Noah's flood

I've seen suggestions that the source of Noah's flood was from the filling of the Black sea, or even, much earlier, the Mediterranean.  These fit neither the time frame nor the geography.

A truly global flood, as far as modern geology is concerned, is ludicrous.

So some really large flooding of the Tigris-Euphrates valley?  Now you have the problem of not big enough to fit the story.

I would suggest that human imagination by itself is enough to explain the story -- why not flood as a way to destroy humanity if you are a god.  People have been predicting the end of it all since it began -- it makes you seem sophisticated to do that.

Also, people always think there has to be a real event as a kernel for myths, but that is probably rarely the actual case.

Glory to God

Did Jesus ever indicate he should be worshiped?  That raises in my mind what do we mean by "worship?"  It's really a weird idea if you think about it, and not something a god would have any possible use for, so if it is real it would have to be something commanded for our benefit -- to teach us humility or something?

So often I get statements like "God created us for His glory."  What is glory?  I think these things stem from primitive submission/dominance instincts we inherit from our animal past and have nothing to do with real spirituality.

Defining atheism

We need to use words as they are generally understood and be careful we don't get into the trap of having our own special meanings and hence both not understanding and not being understood.

Case in point is "atheism," which to me I find has the special meaning of "no God or gods belief."  The agnostic falls into that category, as he or she does not "believe" in a God.  I realize however that that is not what the ordinary person means.  The ordinary person hearing "atheist" thinks there is a positive assertion that there cannot be a God.  Well of course I strongly doubt that anyone would be so foolish as to think that, so in the end we are all "agnostics."

I nevertheless am in a quandary since I find "atheist" to be the more honest self-description.  I am pretty much as sure that there is no God as I am of anything.

Instinct, sentience, and intellect

If we accept evolution, then we have no choice but to accept that we are animals, and as such if we have intellect then so do animals.  It is part of our evolution.  We may have specialized in intellect where other animals specialize in other things, but they all "think" in some way or another.

It starts off the way we program computers:  If such and such happens then do so and so."  In nature we call that reflex.  If a bright light hits the eye, shrink the pupil.  These are almost entirely outside our conscious control, but not always -- while usually we breathe without thinking about it, we are able, for at least awhile, to override the body and hold our breath -- but sooner or later in this case our will is overridden by our instinct.

Somewhere in evolution the phenomenon known as "sentience" began to appear.  Animals began to experience existence and thereby modify reactions rather than just carry out programmed reflexes.  This is a mystery -- how we perceive rather than just sense; how we experience rather than just exist.  We can see from studies of brain structures and chemicals that most mammals and birds are sentient this way.  They perceive things and thereby can have more subtle instincts and even develop will and intellect.

Of course it may be that it requires language (not just symbolic communication but real language) to think philosophy, so it may be that only humans truly have intellect -- but the precursors are found in many other animals.  I watch my cats and I can see will and thought and differences in intelligence, as well, of course, as general cattiness.

Legitimate religion

There is no point having a religion if there is no evidence it has at least some validity.  Non-theist religions base their legitimacy on whether or not the teachings make sense and are good.  Theist religions base their legitimacy on revelation, which seems to me to need pretty good evidence before being legitimate.

Empty mind

While it might be so that things exist that are outside the possibility of intellectual understanding, if that is where they are then that is where they are and we have no basis for making assertions about them.

An example that comes to my mind is free will.  If it exists (and personally I think it does but would never assert it other than as a hypothetical), then it cannot be random and cannot be determined, and those are the only ways things can happen (events either have a prior cause or they do not).

I understand and practice meditation, and have done the "empty mind" (shutting down the intellect and the train  of thought) meditation successfully.  An empty mind is an empty mind, at rest and peaceful but still empty.

Anthropogenic global warming and politics

During the Maunder Minimum (a period of about a century when there were no sunspots) Europe (and maybe elsewhere) was distinctly cooler, but it was hardly an ice age -- that is why it is called a "mini ice age."

The general view is that the real ice ages are caused by aspects of the earth's tilt and are somewhat cyclic.  Temporary cooling for a year or so can be caused by volcanoes or by changes in solar activity.  However, it's a complex business with lots of factors.

They have a two-bit word, "anthropogenic," meaning caused by people, and the general view of climatologists is that the last century's warming was that -- from human activity -- burning fossil fuels.

Problem is, the environmental movement, which is in most countries allied with the political left and has an anti-business mind-set, jumped on this and I think exaggerated the consequences and thereby of course caused a political counter-reaction by the right, and their tendency to deny it.

Politics aside, the evidence is that the planet is warming and there is no doubt that the greenhouse gases have been shown to be possible culprits through no end of lab studies.  There is a danger here, not just for inconveniences down the road but for real catastrophe further down.

Infinite universe or just big?

If the universe is infinite, we will never know it.  It will always be a case of the end might be just over the next rock.

Maybe the most common logical fallacy is that if something is not understood it means God or aliens or something along those lines.

That I can't understand something is my failure, and proves nothing.

Global warming and the solar cycle

It astonishes me how some people bray their ignorance of scientific things every chance they get, completely unaware of what asses they are showing themselves to be.  Local weather events are only slightly related to overall global trends, and very often go in the opposite direction.  They prove nothing.

