jewish version has God creating the world in 6 days (he rested on the 7th), and on the first day, he created the Sun. I.e., The Hebrew God is better because he created the babylonian god, AND he did it faster.

It's essentially a political story, aimed at improving the morale of the Jews while they're being scattered around by the Babylonians.

Additionally, of course, is the more standard, but still sound reasoning that the Hebrew "day" in that creation story can be translated as "era". In which God created the world in 6 eras. And if you do that, it actually follows science pretty well. First came the sun and the stars. Then came earth, and sea life, and plant life, and animal life, and people.

Also worthy of note is that no one believed in the 6 day creation until the 1800s, when the fundamentalist christians started. The jews treat it as figurative. The early christians, the roman catholics, and the mainline protestants all followed suit. So this whole 6,000 year old earth theory is only about as old as the theory of evolution by natural selection anyway.

A K:

There is enough historical evidence to prove many of the events in the Bible did indeed occur. I don't really think that people can really prove scientifically that God exists, but I'm not sure how you explain my sightings of angels and demons.
There has to be a concept of truth; otherwise it would just be a figurative word.
And it seems there's something to Christianity: its the most persecuted, yet most popular religion worldwide. People die horrendous deaths everyday for it. I'm not saying that other people of other religions don't die for their God...but it is the Christians who have been the most persecuted.
I also think the reasoning behind evolution is flawed. And many of the evolutionists like Darwin and Aristotle either renounced or modified their theories before their deaths; a fact that most of the public has not acknowledged.
Also, we are actually closer to pigs genetically than monkeys.
If we formed from some sort of collision, how are we so extremely complex? How is it that the more we study the brian the less we really know? Why is it that even though the earth is densely populated with life there aren't there even the smallest life forms on other surrounding planets?

Me:

Again, not the miraculous details, and the historical evidence is speculative as late as after the Exodus, I believe; T C would probably have a better idea. There's historical evidence of Troy, but we don't believe in the Greek gods that Homer says caused the events there.
People sight all sorts of things--especially when worked into a state of religious ecstasy, which isn't dissimilar to hypnosis (not a bad thing in the slightest, don't get me wrong)--and if you were Indian you'd have sightings of elephant gods with multiple arms. We also have a knack for recognizing patterns that aren't actually there, especially when we're looking for them; one of the reasons people who believe in ghosts are much more likely to see one, when what they're really seeing is perhaps a random bit of mist that happens to vaguely resemble a human being.

Truth can exist independently of God: there is just as much reason for truth to be self-sufficient as there is for God to be self-sufficient.

What reasoning do you think is flawed?

Even this site denies the veracity of that claim.
Also, scientists are always modifying their theories: that's what makes it science.

I could find no specific info on the pig similarity, but I'm sure it's false. The reason they are looking to use pigs for organ transplants is because they are readily available: however, they have to be genetically modified so that they are not rejected by the host body. Everything I came across said primate-human transplants would be much easier because of genetic closeness, but it isn't feasible.

The article I linked to has answers to many of the complexity arguments.

We don't even have enough evidence to know for certain whether or not there's life on mars, the closest planet and the one we know the most about (though it seems like they're pretty sure there isn't).
Also, if life is very unlikely (which we also don't know: we have an entire universe to check out before we can reach that conclusion), it's to be expected that it would only pop up very rarely, just like 10 coins coming up heads is only going to happen, on average, every 1,024 fair coin tosses.

T C:

There is also, of course, the common theory that life requires liquid water. Water is only liquid for a very small range of temperatures (180 degrees) So far, liquid water has only been discovered on one planet - Earth. However, there's a small chance for life on Mars, and a lot of excitement over the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. We've only been landing on other astronomical bodies for 40 years, and only landed on two of them.

How many single-celled organisms do you expect to find with a telescope?

Me:

Plus, the only reason we assume life requires liquid water is that that's what life on earth uses. Which, of course, points to the other problem with looking for life on other planets: we can only look for stuff that resembles what we know.
So do you have any info on historical confirmation of biblical texts? (as per my earlier comment)

T C:

Historical accuracy of the bible is iffy. There are some places where we take it as historical fact, because it's the only surviving record. There are other places where it's definitely wrong. The historic records from 2000BC are extraordinarily sketchy, but we do know generally that the Israelites were slaves of the Egyptians, and were put to work building the pyramids (the whole making bricks thing). There is no Egyptian record of the plagues though, for instance, so again with the miracles not being substantiated. So we have historical records of some things going all the way back into the later parts of Genesis.

