A story

A

A young man who was searching for meaning heard of a great Master. He approached the master in public and asked if he could become a student.

The master asked, "Can you meet me at my home at noon tomorrow?" They agreed, and went apart to their business.

At noon the next day the young man found the master in his sand garden. "Master, I have come as you invited, and I am ready for my lesson."

The master looked up and smiled. "Here, sit with me and draw in the sand." And he handed him a stick to draw with.

For a few minutes the student drew in the sand with the master, but in a while he was perplexed. He asked, "Master, how much longer until the lesson?"

The master smiled, dropped his stick, and told the student, "Your lesson has ended for today. Come back when you are ready, and tell me what you have learned."

To be continued...

Not About Atheism For Once.

Ok, I have been away. I have some ideas but as of yet not time to complete. So here's a quickie from me.
We need a few laws passed.
First, beef jerky is really unhealthy, and I am sure the AMA and the ADA would agree, so we outlaw it and the animal we get it from, despite its alternative value.
Also, we make up an irrational argument based on nonsensical bullshit that partnering to raise young has to, HAS TO, be these parts and those parts, and never two of the same, and we arbitrarily demand that of one another.
Despite my least hopes for humanity, I cannot believe any mind is seriously thoughtless and bland enough to embrace this utter travesty. Sadly, here I am not just wrong, but an epic failure.
I really want you to leave a comment. Just say "hi" or "pick up milk" or something. I want to know who reads and maybe why. So you can tell me that too.
Thanks. Real content en route.

The Enigma Of Perception

I'm going to set aside my godless ramblings this time and explore how we see the world around us. We don't think about this enough, but it is maybe the most important thing we can understand.

When we enlarge a photo on a computer we don't get a more detailed view. The image turns grainy at some point. I can shoot houses way off in the distance, and no matter how large I blow it up I will not see what is on the TV through a window. And in the dark room the result is the same, the image fuzzes out and there is a point at which no further detail can be ascertained.

This is an apt paradigm for our senses. Although reality seems smooth, it is actually pretty grainy. As a result, as we examine a thing, we are able to reach a limit at which point we cannot look any closer and see further meaning into the concept. Perhaps it is just too complicated for our minds to contain; perhaps our eyes or ears, aided by the best technology we have, cannot detect any more data from the background noise.

So is this a chicken-and-egg game, or a Russian Doll phenomenon? Is there an essential bottom layer of knowledge that simply lies beyond our perception, or if we had infinite perception would we find that the degree of detail we can tune in to is also infinite?

Either option is mind-blowing, actually. But the two systems imply vastly different sets of game rules.

If reality is finite, if we can arrive at a place where we can shout "Eureka" and show that there is no further to go, that we have broken things down to the point where they are no longer able to be broken down, then science will come to an end, being replaced by engineering based upon these essential rules of life, the universe and everything.

If reality is infinite, if we can never reach that point, then we can never really know anything 100%. Our understanding will always be hobbled by our inability to see more clearly. We will forever rely on estimates, guesses and our gut instincts to accomplish anything.

If we accept that quantum science shows us that the mental and physical realms are interconnected and indistinguishable, the latter argument holds sway. And it's very interesting, and perhaps ironic, that our millenia of scientific pursuit results in the suggestion that science is on an endless journey, and there can be no ETA because there is no place to arrive at.

To me, this stunning understanding is far more awesome than the idea that a watchmaker built this reality. To others, it seems to perfectly explains just why their super-physical deity is so cagey in our reality.

Either way, it makes one fact entirely clear. The quest for information, knowledge or enlightenment cannot be achieved with an expectation that you will ever be finished. As much as we try to apply laws and codes to reality, it is all merely a simple convention to organize chaos, to find a path of apparent sense through all the madness.

In other words, you can't get there from here. But you are journeying anyhow, so pick a route that takes you through interesting territory. The trip is not a waste of time just because we won't reach a final destination.

Filler

Had some things to attend to over the last week so have not updated. Sorry. I will soon. Rest up till then.

Alien Nation

I have a friend who grew up without any actual exposure to the homosexual lifestyle. He wasn't bothered by it, but he just didn't know anything about it.

Once a gay female friend had a child with her girlfriend. My friend went to visit, and met her girlfriend for the first time. They struck up a conversation about old times, and he was curious about something. He asked, "How does this work? Who is the kid's father? Is one of you?"

