The Resurrection of Jesus/Logic...

ASCENSION-Recently, I have taken an interest in studying the four gospels of the Bible in much greater detail than in previous attempts. After all, the cornerstone of Christianity is based upon these books and in particular, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To find inconsistency within this pivotal section of the Bible's central message would be to devastatingly (from a believer's standpoint) discover the perception of complete fabrication. While I have read and studied the gospels many times in my life, in this instance, I sought to read them with a set of "new eyes" that are free from intellectual dishonesty and confirmatory bias. I implemented a new approach that questioned the validity of the books' context in a sensible, judiciously logical way.

The results: I have uncovered several contradictions that rise to the surface of my concerns, but for the sake of time and space, I would like to delve into what I consider the most important and obvious flaw that reveals much about the credibility value of the book of Matthew's account as acceptable and reasonable "evidence." The central thesis to this topic will be from Matthew 28 which gives an account of the resurrection of Christ, the most important event in the Bible.

Matthew 28:2-4 states, "There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men." This verse conveys to us that the soldiers guarding the tomb had witnessed, first-hand, that the resurrection of Christ had indeed come to fruition. Keep note of this.

Matthew 28:11-15 proceeds to inform us that the guards traveled into the city to explain the miraculous events that they had witnessed and to give an account to the priests. Subsequently, the priests went on to convene with the elders and "...devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money." Verse 13 tells us that the priests declared to the guards, "you are to say, his disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep." Verse 15 states, "So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day."

So the obvious first question to ask is: How much money would it require for you to conceal the fact that you had just witnessed, with your very own eyes, that Jesus Christ had indeed been resurrected from the dead? And that he truly was, as he had been proclaiming, God incarnate.

The Bible is instructing us that we should unquestionably be impressed and be willing to lay down our very lives for this Truth of truths, yet these guards were so unstirred by the most profound, impactful event that has ever happened in history (remember that they, themselves witnessed this event) that they accepted a BRIBE to cover up this revelation. They didn't fall to their knees, repent, and become transformed, willing martyrs for the "Truth" they had witnessed. No, they DENIED the Miracle of all miracles by securing a bribe and lying about it which would undeniably, by Biblical doctrine, condemn them to Hell for all of eternity.

Therefore intrinsically, either these guards were not at all compelled by this entire sequence of miraculous events, or Matthew was simply not forthright and truthful about his account which would unequivocally expose the Bible as a work that was fundamentally fallacious.

One popular defense of the guards behavior is, "well, the guards were going to be put to death if they confessed the truth." But this argument holds absolutely no merit because the guards and priests would be choosing infinite suffering, money, and surviving a few more years on Earth in lieu of eternal life when they purportedly possessed indisputable, eyewitness evidence that Jesus Christ was in fact what he said he was! Not a lunatic, not a liar, but the Son of God!

In conclusion, this account is embarrassingly fallacious, inconsistent, and completely irrational to anyone that is willing to put aside their preconceived beliefs that, most likely, their parents programmed into them to protect as indisputable truth.

"Human psychology has a near universal tendency to let belief be coloured by desire." -Richard Dawkins

When your freedom becomes another's pain...

A simple fact that we should all be able to personally attest to is that software, movie, and music piracy is out of control. Innovation and economic fairness are being suppressed as a byproduct of this behavior. With that being said, it's understandable that measures are being proposed to discourage intellectual property theft, and with the recent proposition of the Stop Online Piracy Act, individual freedom has been resurrected to the top of our everyday thought. Freedom of speech and personal liberty has been juxtaposed with the protection of intellectual and entrepreneurial property rights. My claim is that this is a far more complex and diverse issue than many people are recognizing and deserves a much deeper analysis. Without an adequate understanding of both sides of this issue, we are not equipped to make any rational, beneficial decisions about this type of legislation. With this post, my simple aim is to promote imaginative, productive thought into this debate.

We must understand that the complete liberation of personal behavior may not be valuable to the maximization of human well-being. It can quickly become invasive upon others' rights, and it can easily destroy the fabric of all objective fairness in any society. Sam Harris asks about this problem in The Moral Landscape: "Should I be able to film my neighbor through their bedroom window and upload this footage onto YouTube? Should I be free to publish a detailed recipe for synthesizing smallpox?" One could also ask if it's acceptable that "personal freedom" allows one to teach their children how to build and detonate nuclear weapons. And down the rabbit-hole we fall even to the depths of granting one the personal freedom to, by any means necessary, fulfill their personal desires even at the expense of another humans' rights and possibly, even to the peril of their own. We have to take into account the possibility that one person's unsubstantiated, misguided delusion could propel humanity into a "less happy" state of being. Therefore, we have to guard against it.