There's also some pretty strong evidence of a great flood in the Mediterranean, since the Jews, the Greeks, and several other ancient cultures have myths of one. Noah's Ark itself is probably not true, but works as a serviceable myth to explain the existence of rainbows.

But there's also obvious historical flaws. At the beginning of Luke, (which was only 2000 years ago, and we have pretty good historical records from the time), it says "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was the first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria)" Lk 2: 1-2. The problem is, that according to Roman governmental records (which are pretty accurate), Cyrenius wasn't governor of Syria while Augustus was Caesar.

So for the Old Testament, it was long enough ago, that with the shortage of records, we can only verify certain very broad things, but no specifics. And in the New Testament, we can verify some things, but prove others completely false. It leaves the Bible on sketchy territory as a historical document.

And of course, one must remember that it is heavily biased toward Israel. If the Bible were to be believed, the Israelites were one of the major middle eastern powers in ancient times. But if that were the case, some of the other major powers (Egypt, Babylon, Assyria) would have mentioned SOMETHING about them. In reality, they were a loose band of small tribes in Canaan, and pretty damn unimportant.

Me:

And you'd think the Egyptians would be kind of concerned about the plagues if they happened :P
Aren't some books in the Old Testament contemporary and/or recently historical accounts, though?

Who's the earliest biblical figure we can be pretty sure existed?
By the way, I'd still be interested in seeing your theological/biblical citation responses to R D and A K (as a contrast to my secular responses).

F H:

OK. To date, there has been ZERO evidence of the Exodus found anywhere. It is impossible that two million people could wander around the sinai for forty years and leave NO evidence. Now as regards miracles and other things - Every day many people pay good money to see Penn and Teller do the impossible. These people are EYEWITNESSES and they KNOW that they are being deceived, they're LOOKING for the TRICK, and they STILL don't see it! Just imagine how easy it is to fool someone who WANTS to believe.

T C:

@ F H: I didn't say there was evidence of the exodus. I said there was evidence of the Jews being slaves. There is a big difference. but it is worth pointing out for anyone that missed it, so thanks.

@ [my] various questions: Some of the books are "histories". The historicalness of them, however, is a little iffy, just like the rest of it. Kings, Judges, and Samuel in particular are supposedly history of the jews. Many of the minor prophets are just more detailed sections of those books (Ruth, Ester, Daniel, for example).

The newest parts of the Old Testament were written a few hundred years before Christ. The oldest are written records of oral tradition (which, by tradition, were set down by Moses, but that's almost certainly BS).

The first person in the Bible that we know existed would probably be David or Solomon (almost certainly one of the Kings, as they're important enough for other people to write about them) but I don't happen to know that particular tidbit.

T C:

"I would rather live my life a fool than end it going to hell. So you can choose which you would rather do, take a chance and roll the dice or play it safe as a fool."
"I'm saying that I would rather be a fool and believe the Bible than doubt it and go to hell. The odds are not for me. I am all for acquiring knowledge."

The two aren't mutually exclusive. My pastor was a science teacher. I feel like by reading any of my previous posts, it's pretty obvious that it's pretty easy to believe in God and science. Christianity doesn't have to make you a moron.
Also, you don't go to hell for doubting the Bible. Doubt and unbelief are very different things. Doubt is like being sick. Unbelief is like being dead. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Sickness is a necessary part of life. Doubt is a necessary part of faith.

"Without [God] what is there worth living for? There is no real ownership of anything, there is nothing to look forward too, except to attempt to please yourself in your life and then bring your kids into a world with only the hope they will live to suffer before they die?"
"To me if there was no God I wouldn't be here right now. (I would be dead) God gives me hope and something to live for, otherwise everything I go though would be somewhat of a meaningless pain."
There's no reason to own anything if you believe in God. "It's harder for a rich man to see the Kingdom than it is for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle." In Acts, the early disciples pooled all their posessions and distributed them each according to his need.
What is there to look forward to when you believe in God? The afterlife. so why not just die? If you don't believe in God, there's LIFE to look forward to.

