Tuesday, March 22, 2005

The SOUP!!!

Screw blogger! I can't even comment back in my own blog, so I gave in and added haloscan, becase blogger: I"M SICK OF YOUR SHIT! I fart in your general direction. All the comments from my previous post got erased, but my response will go here.

That Girl - Don't worry I won't become famous. Knowing me I'll probably end up as a construction worker or something. But you will still love me because on hot and sweaty summer days I will drink ice cold Pepsi with my shirt off.

Sex - I edited a few typos. They disturb me. It's like when the teacher erases the chalkboard but he misses as spot, and the whole time I'm just staring at the spot brooding with hatred and anger. It's like that.

Amber - I can't answer where the Big Bang came from, or how it banged, yet that is my point! Uncertainty. I can however be very critical of the concept of Intelligent Design. You don't need to answer back, and don't take any of it personally, I'm just a natural critic and a big meanie.

Here's my question about Intelligent Design.

How did God come about? How can one ask how the universe came about without asking how did God come about? I think its a double-standard to suggest that God is absolved from the very same First Cause necessitation that theists apply to the Big Bang. It frustrates me to see theists wash their hands from explaining how God came about, because within their paradigm it is taken on faith that He has no beginning and no end and therefore, He was not created because He already existed - viola, He needs no cause. But its part of the dogma that God has no beginning and no end, so how can this justify one's faith if its taken on faith? Circular reasoning.

Another bad line of reasoning is how people tend to ask "who created" as opposed to "what created". Why do we automatically assume a being? Perhaps it is because "how" is a much harder and perhaps unanswerable question. The theist avoids these complications by simply supposing a "who" instead - that an all powerful omniscient, omnipotentent, omnipresent being created existance with a "flick of the wrist" so to speak. I find this to be very supernatural and very hard to fathom.

I also feel that it's a poor use of reverse logic to ascribe those triple O's to this being simply because they are a preliminary necessitation in order for this Being to be able to create existance in the first place. The line of reverse reasoning being, "in order for A (God creating the universe) to be true, B (omniscience) and C (omnipotence) must also be true" This isn't building from the ground up. This is supposing what must be true in order for an invisible being to be the ultimate creator. So how did God gain his perfection? Who, what, how was perfection ascribed to him? Did he ascribe perfection to himself? Wouldn't he then need to be perfect in the first place in order to do such a thing - then we are back to square one.

But of course all these ontological problem are avoided because it is taken on faith that this Perfect Being is without flaw and has always existed, and perfection answers to nothing, so nothing is a problem. But then the nerve, for one who posits such a thing taken on faith to transfer the burden of proof on the non-theist to explain the First Cause, as if they had nothing to explain themselves!!! Because with faith the package is all so nice and tidy. No explaining necessary, at least not in the scientific sense, it only has to "make sense". It's all so intellectually irresponsible. Sorry haha, I don't mean to sound condescending but as you can see I think it's all rather ill-conceived.

Don't get me wrong Amber. I said you don't have to answer because I am not trying to test your faith or make you stick up for it because I applaud what you have. I am simply trying to show how I question things too fucking much before I can accept them.

***

So where did THE SOUP come from? In terms of the burden of proof, it is not my job to explain how the universe came about because I will readily concede the stance that such an explanation is beyond the realm of scientific knowledge or observation, at least at this moment. How the universe was created cannot be empirically observed or verified, so I must be content with uncertainty. I love uncertainty, but of course there is always hypothesis!

Scientists cannot sucessfully trace back to the exact moment of or before the big bang. The laws of physics simply break down, which makes sense because the laws of physics were conceived during the big bang. Anything before that can only be hypothesized about. Oooh theists love that. They can easily say God started it all. My personal view is that without physical laws to set boundaries, it's not unreasonable to suggest that there was boundless potential for occurance. Once again I see nature working itself out. Coincidentally, not too long ago, homeboy Stephen Hawkins confirmed my hunch.

If you get bored easily you can skip the next two paragraphs.

He proposed Quantum Theory. QT introduces a new idea, one of imaginary time. It may sound like science fiction but this is a genuine scientific concept. Quantum Theory, according to Stephen Hawkins, renders God unnecessary as the spark, or first cause, for the Big Bang. This has to do with imaginary time. One can picture imaginary time as follows. We think of ordinary time in linear terms, a horizontal line. On the left is the past and on the right is the future. But there's another sort of time in the vertical direction, which is called imaginary time, because its not the sort of time we experience everyday. Yet in a sense, it's just as real.

It's proposed that imaginary time is finite in extent, but without boundary. Kind of like the surface of the earth, but tack on another two dimensions. The earth has no boundaries right? You can travel across its surface and not fall off. In this same sense, there wouldn't be any boundaries in the imaginary time space-time. The absence of boundaries means that the laws of physics would determine the state of the universe uniquely, in imaginary time. Yes my padowans, this means that the laws of physics which allowed for the big bang worked themselves out. If the theory is correct. The math checks out, just can't be empirically observed.

I know i know, its hard for me to grasp as well. But that brings up a key point. Just because we can't understand all these scientific concepts that great minds rely upon and talk about doesn't mean in our lack of knowledge, we should rely on our very own conclusive parsimonies. In other words, why are we so inclined to fill our gaps on knowledge with supernatural concepts? We've been doing it for centuries. What's crackin Zeus?

Sometimes I think that people who believe in God are missing out on so much because they think they already have the answers. But as my homeboy S.H. once said, and I've never agreed with any quote more than this one, "The greatest enemy to knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge".

Amber, I am only certain in my uncertainty. Yes I take alot of things on faith, but there is a clear distinction between the extent of faith i apply (pragmatic faith) and spiritual faith!

But don't feel sorry for me. I'm happy as a bug. If i may be perfectly honest, it seems to me that the most fervent theists need their faith, as if it were a drug, and they can't imagine life any other way. They become egocentric and assume that their desire for God holds true for everybody. Well I can't imagine how certain people don't feel the urge to get fuckin plastered all the time but some simply don't, and for me to project my fondness of the spirits on them would only illustrate my inability to step outside my narrow world. And sometimes its not so much about seeing what others see but feeling what they feel as well.

I'm used to living without belief in a higher power, and if life is about finding purpose, who is to say that purpose and happiness are found solely through God? As if we didn't have emotions. As if i weren't entitled to feel appreciated without God. As if i weren't able to feel happiness as readily as the next man, or think puppies were cute.

But I could never explain my purpose in life to someone who's purpose in life is God. They are indeed a thickheaded bunch at times because they have seen "the light". I really want them to take their pity and shove it up their asses, because I have purpose whether they believe it or not (I'll update you on LAFS soon.. oh billy). And that's hardly even me saying what I truly feel sometimes. But I digress, because like i said, if i wanted faith, if i needed it that bad, i would get it. Why I don't feel that urge, who is to say. What I do know is that, at least for me, God isn't necessary for me to feel at peace with life, and i cannot stress that enough. Take it or leave it!

So what happens when I die?

I don't know Amber. My most reasonable guess is that everything will remain the same, except me. Don't believe in a soul neither. I wish, but i don't think.

Jasika - you say there HAS to be God, as if to say nothing makes sense if there wasn't. Or as if to proclaim an emotional want for the concept. But isn't that almost as if to admit, deep down, that a part of it has to do with wishful thinking?

But I'm sorry, I've beaten this subject to death with a stick. I will be back to my regularly scheduled programming. Unless something else comes up... But most likely I'll be back to my regularly scheduled programming.