OPPORTUNITY-How much more precious is this life if we truly believe that it's our one and only chance at existence? The 27 years of personal experience with Christianity led me to essentially waste many, many days thinking that I had all of eternity to make up for any shortcomings. Within the past two years I have had a "spiritual" revolution of sorts within myself that has ultimately led me down a different path to non-theism. To the "Holy Spirit-filled" person out there (which I once believed I was): how do you explain that my life has never been better since this change? My days are filled with a special quality and attribute unlike any I've ever experienced; that THIS will never happen again. Never again will I get the chance to love my daughter and wife and watch them grow with me. Change is natural, it keeps us mentally fit and provides new life, new hope, new aspirations, and ultimately, it keeps us interested. Without change, what else would keep us fulfilled? The believer's primary incentive for life, Heaven, would undoubtedly be a place without change. Of course, the Bible says that we would be transformed and different in Heaven while not experiencing our painful feelings of the flesh, but the Biblical explanation regarding the details of Heavenly life are insufficient and vague at best (possibly due to the authors' lack of imagination, lack of evidence, or maybe the simple fact that there IS no Heaven.) However, one thing is for certain: there would be no bitter to accompany our sweet. There would be nothing worth fighting for, nothing worth attaining, and ultimately, nothing worth achieving. You see, accomplishment defines our lives, and to take this away from us for eternity would be to destroy what makes us, well...US. After a long day of miserable work, the reward is unlike anything that a day of rest could ever deliver.
As a child, eternity in Heaven actually scared me. I thought to myself, eternity means FINALITY, and what could possibly be so great about being conscious for eternity in a perpetual state of monotony? Add all of this to a picture of kneeling at the foot of God forever while singing the same hymns over and over, and it isn't exactly what I would have in mind for an infinite state of existence. Therefore, what is so terribly wrong about simply rejoicing in the fact that we are all just lucky to be here in this life for the brief moment in the history of histories that our short lives encompass? Is THAT not enough to live vigorously, passionately, and most of all, lovingly? While you may need an eternal reward for purpose, a God to tell you how to live and what to do with your time and money, certainly doesn't mean that everyone else does. If you need God to exist to love or live, then how much is your love or life actually worth? The love that I have for my family is unconditional, the desire to treat people fairly is unconditional, and finally, the will to do good to other people is absolutely not contingent upon whether or not a "Divine Surveillance" exists.
If I am wrong, I can at least say this much: I did not live a life in vain. I lived my life as a skeptic in the deepest sense. I asked questions that many believers were scared to ask, but what remains is the fact that I loved, and lived unconditional to a belief in an "eternal reward." I did my very best to filter through every possibility to uncover truth. On the other hand, if I'm right, and the believer that "bet the house" simply displayed their credulity and erringly served what was purported to be the one, true God out of the thousands available for hire, in fact, wasted their one chance at living. They, actually were the ones that lived in vain, wagering on a wishful hope that their simple belief upon a miraculous Resurrection and a malevolent, genocidal Narcissist, also known as the Old Testament's Yahweh, would save them from the ultimate reality.....that when death arrives, we will cease to exist.
“I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.” ~Albert Einstein
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
"Blood is thicker than water..."
The German proverb that was first penned by Heinrich der Glîchezære is about more than just emotional attachment to our kin. It's about genetics. The basic unit of life on Earth is the gene. Genes are similar to computer programs because they guide everything from our physical characteristics and traits to our behavior. The reason a person feels a connection with a relative comes not only from their past history of common experience and sacrifice, but also because, quite simply, your genes LIVE inside your relatives, and their "job" is to defend one another. Genes do not "think," but the simple truth is this: genes have built us to protect and replicate themselves. A genes only "purpose" is to copy itself, and to do so efficiently, economically, and effectively. The propagation, multiplication, and competition of genes is what has built the diversity of life that we see in our world today. Genes themselves were built from atomic interactions, and it only took one singular event from the infinite range of possibilities that the elements afforded this chance to start the process of replication as the "ultimate catalyst for life." As Richard Dawkins states in "The Selfish Gene," we are "survival machines" built for the protection and the dissemination of our genetic code. Everything on Earth that's living has a DNA code, even plants. One example of how the process of non-random selection works is this: take a chili pepper for instance, evolution perfectly explains why a chili pepper is hot to our taste. Chili peppers have evolved their "hotness" because the hotter they are, the less likely they are to be eaten, and eaten in terms of survival means their genes die and depopulate. Through random mutations, or "genetic copying errors," chili peppers have evolved this distinguished attribute. Another example is opium. Opium plants have thrived throughout history because of their uncanny ability to soothe pain when ingested. This mutation has enabled opium plants to successfully and abundantly reproduce and replicate for centuries. In other words, this mutation has allowed the opium plant to be SELECTED FOR. The painkilling genetic mutation that this plant fortunately produced was VERY advantageous to its survival, therefore, it has flourished. This is NATURAL SELECTION. Evolution logically explains everything from the dinosaurs to the giraffe to wisdom teeth to skin color. It even explains why it is that when we eat, we gorge. Darwin proposed the heretical idea that all life is descended from a common ancestor, and microscopic analysis of each and every organism's DNA has only confirmed the eye-opening truth, that human beings are not "different." Nietzsche once said, "become what you are." Animal I have become...
