Electoral reforms

Oh no doubt about it; a large part of the Republican base is composed of racists, religious bigots, homophobes, jingoists, and the like. This has always been a problem for me since when one of those wins the primaries and is the candidate I necessarily have to vote for the Democrat. 

I think both parties are beholden to Corporate interest -- if you look at the fact that most Corporations write big checks to both parties one can see this.

This illustrates two problems with the American system. The Bill of Rights needs amending to allow regulation -- strict regulation -- of all campaign contributions and of the amount of money that can be spent on campaigns (as it is now such regulation is difficult to get around the free speech guarantee). All this money really is just bribery in a different form.

The other problem is partisan elections. A better system would be for all the candidates to be listed in a single ballot with each person having one vote, then any candidates getting less than a given percent removed and a second election, continuing the cycle until someone gets a majority. In other words, no parties, no primaries where the extremists dominate, forcing candidates to the center.

Infinite God and my atheism

I think it likely there exist in the universe alien civilizations with technology far beyond us, who would seem like deities were they to come here, but that doesn't mean they are deities.  I would put Zeus and all similar beings, if they were real, in the same category.  They are powerful and if they demand worship one would be wise to give it, but I would remain at heart an atheist.

How would God differ?  He would not just be a superman with great power.  Now, would he qualify as "God" if he were infinite?  Even then, no.  I can in theory have a stack of books that stretches (assuming space is Euclidean) up infinitely far, and contains an infinite amount of knowledge in them.  But is that all knowledge possible.  No, because I could also have a second pile next to it that contains even more knowledge, again infinite.  The same could apply to a being that knows an infinite amount of stuff -- it would have no way of being sure it knew everything there was to be known -- there could be infinite amounts of knowledge completely outside its ken.

No -- to really be God and cause me to stop being an atheist, this God would have to be all-knowing -- but I just showed that such a state would be impossible.  Even with infinite knowledge one could never be sure there didn't exists realms or even whole universes outside this God's knowledge and impossible for it to reach. 

This is just one of the problems with the idea of a real God.  Of course Christians, when presented with these problems, redefine their God into something more limited, but then all he is is a superman or advanced technology alien.  Not God and I remain an atheist.  Just a little intelligence is needed to see all this and stop the silliness, although in all probability any response I get to this will reflect inability to think about infinity with any clarity.

Global warming

Pure carbon dioxide is lethal in the sense that you suffocate. Carbon monoxide is lethal for complicated reasons (it substitutes itself for oxygen on the hemoglobin molecule).

I think the lesson is that carbon dioxide is necessary. What that means is some carbon dioxide is good, too much is bad. 

The same applies in the atmosphere. Water vapor is far and away the most important greenhouse gas, but it cycles in a period of weeks, so no matter how much water we put in the atmosphere we just get it back. The cycle time for carbon dioxide is thousands of years is not more, so when we put it in the atmosphere it stays there and accumulates. Although the amounts we put in are small compared to the amounts already present, the increase has immediate effects in causing the earth to hold more heat and warm up, again by just a small amount (a few degrees). Add to that the warming effect of methane produced by domestic animals and we are putting ourselves in danger.

The risks can and are sometimes overstated and exaggerated for political purposes (Al Gore is one of the worst here and his behavior in discrediting genuine concerns with his exaggeration of it for his personal purposes disgusts me).

But he is not the only one playing political games with the fate of mankind. While I don't expect extinction of humanity, if what is happening goes on we are likely to have a severe century or longer setback in human progress, just to cover the costs rising sea levels will cause.

I am hopeful technology will save us. Fusion, better fission reactors, solar, wind, carbon dioxide capture technologies, greater efficiencies in energy use, and other things may or may not arrive in time. In the meantime measures like taxing gasoline more, removing the oil depletion allowance (a hidden subsidy for the oil industry), maybe a carbon tax, taking a more reasonable approach to nuclear plants, and scores of other measures that could be taken would all improve the eventual outcome.

How to be a famous philosopher

One conclusion I drew reading almost all the famous philosophers is that you have got to be arrogant out your ears, not tolerating any objections (the ethicists are usually an exception). 

You also have to be inventive and very assertive if you want to get famous as a philosopher, even if you know you are wrong, don't admit it. Thereby you get famous as others quote you in order to refute you.