And again, what does God give you to live for? Oh yeah, death. You're faith has GOT to be something more than "when I die, I get a reward." Otherwise, it's nonsensical.

Pain is not God testing you. It's life. God is just what helps you through the pain. People ask "Why did God let Katrina happen?" God didn't LET it happen. It happened. It was not God punishing New Orleans. God then used Katrina as a way of glorifying him - all those mission trips to rebuild, and the people coming together. that was what God had to do with Katrina.

"If god doesn't exist what is my motivation to be good? I could be the worst scum on earth, and in the end nothing horrible would happen. And if I was ever tortured for being a scumbag, all I would have to do to stop my tormentors is die."
"When I eventually have kids I plan to love them and to teach them my religion so they have a chance of going to heaven. If there was no God, then why should anyone not kill?"
So are you saying that since God didn't say not to kill anyone until the 10 commandments, everyone was totally free to kill everybody all the way through Genesis? You've got to be kidding.

People don't kill each other because it's good for society. The human race wouldn't survive very long if everyone killed everyone. so it's in the interest of the collective good that people don't murder.

Not to mention of course that you don't go to Heaven for being good. you go to Heaven for believing in God. Paul knocks this home again and again throughout his letters. We are human beings, and as human beings, we are imperfect. We cannot follow the law.

So Jesus died for our sins. Let's put this another way that may knock it home a little better. Jesus, who was perfect, and completely innocent, was executed (i.e. got the death penalty). He did it so that no one else would ever have to die again - ever. All we have to do to live forever is believe that Jesus sacrificed himself for us. That's ... Read Moreit. nothing more. and nothing but unbelief can get in the way of that. In theory, you could go out and kill everyone with no consequences whatsoever.

You're not good so you can go to heaven. you're good as a way of thanking god for being so damn nice to you, even though you're a nasty, sinful, dirty wretch, and don't deserve it at all.

One last comment.
"It's called the Bible for a reason."
Yes it is. "Bible" is from the Greek for "Holy Book." It's not a history book. It's not a manual for living. It's not a science book. It's a holy book. It teaches you about a religion.

So if you want to learn about Christianity, read the Bible. If you want to learn about science, read a science book. If you want to learn about history, read a history book. But don't expect The Origin of Species to teach you about Christianity, and don't expect the Bible to teach you about the origin of species. It's silly.

M M:

A K, a couple things I'd like to say to some of your comments back a while ago:
"I really don't believe we came from monkeys."
Science people, correct me if I'm wrong, but we did NOT evolve from monkeys. Monkeys and us evolved from a common ancestor wayyy back in the evolutionary chain.
"And it seems theres something to Christianity: its the most persecuted, yet most popular religion worldwide. People die horrendous deaths everyday for it. I'm not saying that other people of other religions dont die for their God...but it is the Christians who have been the most persecuted."
You may be right - I can't prove that for certain. But if the Jews don't beat the Christians they come pretty damn close (and probably the reason Christians are most persecuted is through sheer force of numbers - since there are a whole bunch of Christians, even a small fraction of them being persecuted is still gonna be a pretty big number).

Me:

It's also true that at many times in history Christians were the most persecutING group.

(and more often than not persecuting other Christians)

Me:

Something I meant to say earlier: early monotheists were called atheists by the general pagan population, both because they denied the existence of the pagan gods, and also because their God was so different from those pagan gods that the pagans didn't recognize it as being any sort of "god" at all.
We all deny the existence of numerous gods: I just deny the existence of God along with them.
Let me rephrase that: I don't personally believe in the existence of God as a causal entity of any sort whatsoever, with a personality, plans, and intentions. As I said, I would have no trouble saying I believe in God, except that most people's definition of that word would be totally wrong for me.

A K:

If you're serious about finding out wether there is a god...ask God if he's real and if he really is then he'll show you. But only do it if you realy want to know.

A K:

Christians founded this country and we came here to have freedom of religion..for over 1000 years people in europe were burned and hacked to pieces and tortured of they didnt abide with what the pope/Catholic church wanted. It's because of Christians that you have the freedom to be..agnostic.