Monday, July 11, 2011
ábrase los ojos...
BECOMING-Think about a great song you heard for the first time that you didn't like, but now love. Now, think about how it would be to have never given that song a second listen. The first time I hear a song, my senses are somehow rebelliously bombarded by the unique experience. It's always such a foreign invader to my routine of normalcy, and the unfamiliar newness promotes an overwhelming feeling of unwelcomeness. This sensual barrier, of sorts, leads to what I believe as a lost opportunity for a revolution of perception, and this simple analogy can open up a multitude of doors for a person's self-renewal, growth, or even re-birth.
Revolving the past few years of life and reflecting upon a few of the inadequacies of my foregoing beliefs, it commences to a particular distinguishing point in time when things were altered in my reality forever. It's actually pretty academic to illustrate in short with this simple statement, and I think it sums it up nicely...the moment I learned how to listen, I grew. I always thought I had an idea of what valid, veriacious listening was, but I didn't come to fully understand how important it was until recently. Using the inner-most, extending sense of their meaning, the words "hearing" and "listening" occupy two significantly different territories of perceptual reality, and in my mind, they couldn't be more contrasting in their overall effect even though they are often paralleled onto one another. [For my philosophical friends (probably the only ones to make it this far into the post, lol): it's indulgent to say that perhaps I'm not "listening" right now, and we could infinitely regress about the probability that I, in fact, do NOT think I am wrong at this point therefore I am simply duplicating my previous aberrations in judgment, but I digress, for now, for the sake of our sanity.] Another, perhaps, easier way to explain what I'm speaking of is the assertion that there are distinctly two essential elements in the process of what I call the mind's "revolution"...observation and introspection. Without one, there cannot be the other because without introspection, we wouldn't observe, and without observation, our knowledge wouldn't evolve. In turn, we can use this concept to develop the basics in our pursuit of "experience," and I believe this is fundamentally an important aspect regarding our time here on Earth.
I have developed a new pursuit, a new idea for life. I wish to challenge myself to work diligently at my perception and beliefs about the world. A good premise or "rule of thumb" is this...."think" before thinking. My aforementioned example of music shows us a small, yet crucial and vitally important aspect about learning how to recognize our innate defenses and use it as a "weapon" for growth. Practice "musical Nihilism" because it's such a wonderful enlightenment, and disseminate it to other areas of your culture. Understand that "your way" is not necessarily synonymous with the "right way." Violating this principle leads to the abundant hatred and discrimination that we see in this world so much today. "Different" does not equal "wrong!"
Lastly, understand that to pursue the Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hour rule" is to LIVE! Work hard at learning about the world, and most importantly, learn to "know thyself." What is greater than truly knowing your own inherent tendencies and desires? Is a problem not most easily solved when the variables are KNOWN? The greatest things in life take work, and the reward is proportional to the sacrifice incurred. Once you understand these concepts, the world will open up to you in ways you may have never imagined. This world may be the only existence we ever know so ábrase los ojos. Open your eyes, and LIVE!
Revolving the past few years of life and reflecting upon a few of the inadequacies of my foregoing beliefs, it commences to a particular distinguishing point in time when things were altered in my reality forever. It's actually pretty academic to illustrate in short with this simple statement, and I think it sums it up nicely...the moment I learned how to listen, I grew. I always thought I had an idea of what valid, veriacious listening was, but I didn't come to fully understand how important it was until recently. Using the inner-most, extending sense of their meaning, the words "hearing" and "listening" occupy two significantly different territories of perceptual reality, and in my mind, they couldn't be more contrasting in their overall effect even though they are often paralleled onto one another. [For my philosophical friends (probably the only ones to make it this far into the post, lol): it's indulgent to say that perhaps I'm not "listening" right now, and we could infinitely regress about the probability that I, in fact, do NOT think I am wrong at this point therefore I am simply duplicating my previous aberrations in judgment, but I digress, for now, for the sake of our sanity.] Another, perhaps, easier way to explain what I'm speaking of is the assertion that there are distinctly two essential elements in the process of what I call the mind's "revolution"...observation and introspection. Without one, there cannot be the other because without introspection, we wouldn't observe, and without observation, our knowledge wouldn't evolve. In turn, we can use this concept to develop the basics in our pursuit of "experience," and I believe this is fundamentally an important aspect regarding our time here on Earth.
