Is God evil?

I suppose a solution of suffering is to say God is evil.  I am more inclined to think we suffer because natural selection unfortunately works that way, by constantly weeding out the unfit, often in unpleasant ways, since natural processes like natural selection have no sense of good and bad, but just function automatically.  The incoming tide may drown the child, but the tide and the moon causing this knows nothing about it.

I have a pillow

I have a pillow
And a soft blanket
But I must sleep on the floor
I will ache tomorrow

A plea for free trade

A country that selfishly protects itself, regardless of the welfare of others, deserves the fate it will receive, since of course others will treat it accordingly, and make its exports unafforable, destroying jobs.  This is called a trade war and hurts everyone  -- it was just the sort of thinking I see above that led to the Great Depression.

  

If I can buy a shirt of higher quality and less expensively (including the value of my time) rather than make it myself, then it is stupid for me not to buy it.  If an industry can out-source some product or service it needs cheaper and better than if it does it in house, then it is stupid for that company not to do so.

What protectionism and tariffs and trade quotas do is coddle inefficient local industries.  Capitalism that works well depends on all businesses being under constant pressure to do things cheaper, more efficiently, and better, and managers and workers who don't understand this and who are not willing to constantly reinvent themselves are soon poor or bankrupt.  Countries are the same -- high protective tariffs merely reduce the standard of living of the general population by allowing local industries to produce goods not up to international standards and prices.  In the end those countries who protect local business least are the countries that do best.

I think the real patriot is not the person waving the flag around shouting about foreign competition but the person who works hard to meet the challenges of foreign competition -- and does not stupidly insist one's country not buy from other countries those things other countries can produce better, but instead concentrates on those things one can do better locally and outsources other things.

soft air

soft air
a few white clouds
here and there butterflies

A female US President

I remember the flack Nancy Reagan got when it seemed she had opinions and dared express them.  The popular First Ladies have always been those who stuck to their knitting -- some trivial project like beautifying highways or whatnot.

Mrs. Clinton of course was like Nancy Reagan, and I think this is where the irrational hatred for her comes from, as there is no rational basis for the attacks; she has her political baggage, but it is minor, almost trivial, and blown way out of proportion.  There  are some people who demonstrate a visceral hatred for her and irrationally persist with criticisms that have no reasonable basis, such as that she didn't divorce him or that she was responsible for Benghazi.  She was not.

I don't think a lot of people, including some women, are ready for a female President.  They are still sexist that way and don't think one would do a good job,  Of course they don't realize this about themselves -- they explain it away with all the vile and negativity -- but that is where it comes from sure enough, and they need to take a good look at their motives.  

Developing political morality

We all think our views are right.  That means nothing.  What matters is how we reach our views, and if they are just seat-of-the-pants without mindful consideration of our motives and prejudices, then our views are worse than nothing.

The most important consideration, it seems to me, is morality.  Do we support or oppose someone because of our pocket book or our prejudices?  These should always be suspect as simple selfishness or bigotry, and thus immoral.  This is the message I am getting.

Another consideration, related to morals, is what is best overall, not just for us or our region or our nation but for mankind as a whole.  Do Americans give this any thought at all?  It doesn't mean being economically stupid, as Clinton's Democratic primary opponent seems have been -- thinking that one can repeal the laws of economics and human behavior (a Marxist way of thinking), but it also means being compassionate about the poor -- the truly poor around the world, compared to most of whom the poor in America are rich.

What is right and wrong is not determined by our "conscience" (which is just our childhood cultural indoctrination) nor by what we convince ourselves is good for the nation because it is good for us.  What is right and wrong must be mindfully worked out from basic principles such as compassion, fidelity, honesty, mindfulness, reasonableness, carefulness, the well-being of others regardless of who they are.

The two basic political types of person

Politically I would say roughly there are two kinds of people.  One are liberal, open, friendly to foreigners, see mankind as one entity sharing one planet, tolerant, concerned more about others than themselves, compassionate to refugees and the poor.  The other are nationalistic, somewhat selfish, tending to parochialism, thinking their people or language or culture (or all of these) superior,  seeing each nation and culture as separate and competing with the rest of humanity, and sometimes outright bigoted, although usually more polite about it, it still shows through.

Eliminating Islam

Eliminating Islam would not eliminate terrorism; the West has produced its own share.  I blame the human ego -- none of us amount to much but there are some who think they should, and resort to this sort of thing as the only way they are going to be "important."