Me:

The first people who came here--Columbus, the Spanish--came here for money and adventure. Many if not most of them WERE Catholic. They also decided that they were going to convert the Native American population, which they did in the manner you described: horrifically.
The pilgrims (who were one of the later waves of Europeans) came to America several decades after the Reformation--at which point they promptly denied religious freedom to anyone who didn't agree with THEIR theology and dogma. (And treating the Native Americans badly in the meantime, by the way.)
By the way, is the Catholic Church not christian?
More than a few of the Founding Fathers were only nominally Christian: Franklin, who doubted the divinity of Christ, and Jefferson, who edited his own version of the Bible with all the miraculous details left out, are two examples.
There is also no mention of God in the Constitution. Zero. Zilch. There isn't even any mention of "Providence" or anything like it. The only mention of anything religious in nature is in the First Amendment's prohibition against endorsing an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. This is despite the fact that many people at the time were specifically pushing for there to be religious language in the Constitution.
Despite all this, I do not deny the debt agnostics, atheists, and humanists owe to liberal Christians of the past. Humanism grew out of Christianity, particularly it's social philosophy. And we owe our religious freedoms to liberal Christians, of course. I don't really see how that has any bearing on the discussion, though. Even if our country was founded by Christians, so what? It was also founded by slave-owners--which has no bearing on our attitudes towards slavery (just to be clear, I am NOT comparing Christians to slave owners in any way!).

Me:

I guess where that makes me a little nervous is what "if you really want to know" means. Cults will also say "don't believe us? Just open your mind and find out how great we are...if you really want to know." Or people will say ghosts exist, and the reason you never see them is because you don't believe in them. I.e., you have to accept something is true in order to determine if it's true in the first place--begging the question.

F H:

When My Aunt Mary Ann was a teacher in northern maine she grew to hate the tent revivals.
The tent revival would come to town. there would be singing and praying and "healing". In the days that followed there would always be children who returned to school no longer wearing their glasses. When asked why, Mommie or Daddie would reply "they don't ... Read Moreneed glasses any more, because they had been "healed". " Needless to say, in all the years she taught, NOT ONE of those children had been healed. Their vision was still bad. They STILL needed glasses. And now she had to fight with the parents to convince them little johnny HADN"T been healed, and really needed to wear his glasses in order to see. The glasses had often been thrown away. Gods evident reluctance to actually heal the children of the true believers, is just one of many many things that cause me to not believe.

T C:

That seems like a lame reason to not believe. (not that i really have any better reasons for believing in the first place, mind you). God doesn't go around healing all the believers. Never did. Would it be a miracle if it happened every day? (Not to mention that I mange to associate tent revivals with scam artists.) I like to believe that God heals people that actually need it. If you can see fine with glasses, why do you need your eyes fixed?

F H:

It's just one of many, many reasons. There's the evidential argument from evil, The euthyphro dilemma. The fact that 19 men of faith hijacked four planes and flew them into buildings with the express intent of killing as many people as possible, believing it to be a supremely moral and righteous act. They believed just as fervently that the Qu'ran is the word of god, as I'm certain you do that the bible is. How do you know that you're right, and that they are wrong?

T C:

I don't. The Crusades were fought by thousands of people that believed that to a supremely moral and righteous act too. I don't believe they were right, just as I don't believe those 19 men were right. But I'm not about to say that 19 fanatics with a misinterpretation of the God's word mean that God doesn't exist either. (and I take it to be a misinterpretation because my God is their God, and we all at least agree that God says killing is wrong).

Fact of the matter is that there's no substantive evidence either way, so everyone is free to believe what they'd like. In the absence of concrete evidence, nothing can be proven about anything.

As I said, I have no better reasons for believing in God than you have for not believing. I just have to take it on faith, just as you do, in the lack of any evidence.