I have developed a new pursuit, a new idea for life. I wish to challenge myself to work diligently at my perception and beliefs about the world. A good premise or "rule of thumb" is this...."think" before thinking. My aforementioned example of music shows us a small, yet crucial and vitally important aspect about learning how to recognize our innate defenses and use it as a "weapon" for growth. Practice "musical Nihilism" because it's such a wonderful enlightenment, and disseminate it to other areas of your culture. Understand that "your way" is not necessarily synonymous with the "right way." Violating this principle leads to the abundant hatred and discrimination that we see in this world so much today. "Different" does not equal "wrong!"
Lastly, understand that to pursue the Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hour rule" is to LIVE! Work hard at learning about the world, and most importantly, learn to "know thyself." What is greater than truly knowing your own inherent tendencies and desires? Is a problem not most easily solved when the variables are KNOWN? The greatest things in life take work, and the reward is proportional to the sacrifice incurred. Once you understand these concepts, the world will open up to you in ways you may have never imagined. This world may be the only existence we ever know so ábrase los ojos. Open your eyes, and LIVE!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
A Look in the Mirror...(False Prophets and Failed Prophecies)
REVELATION-With another empty promise in the books that was assured to everyone by end-of-the-world, Rapture touting premillennialist Harold Camping, a wildly unbecoming characteristic of believers from contending denominations and other religions as well has reared its beastly head. Comments about how "stupid," "idiotic," and "absolutely crazy" the people that follow this guy must be are plentiful throughout headline articles, Facebook, newspapers, internet forums, and daily conversation. Obviously, it's a given that Mr. Camping was wrong about his grand prediction, but I want to bring into light the lip service that so many are delivering while pointing out that anyone who could believe in a claim so ridiculous such as Harold Camping's Biblical-based forecast that May 21, 2011 was the date for the Rapture, must be "idiotic." Many of the same people that shout from their self-righteous, "I would never believe such stupidity," soapbox amazingly (at least to me) believe in the following: Balaam's talking donkey (Numbers 22:30), a virgin birth (Matthew 1:18), resurrections (2 Kings 13:21 plus many others), parting the Red Sea (Exodus 14:26), feeding 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish (Luke 9:16-17), Samson killing 1,000 men with the jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:16), a talking snake (Genesis 3:4), Noah's Ark (Genesis Chapters 6-8), a man walking on water (John 6:19), stopping the sun in the sky for Joshua (Joshua 10:13, even though Earth revolves around the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:5 also mentions that the sun moves around Earth), and human beings living 900+ years (Genesis 5:27 and many others.)
I just have a few questions: are these things not far more ridiculous than someone predicting the end of the world and getting it wrong? What is different from one religion's claims about God compared to someone else's such as Mahatma Gandhi, and his "experiences" with his Hindu gods? What makes him wrong and you right? What makes _____ (insert any God here) real and Zeus a myth? I urge everyone to take a look in the mirror and examine your own beliefs before calling others crazy because it just may be that you believe in some pretty outrageous stuff yourself. However, if you grant yourself the common "exception" regarding supernatural beliefs, that somehow your "miracles" are different from every other religion's "miracles," I'm sure you won't think so. ;)
Additional Note: I would like to mention that I fully support the freedom to believe anything you want. I am simply utilizing the right to voice my opinion the same as a preacher uses her right to voice hers. To sum up my point, people often get offended when anyone criticizes their religion or beliefs, yet they seem to have little problem throwing their own stones and calling others "crazy."