Mass destruction of the Middle East, or wherever, is a thing I could predict if nations there resort to mass destruction elsewhere, but it is not something I would want.  The West is too weak and divided and has too many people who just simply don't think rationally (and so generate political problems for those advocating a clear-headed policy) to be able to effectively carry out the long-term, expensive (in lives and money), sustained program that is going to be needed to protect humanity from Islam's extremes -- which, unfortunately, I have to say are buried deep in the religion even though most Muslims rise above it, to the extent they see beyond Islam.

This is an ongoing problem for democracies.  They are never strong and consistent, but shift policy and behavior with the political wind.  

Jehovah, Yaweh, and the Tetragrammaton

JHVH or JHWH is the "Tetratramagatton," often rendered "Yaweh" in English and appearing in the KJ Bible as LORD or GOD (in ALL CAPS) as opposed to the "God" or "Lord" when the titles appear in the Hebrew text.  This is by far the most commonly appearing name of God in the OT).  In four places in the KJV it is rendered "Jehovah," usually considered an error since it incorporates the vowels of the Greek "Adonai" or God.

As the name of God, "Jehovah" has far better English credentials than "Yahweh" or anything of that sort, the latter being a modern invention trying to reproduce the original sound (and probably getting close).  However, the English translation, as far as the literature of the language is concerned, should be Jehovah.  It is kind of funny that this is the only word in Hebrew where scholars think they have to try to reproduce the original sounds and probably derives from bias against Jehovah's Witnesses.

Interestingly, the word does not appear in the New Testament, nor, to my knowledge, in any early Christian writing, and Jesus is portrayed as completely ignorant of it -- not affirming or denouncing its use, but unaware it exists.  The same applies to all early Christians, including, of course, Paul.

This indicates, to me at least, that the earliest Christians were not very familiar with Judaism, where at this point in time a superstition against saying the name was in place.  Readers of the OT would, when reading aloud, substitute various other words.  Why doesn't Jesus address this?

The thing is, the early Christians were not reading from the Hebrew Bible but from the Greek LXX (the then current Greek translation of the OT) where the Tetratramagatton was also substituted, usually with Adonai (God).  At a minimum, if Jesus approved of the superstition, he should have endorsed it, and its avoidance should have been included in Acts in the Apostolic Decree.  But they are not even aware of the issue.  Given Jesus' more normal antipathy to Jewish superstition, one wonders that he didn't explicitly disapprove of it, since it is obvious the pronunciation of the name had been common in earlier Jewish practice and the avoidance had arisen only in Hellenistic times.

This is but one of a number of lines of evidence cluing us in that the earliest Christians only had a superficial knowledge of Judaism and that they drew this from the LXX.  Of course Paul claims to be a Pharisee, but he is from Asia Minor and claims Roman Citizenship too.  Not impossible but odd indeed, and difficult to credit.

That he seems to know nothing of either the Tetragrammaton nor of the later-evolved Jesus-on-Earth myths tells us that Christianity began in ways very difficult from what we are usually led to think.

Extra-terrestrial potential

From what I've learned of recent discoveries, an "RNA world"(since RNA can both carry information and catalyze reactions) under early Earth conditions is almost inevitable, and it seems a DNA world would eventually ensue via natural selection. 

Life didn't get much further than that for a couple billions of years, when eucaryotic life appeared, and then again for a couple billions more for multicellular life to appear, and since then it seems to have taken its own sweet time evolving into sentience let alone consciousness.  Indeed, it took major extinction events to shove things along.  These events therefore seem perhaps to be rare and highly unlikely steps -- steps that may make us close to unique.

Since we don't know how often worlds like the what the Earth was when life first appeared might be (mass, temperature, tectonic activity, oceans) we cannot even assume the most primitive life will be common, but that does seem likely.  Other than that the signs are that the evolution of a technological society that survives for any length of time is going to be really rare.

Of course we only have our own history to go by, and we may have been real slow-pokes and these things may happen more often than what our history might indicate.

Drinking friends

I discourage the consumption of alcohol -- any alcohol -- on the basis that there is an established association between its consumption and a variety of cancers, as well as other problems like cirrhosis.  I figure if that is the case the best course, especially here where (in spite of the wine industry's obfuscation of the resveratrol issue), is abstinence.  I have the same view of fructose loaded soft drinks and fruit juices, and all sorts of other unhealthy things.

I also think freedom is important, and the issue is not something where I would call for banning it (indeed I would vote against such measures), nor would I even disparage it when others imbibe.  It goes without comment from me (we must assume they are making an informed choice).