Past, Present, and Future

Another random idea and off-the-cuff post...
There seems to be divide in human thought between past, present, and future. By past, present, and future, I mean not only their meaning in time but also ideas associated with each of them. For instance

Past: experience, ideals, tradition, security

Present: sensation, pragmatism, pleasure

Future: imagination, ideals, innovation, revolution

(Present is probably the category with the most diversity: pragmatism and pleasure, for instance, might very well be opposed to eachother)

Here's how I would categorize some philosophies, mind-sets, and types of people according to the past/present/future distinction:

Past: conservatism, fundamentalism, respect for elders/ancestors, Confucionism, literalism, "conservative" intellectuals, reactionaries, Guardians

Present: some elements of conservatism, libertarianism, hedonism, empiricism, Zen, artists, hippies, thrill seekers, "down-to-earth", "do what needs to be done", Artisans

Future: liberalism, "the children are our future", Western Thought in general, some elements of Randian philosophy, inventors, artists, philosophers, radicals, Idealists, Rationals

(it should be obvious that, just because two things are in the same category, doesn't mean they are compatible: "down to earth" people and hippies probably would not get along very well, for instance. They are however both focused on the present.)

Old Credo

This is something I wrote up for a church "Coming of Age" project about a year ago. Some of the stuff still holds, some of it doesn't, but I thought it would make a good intro to this adventure in blogging:

I believe that nothing can be known with absolute certainty. I am a skeptic and aknowlege that everything I know is known only through my senses and my opininions, which may be deceiving me.

I call myself an “Athgnostic”, sort of a cross between an agnostic and an atheist. I don’t, in my heart, believe in god and, more and more, I don’t feel a desire for god, which is how I am an Atheist. However, I intellectually acknowledge room, and quite a lot room, in fact, for doubt about gods non-existence, which is how I am an agnostic. But I don’t believe or want there to be one.

I’m doubting more and more the existence of an afterlife, not only because of evidence (which is ambiguous on both sides of the debate), but also because I am wondering whether there even needs to be one. As I believe Buddha said, and Hume definitely said (as long as I trust my philosophy textbook), and that I first came across in a book by Richard Dawkins, we are not the same person as we were, say, 10 years ago, especially someone like me who is 15 and ten years ago was 5. So then, in a way, who we were 10 years ago is dead, and our biological death is only the next step in that cycle of change.

I believe in a spirituality based science. Science can satisfy the spiritual need. Imagine: everything we know was once compressed into a dense point of matter; everything was once indistuingishable from everything else, was once all one and the same. The theory of evolution says that all creatured evolved from a common ancestor. We are attempting to find the “theory of everything”. That is what science continues, over and over, to discover: that everything, if one searches hard enough, eventually reduces to one substance, ancestor, principle. Everything is, in a sense, one, and in, to me, a much more majestic sense then having all been created by one Judeo-Christian god 6,000 years ago, or any other god. At any other time. I believe this furnishes a sense of empathy towards all other things and people, and a realization that we are no more important, ultimately, then anything else. The human race, if it wants to be important, has to make itself important, and the best and most reliable way that we can insure that we will have the opportunity to do so is by protecting our own existence, and, because of the SCIENTIFC laws of nature, in order to protect our own existence we must protect the existence of what is around us.

I believe the best way to do so that we know of so far is through Utilitarian ethics, the belief, as I interpret it for my own, that what is right is what causes the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of beings, what is wrong is what does the opposite. Sometimes we must cause imediate pain, sometimes great, in order to reach this goal. I believe in the golden rule.

I believe that this eliminates the need for blame or the concept of evil. I think what we consider evil (and also what we consider good) is only a combination of people’s disposition and upbringing. Instead of people being evil, they could be considered harmful in the Utilitarian sense of causing pain, and therefore not punished for being evil, but worked with (sometimes including punishment) to hopefully make them, not only less harmful, but hopefully beneficial.

I believe that it is my purpose in life to make and help people examine their won beliefs because I cannot prove that their beliefs are true or false, but I can show with certainty that they are self-contradictory. My hope, that I will never fulfill because I am human, is that I can learn not tto care what people believe as long as their beliefs are self-consistent and aren’t detrimental to an application of Utilitarianism.

I also think it is my purpose to be a UU evangelist. I mean evangelist in the literal sense of the word, in that I want to be someone who spreads the message of UU, and draws people to it. Actually, to be honest, my goal is to become rich and famous so everyone knows about me and, knowing I’m UU, become UU themselves. My hope is to do this though music, film, and other art, and possibly books explaining UU. I do believe that it is the religion that best suits me and that, at the risk of tootling UU’s horn, if more people were UU or followed its ideals (I say ideals instead of principles because the principles, in my opinion, are imperfect and secondary), the world would be a better place