The planet is warming; we have lots of evidence of that in melting glaciers, flora and fauna moving northward, longer growing seasons, and so on.  We also know the sun has over the last few hundred years shown an eleven year cycle in its activity, but this most recent high was much less than in the past.  There are reasons to think but no real proof that this has a small effect on climate.  We also know that levels of certain gases, known to raise global temperatures, have been increasing.  There is argument over the significance of this, with a considerable majority of climatologists telling us it presents a danger.

Now if the sun is going to decrease its activity, and we don't know that it will, this may give the world a little extra time as the warming may as a result decrease, and even for a while cool down a bit.  That would appear to be good news.  Still, efforts to reduce the emission of global warming gases would appear to be the wisest course by far.

Qualia defined

I look at "qualia" as experiences: phenomena two people can share only if they both have had the experience.  Anyone naturally sited "knows" what "blue" is but someone blind from birth has no idea and to them it is just a word sighted people use to describe one of their colors.  Now it may be that your "blue" and my "blue" are not the same; this is unimportant.

This will I think be the biggest problem we will have if it ever happens that we meet aliens.  Our experiences -- colors, tastes, internal sensations such as hunger and pain, and even our emotions -- fear, love, anxiety, jealousy -- will all be uncommunicable unless we share analogous sense and emotion systems, something that is probably not likely.

Moral free will

We all have what is thought of as free will, meaning we can make choices uncontrolled by our past or our personalities or our habits, but we rarely do as we are generally not paying attention and do things automatically.  Actually that is for the best as if we think about each choice we won't get much done.

The area of moral decisions is where this becomes important.  Our natures may incline us to selfish or otherwise harmful acts, but we can and many if not most generally do regularly overrule these natural acts to do what is right.

Dreaming about Milwaukee

I have a problem with repetitive dreams that involve property I own and collect rent on and whatnot.  It's upsetting when I realize I'm not so rich.

The same thing happens when I visit a place I've dreamed about.  For example I have several times I dreamed about Milwaukee, but only recently visit it.  The dreams had it all wrong and confused the devil out of me.

I think we are better off just forgetting our dreams; they always get it wrong.

Certainty and uncertainty

There is no "proof" or "disproof" of anything.  There are only opinions with varying levels of confidence.  "Faith" and "belief" are for those who want to have certainty but they are denied it in spite of their self-congratulatory self-deception.

I tend with a few exceptions to follow the views of the experts -- those who have spent their lives studying the subject -- more on the hard sciences (physics, etc.), less things like biology and almost not at all with religious and paranormal and political and historical "experts" who have an agenda.

Would aliens eat us?

Well we wouldn't serve as food as our chemistries would be incompatible.  For resources, that's kinda hard to imagine too since surely the same resources are all over the place closer in.  The only point I could see to visiting us is curiosity -- maybe of the tourist type but that would be too expensive; more likely the unmanned scientific probe type.

The real threat is if they send colonists, but it would be a lot easier to find uninhabited places for that (and more ethical -- we need to recognize that they probably are ethical beings or they would not have survived very long).

Frankly I don't think they are even out there.  There is no evidence and it seems to me if they've been around millions of years there would be.  Further, the luck required to produce a technological civilization that lasts millions of years or so must be overwhelmingly chancy, so odds are we are alone or so close to alone it doesn't matter.

Abortion, pragmatic law

Many base their thinking about abortion on the wrong premise.  They think if something is "wrong," it should be illegal.

Largely speaking that serves to work, but "wrongness" is a slippery concept and people will disagree based on culture and belief.  It is at heart a religious matter.  For a secular state, where religion is kept at arm's length, a different basis for deciding what should be illegal than wrongness is needed -- namely the effect of the act on society and its members.  Even when it is shown that there is a definite negative effect, the power of the law should be applied selectively and carefully, as the very act of making something illegal can make its effects even worse or create other negative effects.

I think abortions are immoral and would ever personally have one and would urge others to seek alternatives.  I do not think morality is an all or nothing thing; some immoral acts are more immoral than others (and in fact some immoral acts are overwhelmed by an ensuing immorality of not doing it -- such as lying to the Gestapo about the whereabouts of a Jew).

So the relevant questions regarding making something illegal have to do with pragmatic effects on society, not moral grounds.

Grace and Faith

Christians and Muslims sometimes talk about the fact that faith is needed to believe certain things, and appears to approach that as a virtue -- that God leaves things open so that we need to exercise his grace-given faith to believe.

Now there are a variety of subtle sub-themes here.  Does one automatically get such faith by sincerely asking for it, or is it a case of those who will be given such faith are entirely predetermined long before creation?  There are Bible passages that seem to support each view -- only God's grace can save us as opposed to seek you you will find.

Personally, as a Buddhist, I think one should not depend on such a weak foundation but should hold opinions, not beliefs, and they should be only as one finds them good and supported by the best evidence and the wisest people.  Believing only on authority -- especially traditional authority as handed to us by our culture -- has long been a road to error.

That said, however, look closely at these two views of where faith comes from.  If it is truly a gift of God's grace, how is it possible that those so chosen can ever entertain doubts?  An omnipotent being is giving a gift; it would overwhelm one and that would be an end of it.  Still, we know that all believers doubt from time to time.  And, of course, the idea that it is nothing to do with our qualities but only God's whim that determines who receives this gift is extremely hard to align with any sense of justice or appropriateness, and leave us with an arbitrary god.