Things from Today, 9/24

Woah man, it's been a longlonglong time since I updated this, but now that I'm settled into my school schedule and am staying on top of things, I feel like today is a good day to get back in the game with "Things from Today", which hasn't seen the light of day since like July.



First topic, brought upon by my friend Phil: God!


Honestly, recently I've been really faceted on this issue.


On one hand, I'm an atheist who believes we humans must fend for ourselves, and that love is a coincidence and evil a guarantee. It's simply the instinct of humans to do as they will, which usually ends badly. Natural disasters, plagues, crumbling economies... this is all spontaneous- or rather, it just abides by a set of natural laws. Yeah, that'd be it. This world is a machine that has no directions. There are a set of "natural laws", that are a constant. They started of with one particle, the first proton, say. From there, the natural laws took control- through them, matter was created and our world established. It is pure chance that the universe is the way it is. Simply, everything that happens can, potentially, be predicted and forecasted. Of course, this would be like a set of equations- and with every new instance, when any of the natural laws acts upon a piece of matter in our world, all the variables are updated and the next step is evaluated. This is ridiculously all encompassing- this set of laws determines the way blood cells flow through your veins, the way a bird will flap its wings and the way water molecules form themselves into a tidal wave. Note, I am not talking about gravity, the nuclear forces, electromagnetism, or Newton's laws of motion- all of these work the way the do BECAUSE OF the REAL set of "Natural Laws".
Now, there are two more branches of the Natural Laws theory- one is that at some point in the past a proton just happened, and because it existed, so did the Natural Laws. Or suddenly, the Natural Laws just existed, and therefore matter did too.
The other hand is actually called Deism- this is basically the belief that god is an engineer and that the world is his machine. But all that he did was make the machine, give us the Natural Laws, and turned it on. He does not play a role in our lives...there is no such thing as divine intervention. Good or Bad, Love or Death, Success or Sarah Palin, god does nothing about it, nor does he know where this world is going or even care if you pray.


On the other hand,
I have been hijacked by christianity! I went to Italy, saw a ridiculous amount of religious art, learned all about the Passion of Jesus Christ, and honestly, alot of it sounds totally realistic. Some weird, weird part of me believes in this Lord who sent his Child down to sacrifice himself for all of humanity, a lord who created heaven and earth and the creatures and plants. Something big happened around 0 B.C.(E.?)... because think about it: we remember the Beatles from forty years back, we remember George Washington from 200 years ago, we remember Columbus from 500 years ago, but we remember Christ from Two Thousand Years Ago... obviously, SOMETHING HAPPENED, and it was big enough to change civilizations.

On a more heretical note, It's also possible that God is like, oh, i don't know... a person who has never cooked in a kitchen... a 15 year old in a car...a kid in an airplane. whatever. He had great power and ACCIDENTLY made the universe, and had no choice but to, well, you know, be god. However, he SUCKS at the job. Everything started with calamity, protons exploding and the big bang and molten planets spinning around half formed suns. Slowly, he learned how to use the wheel a little bit better... he made light, he made air. Infact, he made cells from chemicals, he made life, people, Life! Cells become plants became fish became Dinosaurs! And then, goddamit, he accidently sent an asteroid. Okay, so now he restarted but with his previous knowledge skipped the cool lizardy dino stage and went straight for the neanderthal, the "first" man. Then, oh shit, ice age'd his ass. Just bumps, though... the survivors breed and evolve and move on to be the modern man. But now and then, god still messes up... but as time goes on, things DO GET BETTER, don't they? think, way back when it was asteroids and worldwide iceages. Then it was the first wars, it was the burying of Pompei in 79 A.D., it was the crusades and the inquisition, it became the holocaust, it became terrorism and aids and gang violence. All the bad things in the world are examples of god's incompetence. Doesn't it suck that we are, no matter what we do, test subjects for the future? Maybe, one day, everyone will wake up and everything will be perfect. But for now, god still has some lesssons to learn, still has some catching up to do. Besides, for a being like him, maybe the past 13 billion years of universe was really like, 13 seconds of white-knuckled grip on the wheel, 13 seconds of slammed acceleration, and maybe in just a few more second, he'll get control of the car and keep it level on the road. Who knows?!


Also, on a slightly less heretical note,
The biggest problem i have with religion is the fact that people think god cares about the little things. Why in gods name would god care if you prayed five times a day to mecca, if you confessed your sins, if you mixed meat with milk? Maybe, he's very self-conscious- he needs to now he's in control, that people respect him.
Or maybe this is just shenanigans made up thousands of years ago by some very smart men... men who understood that civilization needed soemthing like God to explain all the problems in the world, but also realized that if they just said GOD IS GOOD STOP POKING EACH OTHER WITH SPEARS AND SLEEPING AROUND, no one would listen. Now, you tell a bunch of simple-minded field workers that THE ALMIGHTY WANTS THEM TO DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS BUT NOT THIS AND THIS AND THIS, no matter HOW SMALL these things are, they will think "Oh, hey, this guy is really specific so he must obviously exist, no one could make this stuff up".
People needed god. Hell, we still do. How do you explain children's leukemia, 9/11, the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina? The fact that there are "reasons" for all the bad things in the world makes our existence ALOT more secure.


Wow that was alot of typing. I probably will think of more things to add as the day finishes up, so i might edit.


Goodnight!

and, like always

peace&thelove forever!