I just have a few questions: are these things not far more ridiculous than someone predicting the end of the world and getting it wrong? What is different from one religion's claims about God compared to someone else's such as Mahatma Gandhi, and his "experiences" with his Hindu gods? What makes him wrong and you right? What makes _____ (insert any God here) real and Zeus a myth? I urge everyone to take a look in the mirror and examine your own beliefs before calling others crazy because it just may be that you believe in some pretty outrageous stuff yourself. However, if you grant yourself the common "exception" regarding supernatural beliefs, that somehow your "miracles" are different from every other religion's "miracles," I'm sure you won't think so. ;)
Additional Note: I would like to mention that I fully support the freedom to believe anything you want. I am simply utilizing the right to voice my opinion the same as a preacher uses her right to voice hers. To sum up my point, people often get offended when anyone criticizes their religion or beliefs, yet they seem to have little problem throwing their own stones and calling others "crazy."
Friday, February 11, 2011
Time is a terrible thing to waste...
SCRUTINY-We are all on an ever-consuming conquest to confirm our beliefs. I have personally come to know the endless barrage of partiality launched upon my search for truth by "confirmation bias," but I’ve learned to recognize this natural enemy of intellectual growth, and I try to do my very best to defend against it. Confirmation bias is my mind's progress-nemesis, and I would love to completely destroy it, but human nature is difficult to contend with. Confirmation bias plays two central roles in our mind: 1)it falsely attributes small coincidences to larger notions of "design"(no, meeting up with an old friend on Facebook that you lost contact with years ago is a likely probability, not a miracle), and 2)it guides our information search to repeatedly "confirm" our pre-existing beliefs. This is why it's so important to take the necessary steps to recognize the way the human mind works. For instance, I believe in taking the time to actually read, research, understand, and ultimately give every opponent's claims a fighting chance to win over my support in a discussion no matter how hesitant I might be toward inspection. Somehow, I don’t feel that the favor is usually returned in many of my own experiences from debate, and I will attempt to explain why that is the case with the points ahead regarding human motivation.
I’ve written about reward-incentive before, and it deserves to be mentioned again because it explains human behavior quite well. If we look into the phenomenon of “faith,” it presents us with something important, and it is the following rather blunt statement: no matter what religion or God one may subscribe to, deeply imbedded behind all of the bull shit, lies something very revealing, REWARD-INCENTIVE. If I may borrow from Gordan Gekko's Wall Street speech, a human being's innate and insatiable drive of and for greed "captures the essence of evolutionary spirit," thus propelling people to believe because they simply expect to be rewarded in return for their praise. Believers expect to spiritually "evolve," and receive a divine "return on investment."
Would Islam and Christianity have over 3.5 billion followers if there wasn't the promise for a reward? I certainly don't think so, and quite possibly, religion wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the "heavenly compensation" that man so wishfully invented many years ago. This, in fact, tells us a great deal about the basis of belief in God. That it is fundamentally GREEDY. At the same time that religion fills our hopes with eternal promises, it also penetrates other areas of life as well. It masquerades as spiritual freedom, however it ultimately delivers its impeding control over its followers. No religion professes to give you something for nothing. Personal sacrifice is involved in some form or another. Whether it’s the surrender of your time, your money, your submission of will, your praise, or the control of your behavior, God requires an enormous sacrifice. Religion also plays another contemptible role in many lives, and this is possibly the saddest of them all: humans controlling other humans, and what better way to persuade the masses to your side than by delivering to them the harsh caveat of an eternal, fiery afterlife filled with anguish if they don’t “agree." (Such an obvious man-made angle used for manipulation and exploitation that is almost too embarrassing to admit that I once believed in.)
A few years ago, a question loomed in my thoughts that subsequently led to the expulsion of belief in God from my personal “theory of life,” and it was this: “Why do I believe in Jesus Christ?” Ask yourself this question, write down the answers (if you have any), and think about it. If you arrive at the place where I was, then you will realize that your belief in God stems primarily from four things: 1) You believe what your parents believe, or 2) believing in God provides you with what you think is an opportunity to live forever, or 3) belief in God in some way gives you "purpose," or 4) you think it's better to invoke Pascal's Wager and bet on God with "nothing to lose and everything to gain." (Looking back, I think #4 was my situation. In the deepest sense, I kind of thought a talking snake was silly, but I was too scared to question the Bible.) I suffered from an incredible suppression of imagination (which is definitely in line with what religion does to a child's mind because questioning the fundamentals of the Bible isn't exactly encouraged in Sunday school), and I held my belief in Jesus based upon three possible conclusions: the famous "liar, lunatic, or Son of God" proposition which is nothing more than a logical fallacy. A three-part false dilemma that fails to even list one very important possibility.....that Jesus Christ never even existed. (I would like to note that even if he DID exist, that doesn't prove he was God.) I was completely ignorant, like most are, to the fact that the most important books of the Bible, the Gospels, are not even first-hand witnessed accounts of Jesus.