Alcoholism and the social and violence problems associated with it are another issue, and I do sometimes insert encouragements for moderation when I see someone plainly getting drunk.  Of course my words often get rejected, and I may even lose a friend, but there comes a time when someone who has the ability to do whatever is possible to prevent harm has a moral obligation to do so.  (Usually I don't actually say anything but instead resort to various sorts of redirection away from the bar).

This is a balancing act (between doing and saying nothing and active intervention to prevent harm).  This sort of dilemma arises all the time in all sorts of contexts, and we each have to try to think through what is the right course using objective reasoning, and then act accordingly, and not be critical if someone else reaches a different conclusion.

Trump scares me to death

I've been thinking a lot about the present American political situation, and would like to express some thoughts in as sensible and complete way as I can in a reasonably short message, although I suspect I will come under considerable abuse.

That the American political system doesn't work very well (few do) is evidenced by the two candidates who rose to the top, and I think the main reason is closed primaries.  They should have a series of primaries where all candidates are on the same list, regardless of party, and the bottom twenty percent or so are dropped and another primary is held, and repeated until someone gets a majority.  That way the extremists of both parties cannot call the agenda.

Still, the results this time have been particularly disappointing.  Mrs. Clinton demonstrated considerable incompetence with the email business, and I still don't understand, and will probably never understand, Benghazi, but clearly something went badly wrong and she and Obama were at the helm.

  

Disappointing as she is, her opponent really scares me, as I read him loud and clear as mainly an egoistic, unprincipled bigot, and the fact that he seems to appeal to so many gives me pause about the human race.

What is a bigot?  Well of course we have racism, which is a little confused as we don't clearly break the species into races.  What is more common in most countries is prejudice against minority cultures, which is partially racial (Chinese and Vietnamese, for example, are both Asian race, but there are differences one can notice).  There is a lot of prejudice in the Vietnamese population against the Chinese, partly for historical reasons but mainly just because they are a different culture and a lot of people automatically dislike those of different cultures.

Pertaining to America, Africans, Latins, Homosexuals, Muslims, and of course foreigners in general seems to be targets of a lot of prejudice -- something that Trump uses, cleverly I must admit.  But then he is a sociopath con man, so this is not surprising.  His speech, where he totally distorted the United States -- the greatest country on the earth -- into a crime-ridden, poverty-stricken, run-down cesspool, shocked me, and he got away with it -- not even his critics called him on it.  Americans must be really isolated from the rest of the world to accept that crap.  Just his excuses for not releasing his taxes and all the failed businesses he has started, which he got away from and others lost millions, say this is an accomplished con artist, but not a competent executive -- a flim-flam man.

Frankly I realize Clinton will probably win, and so the US will have a reasonably good government -- she seems fairly centrist although to keep her party happy she had to veer left for now.  Still, who knows what lies in the woodwork or that might be alleged (without proof but who needs proof when using The Big Lie) and she could lose.  I am terrified.

Free will experiments

Warning: what follows is personal experience and therefore not probative:

I would imagine I have experimented with free will over a thousand times, both while meditating and otherwise, and think it really exists, but is generally neglected (not utilized) unless there is mindful (paying attention to what our conscious mind is up to) effort.

A simple thing like ordering your big toe to move provides an example.  You can sit and think, "I want my big toe to move," and after a few moments it does.  More complicated, you can think, "Sometime in the next ten seconds I want my big toe to move." This is more problematic -- you are not exactly deciding when, but just "soon." Sure enough, soon enough it moves, but in this case without a conscious thought -- more like a general directive.

Is the first case free will?  Maybe the subconscious has already decided to move and sends the thought to the conscious as it is moving it.  Certainly, to move, the particular commands to the muscles involved do not involve anything at the conscious level (some claim the ability to actually do that, but I am skeptical).

It may be that we make too much of a demand on our ability to reason when we argue free will, since we seem to insist on proof, while for most behavioral matters just good evidence is enough to be persuasive.  It strikes me that those who absolutely insist on a completely mechanical, reductionist, mind miss the point and demand something that is not and never will be available -- proof.

At the same time, the idea of free will does contradict scientific notions about how things work in the universe and does seem to demand the introduction of "something" beyond the physical.  But maybe not -- maybe we just haven't thought it through completely and must wait for the necessary genius to come along with the appropriate insights.