Creating universes from nothing

I think I will discourse a little on conservation of matter/energy. This is a principle that was only discovered in the nineteenth century, and it was discovered empirically, using induction, not by deduction. Maybe that is why God didn't include it in the Ten Commandments.

Now, it is for sure that when someone looks at the output of a particle collision, and finds the output doesn't total the input, then there is assumed something wrong. Matter/energy is so almost always conserved that the assumption is always that that is the case. This was in fact how neutrinos were predicted, and later found.

However, quantum uncertainty makes it a certainty (now I like that -- uncertainty makes a certainty [grin]) that so-called "virtual" particles pop into and out of existence all the time. This is a misnomer -- while they exist they are real and have demonstrable effects. It is in fact this creation of particles at the event horizon of a black hole that caused the scientific community to realize they eventually evaporate.

What you do, when you want to make a universe, is you make it from nothing. The universe is "the greatest possible free lunch." There is good reason from observation, and excellent reason from theory, to say that all the conserved quantities (mass/energy -- gravitational charge --, electric charge, momentum and angular momentum) when taken for the universe as a whole total nothing. Positive gravitational energy is balanced by negative ("mostly dark") energy, electrons balance locally (positive and negative charge), motion is essentially in all directions, and the cosmos is not observed to rotate. 

However, to get a universe you need do nothing but wait. Quantum uncertainty will see to it that it will happen now and then.

I have posted my understanding of this as best I can: those with knowledge of the area are welcome to nitpick at any mistakes.

Causation is not always so

Something came from nothing. Being an atheist isn't hard when you realize that all creationism depends on are intuitive ideas we picked up as children, such as everything has a prior cause. There is no logical reason for this. It seems to be the case, most of the time, and that really is all that can be said. It also seems the case that anything that goes up must come down, but it isn't always the case.

Something people need to learn is that just because one cannot see how something could be doesn't mean it can't be. It may be just your ego rejecting things not understood because your pride won't allow it.

Guns, guns, guns

I have to comment on the morality of having a gun.

It turns family disputes into murders.
It turns depression into suicide.
It turns child curiosity into dead children.
It turns home "defenders" into either manslaughter prisoners or dead from their own gun.
It turns accidental or confused Alzheimer's or intoxicated people into corpses.
It turns criminals who have done nothing worthy of execution into corpses.
It make mass murderers and the insane much more efficient.

People like to brag about how they are responsible gun owners.  There ain't no such thing -- the very ownership of a gun proves that.

Having a gun around, people, is an invitation to disaster and therefor an evil act.  Please no ""tu quoque" on me here -- two wrongs don't make a right.

Mormons and coffee and tea

When I went through the sessions as a teenager with a couple of Mormon "Elders" (young men on their two-year missionary assignment) I was told that tobacco, alcohol, tea and coffee were prohibited. 

When I asked why, health reasons were cited. I'm pretty sure there is a passage somewhere in the Bible predicting that false profits would come telling people to not eat certain foods.

Well we know that (except in excess) coffee contains all sorts of good things for us, and unfermented tea is wonderful for our health (fermented tea seems to be good too, although not as good). This makes the idea that the ban came from God ridiculous on its face.

At the time I learned of all this, I was a typical teenager given to an occasional beer, and could see no harm except alcoholism, so I thought it should be allowed for anyone without that problem. Of course we now know that even a drink a week is linked to some increase in cancer, so I abstain. This is probably excessive on my part.

I think we have a moral responsibility to take care of ourselves, using reason and moderation, and I do not think it is the business of any church to dictate to anyone on these matters, only to give advice and good example.

The American immigration issue

America needs immigrants, and if you people would get over your prejudices and fears you would see that.  The population is aging and there is not going to be enough workers to pay to give the elderly even a decent life.

Yes it would be really smart to be selective in who comes -- as far as skills and English and health and so on, as countries like Australia do.  Anyone who meets standards along those lines should be encouraged and even subsidized to immigrate. 

Still, it is not possible to keep out people with the initiative and determination to get in.  Hasn't the country by now learned the futility of trying to enforce laws where there are millions who break them?  Be realistic even if you are inhumane and bigoted.

It is just simply not sane to think America could deport all the illegals there now -- twenty million is it? -- That would require a Fascist type of regime and would destroy the US economy and result in all sorts of civil disturbances and be totally inhumane, making the country be seen worldwide as a pariah.