No matter what you take from this (possibly with a grain of salt), I just ask this much: ask questions to yourself about your beliefs. Put them to an intellectually-honest test. Seek evidence. Learn about yourself, and most of all, EXPAND YOUR NOITANIGAMI/IMAGINATION. There are many paths to a wonderful, happy life here on this earth, and if you need a book to tell you that it's wrong to kill, then there's nothing anyone can do to help you. The philosophy I'm selling is freedom, not riches in Heaven, and I'm definitely not threatening you with punishment if you don't agree. If you think that you're simply "doubling down" on your wager then maybe you'll reconsider the odds that if there is a God, the probability that you're serving the right one is not very good at all. :0
"No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true." -Oscar Wilde
I’ve written about reward-incentive before, and it deserves to be mentioned again because it explains human behavior quite well. If we look into the phenomenon of “faith,” it presents us with something important, and it is the following rather blunt statement: no matter what religion or God one may subscribe to, deeply imbedded behind all of the bull shit, lies something very revealing, REWARD-INCENTIVE. If I may borrow from Gordan Gekko's Wall Street speech, a human being's innate and insatiable drive of and for greed "captures the essence of evolutionary spirit," thus propelling people to believe because they simply expect to be rewarded in return for their praise. Believers expect to spiritually "evolve," and receive a divine "return on investment."
Would Islam and Christianity have over 3.5 billion followers if there wasn't the promise for a reward? I certainly don't think so, and quite possibly, religion wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the "heavenly compensation" that man so wishfully invented many years ago. This, in fact, tells us a great deal about the basis of belief in God. That it is fundamentally GREEDY. At the same time that religion fills our hopes with eternal promises, it also penetrates other areas of life as well. It masquerades as spiritual freedom, however it ultimately delivers its impeding control over its followers. No religion professes to give you something for nothing. Personal sacrifice is involved in some form or another. Whether it’s the surrender of your time, your money, your submission of will, your praise, or the control of your behavior, God requires an enormous sacrifice. Religion also plays another contemptible role in many lives, and this is possibly the saddest of them all: humans controlling other humans, and what better way to persuade the masses to your side than by delivering to them the harsh caveat of an eternal, fiery afterlife filled with anguish if they don’t “agree." (Such an obvious man-made angle used for manipulation and exploitation that is almost too embarrassing to admit that I once believed in.)
A few years ago, a question loomed in my thoughts that subsequently led to the expulsion of belief in God from my personal “theory of life,” and it was this: “Why do I believe in Jesus Christ?” Ask yourself this question, write down the answers (if you have any), and think about it. If you arrive at the place where I was, then you will realize that your belief in God stems primarily from four things: 1) You believe what your parents believe, or 2) believing in God provides you with what you think is an opportunity to live forever, or 3) belief in God in some way gives you "purpose," or 4) you think it's better to invoke Pascal's Wager and bet on God with "nothing to lose and everything to gain." (Looking back, I think #4 was my situation. In the deepest sense, I kind of thought a talking snake was silly, but I was too scared to question the Bible.) I suffered from an incredible suppression of imagination (which is definitely in line with what religion does to a child's mind because questioning the fundamentals of the Bible isn't exactly encouraged in Sunday school), and I held my belief in Jesus based upon three possible conclusions: the famous "liar, lunatic, or Son of God" proposition which is nothing more than a logical fallacy. A three-part false dilemma that fails to even list one very important possibility.....that Jesus Christ never even existed. (I would like to note that even if he DID exist, that doesn't prove he was God.) I was completely ignorant, like most are, to the fact that the most important books of the Bible, the Gospels, are not even first-hand witnessed accounts of Jesus.