In the meantime, I treat it like other things that are possible but that we cannot prove, such as that an external world exists (solipsism is wrong), that truth is unitary, that properly proved mathematics is valid, that the rules of logic apply universally.  These are things (axioms I suppose) that at the moment I have to take for granted.

First causes and how the idea of God messes up science

There is no need for a God hypothesis.  It only serves to clutter science with theology.  That a God  is possible is beyond question, but there being no need for it in a scientific view of how the universe came into being, it should be left out, just as we leave out Santa -- besides, the reason God is put in such discussions is not scientific but  emotional and often based on a desire to convert people to a religion.

Why do I say there is no need for a God hypothesis?  People seem to think the universe could not have come from nothing -- that this is impossible -- but it isn't, and we have to realize that it is only an assumption, with no logical necessity behind it.  We grow up in a world where everything that happens is thought to have a prior causation -- the police find a dead man they ask for an autopsy to see what "caused" the death.   Still, we do know that deaths do happen that go entirely unexplained, or the mortician says something about "probable" causes, meaning of course he is not sure.

I am persuaded that causality is an illusion.  We live in a world where all events are the result of the behavior of gazillion of atoms, and probabilities can be assigned to what each atom will do, and, since there are gazillions of them involved, the most likely probabilities are what almost always happens -- but not necessarily always.  The billiard balls hitting each other create overwhelming probabilities that the result will be as classical mechanics predicts, since there are so many individual atoms involved it would be eons before an exception happened.  This is called cause and effect, but that is a bit magical and the reality is probability.  We perform the same experiment a thousand times and get the same result a thousand times and conclude there is a "causal" relationship, while I would say it remains possible the next time the outcome will be different -- that inference is only a matter of finding what is most probable, not what is written in the stars.

I had to work at it but now I can envision a situation where nothing exists, no time or space.  This would not be eons and eons of nothingness, since there would be no time.  Who is to say what the probability of something happening, such as a quantum variation that sets in motion a chain of events that results in our universe?  Scenarios of this sort of thing have in fact been worked out with a good deal of rigor.

Youth and the political left and selfish voters

Young people have always tended to the left, and then as they mature their politics matures, not necessarily to the right (young right-wingers are another group who tend to be extremists) but more toward the center.

One unfortunate thing about young people and politics -- they tend to be just as greedy and "what's in it for me" as older people, and in their case that often has to do with financial assistance to go to college.  It's easy for a politician to promise free tuition or some such thing, and thereby, with such a lie, get a lot of college-age votes (who tend to know it's a lie but vote for them anyway, just in case).

This has long been identified as a problem with all democracies -- the vast majority "vote their pocketbooks" rather than what is best for the country, and even rationalize things to think that what is best for them is best for the country.  People are selfish and when you point it out they find ways to convince themselves they are good people in spite of their selfishness.

Trump's massive misinformation

"Misinformation" is, of course, a lie, but a particularly dangerous and malicious form of lie.  It is usually in the form of a degrading assertion about a person or movement that may have a kernel of truth or may be invented out of whole cloth.

The purpose is not to win an argument, and if challenged the assertion is dropped and the  challenge ignored or given some sort of hand wave.
What happens is the reader may forget the exact accusation, but is unavoidably left with a negative or uncomfortable sense about the person attacked.

This is the way Trump got the Republican nomination and it seems now this is the way he and his operatives plan to get the Presidency.  Unfortunately the internet works well for this sort of thing, although misinformation has been around a lot longer than the internet and seems to work elsewhere too.

We need to remember that because someone says some is "weak" at this or "selfish" at that or "dishonest" or whatever and either provides no evidence or only provides evidence that in no way demonstrates the accusation, what is being done is you are being manipulated.

God as a scientific matter

Whether or not there is a God is not a scientific matter, and trying to make it one is kinda useless.  All science can tell us is there is no reason to think there is one, not a shred of reason.  It's kind of like trying to use science to proves there are no unicorns.  The fact that we cannot find one doesn't prove they don't exist -- excuses can be thought up -- but it is not a  basis for belief.

The point is you can't prove a negative -- it is never possible to use science to prove something does not exist.  People who base a belief in Gods and such on the fact that there is no proof they don't exist can only be pitied, as they are obviously entrapped by their childhood indoctrination.

That doesn't mean there is nothing we can do.  Given a claimed God with this or that claimed property, such as infinite power or infinite beneficence, as we hear all the time, it is not difficult to point to things that demonstrate such claims are logically and necessarily false.  The existence of suffering is an example, and there are many others.  Here, again, all that can be offered are excuses, and this is not basis for belief.