Remember, he really doesn't know. He is simply curious about how things work in his old friend's new world. He just asked a question.

We are, after all, only experts of our own experience. And while we might kind of know how things are for another person, we cannot ever really know exactly. Each person's view of the world around them is unique.

The girlfriend got a little hostile. She assumed he was being a jerk - and in her defense, her experiences might very well have taught her to respond like that - and let at him.

Still, she failed to recognize the possibility that this guy was simply asking a naive question. She instead tried to push him away from her and her life.

She alienated him simply because he could not have known what her life was all about already. But of course, you can't.

Now this often happens in religious debate as well. A person is often so convinced that their religious views are correct that they will simply dismiss any slight insinuation that they are incorrect. Their knowledge of their religion is pure and holy and damn you if you disagree.

(Some atheists get this way too. They get so cocksure that their understanding is the obvious right way to think, they dismiss anyone who believes in something else.)

This type of behavior is alienating. It is damaging, it destroys all communication. And, frankly, in the US it is also very, very common.

If you really want to live a life in such a mindset, that your own religion or personal understanding is the one and only way, and other ideas are simply not ok, you should probably do yourself and everyone else a favor then and stop even bothering to communicate at all, except with the few people who agree with you. You are, after all, by adopting that mindset and maintaining it, personally ensuring that you cannot effectively communicate.

We should, instead, remember that we are only the experts of our experience, but that person over there is the expert on his, and he might have something useful to offer. By opening your mind to new ideas, and always remaining skeptical of all you think you know, you enable communication to not only exist but to flourish. You grow wiser and smarter. You are a happier person.

The biggest disappointment atheists face in the US today is that the religious people have always wanted it to be a God-lovers-only club. And people don't seem to care if they alienate a 25th of the people because they simply do jot matter to them.

Well, I matter to me. So I choose to accept people whatever crazy thing they believe.

It comes down to one simple idea. Reach out never with anger and alienation, but with acceptance and love.

Please comment and share, and ask me questions if you like. Thanks for reading.

P.S. I'll bet you a dollar that there are more atheists who can recite Bible passages than Christians who can accurately define "atheism". Just sayin'.

Being Different

There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed,
But I've never been one of them.

"Every Sperm Is Sacred", lyrics Palin/Jones

Being different is hard enough. When you are only similar to, say, ten percent of other people, you find it hard to relate fully to other people. And when a major poll finds that people like you are the least likely to be elected president, it us discouraging. No one would choose to be that different, would they?

Yet people choose to reject things everyone else seems to just accept. Everyone else rushes to the grocer for bread and milk prior to a snowstorm, but you know your rations are sufficient. People crowd for a chance to be on the local TV news, but you understand the pointlessness of it. Fans camp out for hours for tickets, but you are content with a lesser prize that fits better into your lifestyle.

We make decisions in life that differ from other people, sometimes drastically. Those decisions are not wrong merely because they are different. In fact, we often feel that, in absence of any evidence to the contrary, we may as well be just as right, or more right, than the rest of them.

So what if we took one of the most universal beliefs, namely, the idea that some greater intelligent force has us captive to their power, and decided to question its meaning?

Atheists are people who choose to reject unfounded assertions that some greater god-force has any meaningful reality. Atheists are like the character in the Monty Python slit cited above, except we reject one additional god. We are just like people who don't believe in Greek gods, or Egyptian gods, or Norse gods, but for us, it's any gods.

Just by making that one choice, though, we invite hatred. For some reason the idea of someone thinking outside the "God box" scares the daylights out of people. When we seek equality, we are dismissed as too different. We are distrusted. We are disenfranchised. Not to a horrible, detestable degree - yet. But enough to be noticed.

We saw the Jews. We saw the Irish. We saw the Negroes. We saw the women. We saw the gays. We paid attention. And we learned.

My hope is we can more swiftly dispense with the claptrap of drama and indignity connected to accepting those who are different, and begin appreciating, rather than fearing, the diversity we share.

Because you, in some way, are as weird, different, and special as I am.

I hope that you comment, and share this. I hope to address the questions people have, the concerns they lodge, even the hatred they carry. Please suggest topics for future posts.