No matter what you take from this (possibly with a grain of salt), I just ask this much: ask questions to yourself about your beliefs. Put them to an intellectually-honest test. Seek evidence. Learn about yourself, and most of all, EXPAND YOUR NOITANIGAMI/IMAGINATION. There are many paths to a wonderful, happy life here on this earth, and if you need a book to tell you that it's wrong to kill, then there's nothing anyone can do to help you. The philosophy I'm selling is freedom, not riches in Heaven, and I'm definitely not threatening you with punishment if you don't agree. If you think that you're simply "doubling down" on your wager then maybe you'll reconsider the odds that if there is a God, the probability that you're serving the right one is not very good at all. :0
"No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true." -Oscar Wilde
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Living Forever...Transhumanism
IMMORTAL-"Mutant Planet" is a fantastic series on the Science Channel that elucidates the intricacies of evolution by explaining "mutations" and "adaptations." From the Lemurs of Madagascar, to the Kiwis in New Zealand, every species on Earth is in a persistent struggle to simply exist, and the competition is fierce. Each modern species is gorgeously adapted to its habitat, but environmental changes can happen quickly, (e.g. the castastrophic asteroid that destroyed all non-avian dinosaurs 65 million years ago.) As human beings (homo sapiens,) we are a relatively young species on the playing field at approximately 200,000 years, but we have developed a powerful weapon of survival in our short time here on the 4.54 billion year old planet. This "weapon" is SCIENCE. It is our trump card in Richard Dawkin's "evolutionary arms race" that every one of the millions of species here on Earth are involved in by evolution through natural selection. How we will use our species' expanded mental capabilities that evolved in the last 50,000 years is the important question. How far will we propel medicine?
Currently, scientists are researching the "DNA damage theory of aging." DNA damage occurs frequently within each of our cells, but DNA repair processes have evolved to compensate for most of this damage, however through time, DNA damage accumulates, and we inevitably die. Science is rapidly escalating technology and medicine to fight DNA damage. The implications of complete DNA repair processes could lead to the possibility for a human being to live indefinitely. The movement associated with the advancement toward human immortality is called Transhumanism. It predicts that, at the current rate of technological and medicinal advancement of knowledge, human beings may be able to eventually transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman"(1).
Embryonic and adult stem-cell research, in my opinion, are our most important opportunity to advance our physical life and capabilities. Stem cells are found within every multi-cellular organism, and have the ability to renew themselves through mitosis, and differentiate into a diverse range of specialized cells. Therefore, in simple terms, stem-cells bring the potential for us to essentially "grow" an organ in the laboratory. In the future, medical researchers anticipate being able to use technologies derived from stem cell research to treat a wide variety of diseases including cancer, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, and muscle damage, amongst a number of other impairments and conditions (2)(3).
Of course, these possibilities will invariably produce ethical and moral dilemmas within each of us, but my vision for life is a place where pain and suffering are non-existent. Perhaps, an immortal human body would present more problems for us as a civilization, but at the very least, I feel that science has the distinguished opportunity to be a panacea for all disease. Imagine a life where you could live as many years as you wanted, choose to die if you felt you have served your purpose, and had freedom from the atrocities of something such as cancer. No longer would we have patients on waiting lists for an organ transplant. No longer would we have to worry about our children being born with birth-defects, and possibly suffering for many years. This world would be kind, compassionate, knowledgeable, reasonable, rational, and perhaps most importantly, SCIENTIFIC.
Sidenote: President Obama has been a wonderful spark for the scientific community by lifting Bush-era blockades on stem-cell research funding, and he promotes "scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology." He also stated, "medical miracles do not happen simply by accident(4)."
1. Bostrom, Nick (2005). "A history of transhumanist thought" (PDF). Journal of Evolution and Technology. http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/history.pdf. Retrieved 2006-02-21
2. Lindvall O (2003). "Stem cells for cell therapy in Parkinson's disease". Pharmacol Res 47 (4): 279–87.
3. Goldman S, Windrem M (2006). "Cell replacement therapy in neurological disease". Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 361 (1473): 1463–75.
4. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29586269/
Currently, scientists are researching the "DNA damage theory of aging." DNA damage occurs frequently within each of our cells, but DNA repair processes have evolved to compensate for most of this damage, however through time, DNA damage accumulates, and we inevitably die. Science is rapidly escalating technology and medicine to fight DNA damage. The implications of complete DNA repair processes could lead to the possibility for a human being to live indefinitely. The movement associated with the advancement toward human immortality is called Transhumanism. It predicts that, at the current rate of technological and medicinal advancement of knowledge, human beings may be able to eventually transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman"(1).
Embryonic and adult stem-cell research, in my opinion, are our most important opportunity to advance our physical life and capabilities. Stem cells are found within every multi-cellular organism, and have the ability to renew themselves through mitosis, and differentiate into a diverse range of specialized cells. Therefore, in simple terms, stem-cells bring the potential for us to essentially "grow" an organ in the laboratory. In the future, medical researchers anticipate being able to use technologies derived from stem cell research to treat a wide variety of diseases including cancer, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, and muscle damage, amongst a number of other impairments and conditions (2)(3).