Testability as a scientific standard

The fact is that science is what scientists do, and to be a scientist one must be objective, smart, trained in a scientific discipline, and not rely on supernatural or magical concepts. Science has produced a lot and made our world, while most people go through life ignorant and even disparaging it.

The requirement that scientific ideas must be testable to be scientific is often used, I think wrongly. Obviously tests and the ability to make predictions improve the likelihood that an idea will be incorporated into the body of scientific theory, but testability is not by itself grounds for rejection, maybe just grounds for putting it on the shelf to wait until tests become available.

Suffering and God

Suffering is of course one of the root problems of theology. A fundamental principal of ethics is that if one has the ability and opportunity to intervene to stop an evil, one is morally obliged to do so. 

No one claims the Abrahamic god lacks either the ability or the opportunity, yet suffering goes on and on and on. The cases where insect larvae eat their victim from the inside out are a good example.

It doesn't do to say we earn what happens to us -- too much suffering is just bad luck, such as earthquakes.

This was one of the appeals during the Enlightenment of the Deist god who created the world and then went away. Of course with the advent of evolutionary theory, the reason for the suffering (survival of the fittest) became apparent as nothing more than natural, so Deism lost its appeal.

The Christian theory of course paints God as a monster who allows all the suffering and so on for his personal glory.

The religion of atheism

To my thinking atheism just does not qualify as a religion. It has no god or supernaturalism or ritual or prayer or miracles or any of that stuff.

Further, the atheist has gotten that way through thought about the nature of the universe we are in, rather than by being indoctrinated as a child or accepting some authority blindly.

Mormon rules

Mormons prohibit coffee and tea, both of which are known to be good for you, but don't prohibit colas and other soft drinks, which are bad.  As for gambling, I think it is foolish, and don't do it except in social situations where a game doesn't have much fun to it unless at least some money (with limits) is involved.  These rules religions place are another example of silly human ideas put into God's mouth by silly humans.

We are alone

Be careful to not wax too poetic about our wonderful words and ability to communicate.  It is only partly true and even though you think what I am saying, you don't get the half of it.  You can't, since you can't know the subtleties of meaning of each word I use, derived from my experience and not yours.

We are all alone in the cosmos.  We are the proverbial ships passing in the night with nothing but beacon lights to use to communicate.  The vast, overwhelming majority, of our thoughts and feelings and experiences are ours alone, almost impossible to share.

I remember standing at the edge of a precipice, seeing a beautiful valley down below, and enjoying the panorama, which included a quaint winding dirt road and a couple of old sheds barely visible.  When I remarked to my partner what a view it was, he responded that it was beautiful, but too bad mankind had spoiled it by building the road and the sheds.

Obviously we were seeing the same picture but not seeing the same thing.

Aborting children

I am reminded that an aborted baby may be a child.  It may be a child. Killing is not itself a fundamental prohibition of my ethics. I kill flies and mosquitoes, kill a chicken when it is ready to eat, am willing to go to war and kill others for my country, even if I disagree with much of what it stands for, believe in the right of people to end their own lives, and even in limited situations endorse the execution of vile criminals.

In short no ethical rule is absolute. It must be judged in the broader context. There are a couple of factors when there is a pregnant woman not wanting the child. Which does the most harm -- forcing the birth anyway and having an unwanted child grow up miserable, ill treated and ending up a criminal, or allowing the abortion? What if the reason is that the pregnancy was from a rape? Again, the mother does not want and will detest the child.

Adoption is not a good solution, as study after study has shown, for such children. The genetic nature of the parents will tell out, regardless of how loving the adoptive parents may be, and these children rarely actually get adopted by good families.

In short, it is never simple. Compassion and asking yourself what is for the best has to be looked at, and government is not capable of such flexibility. As far as I can tell only the mother is best placed, hopefully with loving and not inflexible, ideological, counsel, to make such a decision.

None of this should be distorted to assert that in general I favor murder.  Only specific and very limited situations that I don't think most people would define as murder.  Certainly the harm that happens to a person when they did vastly exceeds any harm that might happen were they to go on living.

Jesus is a myth

I think one would be hard pressed to produce credible evidence Jesus ever actually existed, something much easier to do with most historical figures of the time.

In short, I think they are myths.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm 
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.htm...

Gay compassion

My approach, as a gay man who has experienced prejudice and meanness and often even being beaten up, is that heterosexuality is statistically normal, but not a sign of moral goodness. I think maybe my experiences made me more aware of real right and wrong and of the importance of compassion.