It's my belief that the actions of inhuman totalitarian regimes in the past century have propagated a fear that is eclipsing our judgement on this issue, and many are rushing to a conclusion that "absolute personal freedom" is perfectly conducive to overall human flourishing. In reality, there are no simple resolutions for this problem, but a line must be drawn. For this line to be revised or even removed entirely should be a scientific effort, not a political or philosophical one. As Harris' thesis states, we must make it a scientific, unbiased effort to promote the increased well-being and overall happiness for everyone. With innovative neuroimaging techniques, perhaps we can build a world in which theft, murder, and lying are eradicated. This is undeniably one of the most important matters of any society, therefore, with every fiber of my being, I urge you to research the far-reaching effects of this legislation. Perhaps we can look to science, as Harris believes, to discover the ways to maximize well-being and personal liberation for all.

"Free Will" is an illusion...

SIMULACRA-So what exactly made you read this? Your brain unquestionably made a calculation as to whether or not you should click on the link or simply do something else with your time. At this moment, while you're reading this sentence, your brain is ardently at work registering the variables and alternative courses of action that it may wish to take instead of continuing on with this post. The answer to "why" (or more befittingly stated as "how") you chose to read is within a practical reach, but of course, without looking any further, many of you will credit your action to nothing other than your very own "free will." However, I would like to entertain the idea that perhaps there is a better, more accurate elucidation out there for as to why/how you are reading this, and just perhaps, you aren't really "free" in this sense at all.

Firstly, every action you take, every thought you have is fundamentally rooted in a desire to achieve your WANTS. You cannot control what you want. If it is not possible, as I believe, to change or even remotely manipulate our "want-system" (due to our inherited genetic makeup combined with our individual life experiences), then we are constricted by this "hunger" for our entire lives, and we will continue, as we always have, to fulfill our WANTS above all else in life. For instance, if you chart out, on a piece of paper, a question such as, "Should I go to work today or not," then you will find that there is a matrix that flows toward the answer as to why you will or will not go to work that is much more deeply embedded in this system of wants than you might presuppose. You may be saying, "Well, I still have a 'choice' as to whether I go to work today or not." You may be very surprised that you actually do not. You see, the want-system was built long ago as a by-product of evolution by natural selection, and it determines every desire that you were born with. (The hard-determinism/causality view.) This mechanism seeks incentives to fulfill your wants to in-turn successfully propagate your genes onto the next generation. This system has been constructed over millions of years and involved the success/life/failure/death/well-being of billions and billions of living organisms, and it has shaped our genetic makeup to simply WANT certain things that are merely repercussions of the circumstances that have built our brains. If you admittedly ponder with the utmost intellectual honesty whether or not you actually had a choice to attend work, then you will discover that the only reason you seemingly possessed this "phantom" choice is because the want-system gave rise to your desire for money to feed yourself (that is, of course, if you needed the money for food. There could be innumerable reasons.)

Every single action you take can be linked to some sort of want that you have. Different wants may exist between individuals because genetic makeup combined with previous life experience varies to produce virtually an endless number of results. Everything from smiling at your children, to giving money to a local church can be explained by this system, and I challenge anyone to give me an example of an action that you could ever take that violates the want-system. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that you will ever do in your life that will contradict your want-system. Even if you think you are doing something that you do not want to do such as working 40 hours every week at a laborious job, you are misled because you are behaving to satisfy this mechanism.

Our want-system includes the things we need such as food and water, but also, it is imperative to understand that it includes the pleasurable things we do in life that we classify as hobbies/reward seeking behavior. Of course, by incorporating new information into our brain, inputs such as reading a book, or even reading this post could dictate a change in our want-system that could very well transform our views/beliefs/actions and lead us down a different path. But one thing is for certain, you CANNOT CHOOSE TO CHANGE WHAT YOU WANT. It is our genetic code that includes everything that is US. Therefore in effect, there is no room for such an idea as "free will" because we are bound by genetics and life experiences that we have inherited in this world.

In the opening, I asked about the reasons for you choosing to read this. Perhaps you were completely on the fence about clicking the link. This would be a case in which you say that you cannot make up your mind, and it appears to be a 50/50 balance as to whether you will click the link or not. Therefore, this would be a perfect case in which "free will" would exercise its' authority and prove itself. But actually, it only proves that you do NOT have a choice because you would simply be waiting for a thought to spontaneously arise without having the conscious ability to choose this thought in order to shift the balance in one direction or the other, and in actuality, this thought would come from neurological processes within your brain that YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER. Much like the processes that guide thousands of vital biological systems within the body, why would the brain be any different?

I assure you that one thing is for certain.....if you're reading this right now, then you WANTED to read this, and there was never a choice to be made at all.