Of course, these possibilities will invariably produce ethical and moral dilemmas within each of us, but my vision for life is a place where pain and suffering are non-existent. Perhaps, an immortal human body would present more problems for us as a civilization, but at the very least, I feel that science has the distinguished opportunity to be a panacea for all disease. Imagine a life where you could live as many years as you wanted, choose to die if you felt you have served your purpose, and had freedom from the atrocities of something such as cancer. No longer would we have patients on waiting lists for an organ transplant. No longer would we have to worry about our children being born with birth-defects, and possibly suffering for many years. This world would be kind, compassionate, knowledgeable, reasonable, rational, and perhaps most importantly, SCIENTIFIC.
Sidenote: President Obama has been a wonderful spark for the scientific community by lifting Bush-era blockades on stem-cell research funding, and he promotes "scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology." He also stated, "medical miracles do not happen simply by accident(4)."
1. Bostrom, Nick (2005). "A history of transhumanist thought" (PDF). Journal of Evolution and Technology. http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/history.pdf. Retrieved 2006-02-21
2. Lindvall O (2003). "Stem cells for cell therapy in Parkinson's disease". Pharmacol Res 47 (4): 279–87.
3. Goldman S, Windrem M (2006). "Cell replacement therapy in neurological disease". Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 361 (1473): 1463–75.
4. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29586269/
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Noah's Ark
BASICS-Over the next few months, my plans are to slowly introduce a few concepts that Bible literalists will undoubtedly have a major problem with, but my purpose is to bring these subjects into light for proper discussion and presentation. It will most certainly arouse apologetics of the Genesis account, and ultimately, it will propose a different way of looking at our biological lives. In my experiences from Oklahoma, I believe that far too many people are shielded, just as I was, from an alternative to Bible fundamentalism, and this alternative happens to be an innovation that science has successfully proved to be an incontrovertible fact over the past 100 years. A true and magnificent milestone achievement. Something that is amazingly mind-blowing when properly understood. A set of principles that truly "revolutionizes" one's thinking about the world. What I'm speaking of is Darwinian evolution. It's undoubtedly a very deep, difficult topic to fully understand, but the importance of it is undeniable. It truly deserves as much time as it does respect. Charles Darwin's idea is possibly the greatest innovation to modern thinking that human beings have ever seen because it flew in the face of virtually all of society, it was BOLD, and most importantly, it gave us an entire new outlook on the history of life. The resistance to it persists in the world today because it dispels stories of a talking snake, a man living in a fish for three days, a virgin birth, and ultimately and most importantly, a RESURRECTION. The most intriguing aspect of evolution is that it tells us WHO WE REALLY ARE. Never before has an idea challenged the masses to the magnitude that Darwin's treatise On the Origin of Species did, and again, I hope to soften the blow that it may render to the delicate religious mind that has never withstood such devastating opposition as this. Because after all, my purpose is to guide and discover new, alternative ways of thinking.
It took months of heated, internal resistance for me to even begin to START giving this alternative a FAIR CHANCE, but honestly, upon finding the evidence throughout the rigorous research and hours of study, things have changed for me. (An obvious understatement.) If I've ever experienced anything even close to a "miracle" in my life, then it was the day that Darwin's evolution by natural selection's "lightbulb" came on in my mind. (May my families' grave-rollers proceed with their 180 degree turn. :)
With that being said, I will proceed to today's topic: Noah's Ark. Again, hopefully this will not be the most difficult thing to digest for people who have actually took an interest in science within the past few years, but I suspect some believers will be very offended by it. All I ask from you, the reader, is to think about this with an open mind, simply a possibility. That's a WONDERFUL place to start. I also ask you to consider the scientists that toil in obscurity while devoting many years of intellectual exhaustion and physical sweat to research in acquiring this new evidence and knowledge. After all, if it weren't for these people, we would still have an average life span of 30 years, and I would probably be in a wheel chair right now. (Another story for another time. :)
I would like to start this series off with a page from Richard Dawkin's latest book The Greatest Show on Earth. It is a book that provides us with the evidence for evolution, and I thought I would post this one particular thought about the validity of the "Noah's Ark" story.
"It is almost too ridiculous to mention it, but I'm afraid I have to because of the more than 40 percent of the American population who accept the Bible literally: think what the geographical distribution of animals should look like if they'd all dispersed from Noah's Ark. Shouldn't there be some law of decreasing species diversity as we move away from an epicenter - perhaps Mount Ararat? I don't need to tell you that that is not what we see.
