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Journal #2
12 years ago
(Just a heads up, my journal posts probably won't be a daily thing. I won't always be there, I'll forget, and many other shenanigans will happen. Life gets in the way of things every now and then.)
2112/21/03/2013
So... it was a long day today. Stressed out, burnt out, and I have a headache from all the aforementioned. However, I have managed to get inspired for a few things. I checked out The Language Of God by Francis S. Collins and A Christianity Worth Believing by Doug Pagitt from my local library. So far, The Language of God has already sated my expectations, first two chapters in. I went through the exact same thing he did. Except, I was a little different. I grew up reading science textbooks and was a closet atheist for many years of my life.
It took a serious system shock to get me to start thinking. There were questions obviously unanswered, and... so I began thinking. I put myself in a position of absolute objectivity, and I found myself quickly in the favor of theism just by thinking about the circumstances by which the universe exists. Naturalistic worldviews only go so far and don't include the intellectual realm (where, supposedly, the spiritual realm exists). I believe it is rather foolish to just assume that the universe and everything to be known (not just the physical existence, the intellectual frontier will be humanity's final frontier) are contained within naturalism.
Regardless, I found that by ignoring certain logic I was able to come up with simple explanations for the existence of an incomprehensibly complex and mathematical universe if I ignored the question 'How?' which is the main proponent asked that drives scientific investigation. If I ignored the three things I believe to be permanently unanswerable by means of scientific investigation, I am able to arrive at the possible guesses that modern scientists have provided.
One thing is this question:
Where did the universe come from? The Big Bang is a possible origin if you like assuming lots about the past, but it does not address how the universe came into origin. If you believe in the cyclic model, then this current state of the universe is an example of just one instance and possibly is not even a blink in the timeline. Three things can be thought about the cyclic model, and that would be that matter has always existed (and the Big Crunch just produces a Big Bang, which then rinses and repeats), Time is a thing that extends forever forward and backward (unless you believe that Time resets every Crunch), and that we will never know with absolute certainty.
When I was younger, I decided to just look around and think long and hard about things. I did this for a long time. I looked around and saw a tree and thought, "That tree is a living thing comprised of millions upon millions of pieces of matter, which will adapt to its surroundings, carries the blueprints for its own construction in millions of near-perfect copies in each cell, uses water and food autonomously, all on its own, and people expect me to believe that stuff like that just happens? What, are they on drugs?"
So, maintaining an unbiased worldview for most of my childhood, I began to think that there is no god. Humans are amoral beings by nature, yes, and humanism is just an attempt to rectify things. We're evil beings that hear about murder every morning on the news and nothing changes. We're beings of one constant: amorality. We have illusions that there are good people, and I'd say that is wrong. You have people doing good things, and people doing bad things, so we jump to the statement that good people do good things and bad people do bad things. When we accept that good people also do bad things, we then proceed to say that good people do more good than bad. Then I asked the question, "What in the world makes that okay? I'm quite sure that 'good people' have done terrible and wished terrible upon others in their lives before, whether we see it or not. So what justifies us labeling them as good?" Not much did. If we're inherently terrible things, then there has to be the opposed. There's always either an opposed or a representative lack of something. A lack of good is consequently bad, and vice versa. So, if humans are bad, then we lack the good, and the good must exist. Humans only get the idea of something if it is possible. And, the definition of good and bad changes per societal rules, so I come to believe that if good and bad do exist, then they are absolute statements. Not relativistic ones.
The idea of a god is not hard. It is not a cop-out for empirical evidence. However, if that empirical evidence is legitimate or is used incorrectly is another question entirely. A good guess at the truth is not the truth at all. And the truth isn't found in only one level of understanding, as I've come to see it.
(My writing rhythm was interrupted while writing this, so it was actually supposed to be much longer.)
As for my personal life, not much has happened. I officially started Spring Break. I'm reading things again. I'm playing Skyrim, and getting rather frustrated with the rather high frequency of enemies; there are more people to kill than necessary and there's no moral options in the game except for quest things. It's... it's... something I need to mod. :l
It is a long-term goal of mine to make a total conversion mod for a game like Skyrim or Oblivion. I'd try to make it as realistic as possible, so it would make for an immensely hard game. I also probably wouldn't sate bloodlust as much as modern games do.
Regardless, nothing in my arenas of existence has changed except for the supposition of an idea that someone I know likes me. And that makes me feel weird. I'm done with this whole love thing until someone shows me some real commitment, and shows that I can trust them. There is someone I like, yes, but I won't pursue that until I can affirm with some more certainty that affection is there.
I hate making myself a fool. Especially in front of people that I care about.