"We do not cause our causes." - Sam Harris (The Moral Landscape)

Faith in the Invisible = Evidence Unseen...

...or is it simply nonexistent?

Why do you believe what you believe? I used to never ask myself this question. I always thought this would somehow equal doubt, and I viewed doubt as a sign of weakness. Now, I can tell you this much is true: doubt is a sign of strength, and mistakes are how we learn.

Think about this for a moment......REALLY try to get out of your daily way of thinking about what you think you know, and try to think about the reasons you have for your beliefs regarding things you aren't for sure of......like INVISIBLE things; things that science has yet to observe. With this post, I'm simply asking that if you ARE a believer in supernatural things such as Karma, faith, miracles, God, or even Santa Claus, just think about these two analogies for a bit.

An explanation for our existence does not necessarily have to be answered by a belief in a "Supreme Creator" and definitely not an "in our own image" God......Instead, think about the infinite number of planets out there and the possibility that when you play with odds like "infinity," you'll win the lotto at some point......

Exhibit A: Sleeping Beauty...she wakes up and hears of the incredible odds her hero survived to reach her. At first she might suspect divine intervention or a miracle from above unless she realizes that others might have made the attempt to wake her, and she wouldn't have known about them. In fact, given the odds, she would be correct to conclude that her hero is most likely not the first knight to beat such staggering odds. (There COULD be others, "aliens.")

Exhibit B: Imagine a revolver that holds a billion rounds, but there is one chamber that is empty. You attempt to shoot yourself, but the empty chamber happens to be the one aligned so that you are spared. Was the cylinder somehow "finely-tuned" for your survival by design? It would seem like it, unless you learned that a billion other civilizations had already died trying the other chambers. Undeniably you're still lucky, but there is no miracle, no "Designer."

The "truth" (let's say there is such a thing) of existence could very well be as simple as this: asking a question such as, "Why are we here?" or, "What created the Universe?" is like asking, "What is North of the North Pole?"(Stephen Hawking). I wonder, do these questions even HAVE answers? Here is my "faith," my "belief"...I think that limiting our existence to a question that only creates more complicated, complex questions is to defy logic. To say, "the Universe is so complex that it must have been created," is to add complexity to the question: "Where did the Universe come from?" Because by stating that a VASTLY more complex, intelligent being like "God" was just "always here," is FAR more impossible than merely saying that "the Universe just happened, no explanation needed." This defiance of logic keeps me up at night because it forces me to ask myself whether I'm missing the "truth," or that I've actually found it.



Always keep in mind Occam's Razor: "The simplest explanation tends to be the most likely."






***A special thanks goes out to my youtube friend Rupert Von Schnauzer for entertaining and enlightening my mind with these analogies.***

Reinvent your will...

DISCLAIMER: I wanted to do something different, but I have to warn you that this is poetry embedded in a message, so accept it for what it is. This, like most poetry, is art, and it's not created to be a quick or easy read. There was a lot of work put into this, and there are hidden, subtle things that may take a few reads to catch or understand.

Escalation is my resuscitation. The elevation of this glorification will never satiate the level of frustration I have with my dream, of which I seem, to believe that the hope of a perfect life will never come to fruition with me......but wait, there IS hope.....a paradigm shift, trust it. This life is an opportunity to tread loudly and cross your Ts with Vs to form a weapon that we need the most; a pitchfork to slay the system that controls us. Remember this pain though, and use it, because we wouldn’t feel the real that steals the very soul that we hold onto....this is life, our one chance for change, and we CAN rise above takin’ the low road from the blows that we get from below! What are we searching for? Surely not a whore that’s been found throughout history so many times before. The only rule is that there ARE none, and we’re tired and done with the system enforcing a certain way to behave in these times that we need to betray! The machine that oversees can be overcome, out of its aim to tell us how to live and what to do, but with whom do we have the nerve up to serve up the all-coming enemies that think they know the switches to pull to guide our inner bull...our will. Our savior is hope, our smoke..our high, the remedy to the anti-bitch that tells us we'll inevitably choke, but we know that we won't, because through sacrifice we'll persist till the party insists that we leave because we've broken enough rules to engulf the fool that believes in this illusion of rules. And now I'm gonna tell you a secret, so always keep it: without a god to blame, never feel one ounce of shame for this pain that you feel every day that makes you go insane. Always remember, there will never be another person that's hurtin' so bad that they can't express their own dream to find the piece/peace inside that we're all searching for.......REINVENT YOUR WILL, so we can steal back the wheel back from the machine that is driving our lives.......

Truth has two parts: discovery and acceptance.......consider part one DONE.

Seize the Day...

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

"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...