Why would all those marsupials-ranging from tiny pouched mice through koalas and bilbys to giant kangaroos and Diprotodonts-why would all those marsupials, but no eutherians at all, have migrated en masse from Mount Ararat to Australia? Which route did they take? And why did not a single member of their straggling caravan pause on the way, and settle-in India, perhaps, or China, or some haven along the Great Silk Road?
....How on Earth do the 40 percent of history-deniers think this state of affairs came about?...Once again, I AM SORRY TO TAKE A SLEDGEHAMMER TO SO SMALL A NUT, but I have to do so because more than 40 percent of the American people believe literally in the story of Noah's Ark. We should be able to ignore them, and get on with our science, but we can't afford to because they control school boards, they home-school their children to deprive them of access to proper science teachers, and they include many members of the United States Congress, and some state governors...." (Dawkins 268-270)
And what about the penguins making their merry little marches (swims) toward the arctic? Does Noah's Ark make any plausible sense of this at all? Let's shed our preconceptions, and think about this for a moment......if evidence really did, in fact, support Noah's Ark and "the Great Flood" then why would science dispute it?
A)Either science is right, and the Genesis account is a myth.
or B)Satan planted the evidence to "trick" us into denying Noah's Ark.
And finally, I leave you with this question.....what do you think is more likely to have happened?
Also, here is an interesting article (see bottom) from National Geographic that explains the myth of "the Great Flood."
Source: Dawkins, Richard. The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press, 2010. 268-270. Print.
Further research: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090206-smaller-noah-flood.html
It took months of heated, internal resistance for me to even begin to START giving this alternative a FAIR CHANCE, but honestly, upon finding the evidence throughout the rigorous research and hours of study, things have changed for me. (An obvious understatement.) If I've ever experienced anything even close to a "miracle" in my life, then it was the day that Darwin's evolution by natural selection's "lightbulb" came on in my mind. (May my families' grave-rollers proceed with their 180 degree turn. :)
With that being said, I will proceed to today's topic: Noah's Ark. Again, hopefully this will not be the most difficult thing to digest for people who have actually took an interest in science within the past few years, but I suspect some believers will be very offended by it. All I ask from you, the reader, is to think about this with an open mind, simply a possibility. That's a WONDERFUL place to start. I also ask you to consider the scientists that toil in obscurity while devoting many years of intellectual exhaustion and physical sweat to research in acquiring this new evidence and knowledge. After all, if it weren't for these people, we would still have an average life span of 30 years, and I would probably be in a wheel chair right now. (Another story for another time. :)
I would like to start this series off with a page from Richard Dawkin's latest book The Greatest Show on Earth. It is a book that provides us with the evidence for evolution, and I thought I would post this one particular thought about the validity of the "Noah's Ark" story.
"It is almost too ridiculous to mention it, but I'm afraid I have to because of the more than 40 percent of the American population who accept the Bible literally: think what the geographical distribution of animals should look like if they'd all dispersed from Noah's Ark. Shouldn't there be some law of decreasing species diversity as we move away from an epicenter - perhaps Mount Ararat? I don't need to tell you that that is not what we see.
Why would all those marsupials-ranging from tiny pouched mice through koalas and bilbys to giant kangaroos and Diprotodonts-why would all those marsupials, but no eutherians at all, have migrated en masse from Mount Ararat to Australia? Which route did they take? And why did not a single member of their straggling caravan pause on the way, and settle-in India, perhaps, or China, or some haven along the Great Silk Road?
....How on Earth do the 40 percent of history-deniers think this state of affairs came about?...Once again, I AM SORRY TO TAKE A SLEDGEHAMMER TO SO SMALL A NUT, but I have to do so because more than 40 percent of the American people believe literally in the story of Noah's Ark. We should be able to ignore them, and get on with our science, but we can't afford to because they control school boards, they home-school their children to deprive them of access to proper science teachers, and they include many members of the United States Congress, and some state governors...." (Dawkins 268-270)
And what about the penguins making their merry little marches (swims) toward the arctic? Does Noah's Ark make any plausible sense of this at all? Let's shed our preconceptions, and think about this for a moment......if evidence really did, in fact, support Noah's Ark and "the Great Flood" then why would science dispute it?
A)Either science is right, and the Genesis account is a myth.
or B)Satan planted the evidence to "trick" us into denying Noah's Ark.
And finally, I leave you with this question.....what do you think is more likely to have happened?
Also, here is an interesting article (see bottom) from National Geographic that explains the myth of "the Great Flood."
Source: Dawkins, Richard. The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press, 2010. 268-270. Print.
Further research: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090206-smaller-noah-flood.html
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