Regardless, life has been good. I feel that I exist for a reason.
Zhas mon drengii. Zhet mon liges.
2112/21/03/2013
So... it was a long day today. Stressed out, burnt out, and I have a headache from all the aforementioned. However, I have managed to get inspired for a few things. I checked out The Language Of God by Francis S. Collins and A Christianity Worth Believing by Doug Pagitt from my local library. So far, The Language of God has already sated my expectations, first two chapters in. I went through the exact same thing he did. Except, I was a little different. I grew up reading science textbooks and was a closet atheist for many years of my life.
It took a serious system shock to get me to start thinking. There were questions obviously unanswered, and... so I began thinking. I put myself in a position of absolute objectivity, and I found myself quickly in the favor of theism just by thinking about the circumstances by which the universe exists. Naturalistic worldviews only go so far and don't include the intellectual realm (where, supposedly, the spiritual realm exists). I believe it is rather foolish to just assume that the universe and everything to be known (not just the physical existence, the intellectual frontier will be humanity's final frontier) are contained within naturalism.
Regardless, I found that by ignoring certain logic I was able to come up with simple explanations for the existence of an incomprehensibly complex and mathematical universe if I ignored the question 'How?' which is the main proponent asked that drives scientific investigation. If I ignored the three things I believe to be permanently unanswerable by means of scientific investigation, I am able to arrive at the possible guesses that modern scientists have provided.
One thing is this question:
Where did the universe come from? The Big Bang is a possible origin if you like assuming lots about the past, but it does not address how the universe came into origin. If you believe in the cyclic model, then this current state of the universe is an example of just one instance and possibly is not even a blink in the timeline. Three things can be thought about the cyclic model, and that would be that matter has always existed (and the Big Crunch just produces a Big Bang, which then rinses and repeats), Time is a thing that extends forever forward and backward (unless you believe that Time resets every Crunch), and that we will never know with absolute certainty.
When I was younger, I decided to just look around and think long and hard about things. I did this for a long time. I looked around and saw a tree and thought, "That tree is a living thing comprised of millions upon millions of pieces of matter, which will adapt to its surroundings, carries the blueprints for its own construction in millions of near-perfect copies in each cell, uses water and food autonomously, all on its own, and people expect me to believe that stuff like that just happens? What, are they on drugs?"
So, maintaining an unbiased worldview for most of my childhood, I began to think that there is no god. Humans are amoral beings by nature, yes, and humanism is just an attempt to rectify things. We're evil beings that hear about murder every morning on the news and nothing changes. We're beings of one constant: amorality. We have illusions that there are good people, and I'd say that is wrong. You have people doing good things, and people doing bad things, so we jump to the statement that good people do good things and bad people do bad things. When we accept that good people also do bad things, we then proceed to say that good people do more good than bad. Then I asked the question, "What in the world makes that okay? I'm quite sure that 'good people' have done terrible and wished terrible upon others in their lives before, whether we see it or not. So what justifies us labeling them as good?" Not much did. If we're inherently terrible things, then there has to be the opposed. There's always either an opposed or a representative lack of something. A lack of good is consequently bad, and vice versa. So, if humans are bad, then we lack the good, and the good must exist. Humans only get the idea of something if it is possible. And, the definition of good and bad changes per societal rules, so I come to believe that if good and bad do exist, then they are absolute statements. Not relativistic ones.
The idea of a god is not hard. It is not a cop-out for empirical evidence. However, if that empirical evidence is legitimate or is used incorrectly is another question entirely. A good guess at the truth is not the truth at all. And the truth isn't found in only one level of understanding, as I've come to see it.
(My writing rhythm was interrupted while writing this, so it was actually supposed to be much longer.)
As for my personal life, not much has happened. I officially started Spring Break. I'm reading things again. I'm playing Skyrim, and getting rather frustrated with the rather high frequency of enemies; there are more people to kill than necessary and there's no moral options in the game except for quest things. It's... it's... something I need to mod. :l
It is a long-term goal of mine to make a total conversion mod for a game like Skyrim or Oblivion. I'd try to make it as realistic as possible, so it would make for an immensely hard game. I also probably wouldn't sate bloodlust as much as modern games do.
Regardless, nothing in my arenas of existence has changed except for the supposition of an idea that someone I know likes me. And that makes me feel weird. I'm done with this whole love thing until someone shows me some real commitment, and shows that I can trust them. There is someone I like, yes, but I won't pursue that until I can affirm with some more certainty that affection is there.
I hate making myself a fool. Especially in front of people that I care about.
Regardless, life has been good. I feel that I exist for a reason.
Zhas mon drengii. Zhet mon liges.
