A Decent Idea That'll Never Work

A woman in front of me at the check out counter makes small talk with the cashier. I find her voice beautiful. For someone who is tone deaf in regards to his own singing, I have wildly specific preferences when it comes to sound. Her sound I could listen to everyday. She walks away, never to be heard from again.

After attending Easter service with my religious family, I overhear a teen leaving the church who asks his parents why there is evil in the world if God is good. The kid’s dad offers a “mysterious ways” response and moves on.

What do these two scenarios have in common? In both I wanted to engage someone who it was socially awkward to engage.

In the case of the woman, my interrupting her exit with the simple compliment “you have a beautiful voice,” could make me a creep if she’s immediately uninterested in me, a potential mate if she is interested, and so far out of the ordinary that it’s bound to be weird regardless. To be clear, while I obviously don’t want to be a creep, neither do I want to be her mate. I’m happily married which makes compliments to strange women in any situation somewhat inappropriate. When I said “her sound I could listen to everyday,” I meant only as a friend...or if nothing else, the voice of my GPS.

In the case of the child at church, I’d be leaving my family to answer a question posed to someone else. Offering my take on the problem of evil could be seen as anything from blasphemy on church grounds or telling the kid’s folks how to parent. These possible charges are more than enough in my cost/benefit analysis to persuade me not to engage publicly.

These are small problems. Nevertheless, we have a woman who likely would have enjoyed a compliment under proper conditions, a kid who missed out on an answer to an honest question and me who wanted to share something positive with each. It got me thinking, how could this have gone better?

I thought about how texting is the preferred way to deliver information without the need of pleasantries or the pressure to fill in a conversation. I thought about a location-based service in which a tweet-like message could be sent to geographic neighbors. I thought about how maintaining Internet-like anonymity would make this less creepy in that no real personal information is shared and no motives outside of “just letting you know” could be assumed.

Then I thought about how this service would never reach the user base needed to make the service useful because it would already need to be useful to encourage the growth of the user base: a Catch-22. Then I thought what makes me think an anonymous service that allows for real-time criticism of any social interaction would have a net positive affect on society? It would likely result in an echo chamber of “fail” notices. I’d be no closer to sharing information and affirmations and yet acutely aware of when I’m pwed. I guess I’ll go back to wishing I had telepathy.

Doubting Solo

This week’s meme got my thinking about Han Solo one-liners.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. 

Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense. 

I've got a bad feeling about this.

His quotes apply wonderfully to our world but I can’t quite embrace him as a skeptical role model because, in the Star Wars universe, his is dead wrong. The “hokey religion” in question, the Force, is true. Han had the right idea to doubt the Force because Jedi were inactive during his formative years making the extraordinary claims of the Force a matter of faith. He, rightly, came around when he witnessed his new friends levitating shit.

Theists seem to think atheists are close minded and in denial. We aren’t, we just need that demonstration. It is within God’s power (supposedly) to levitate objects and bend natural law, theists should pray to get him to do it. If I saw someone using the Force I’d immediately drop my career in favor of Jedi training. Likewise, you better believe I’d become a Christian.

Want to convert me? Use the Jesus, theists. If he can’t do it, you might want to rethink his power, influence and existence.

Hokey Religions & Ancient Weapons

God's Professed Power

Here’s a question for theists: Is God’s power fundamentally beyond understanding?

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark wrote “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” To a cave man, an iPad would appear magical. To us, an alien hologram would appear magical. Neither are magic, but both are so beyond the understanding of the viewer that any realistic explanation is out of reach. According to many theists God’s miracles are also not magic, but not because they are within our understanding. Rather it’s because they define magic as either illusions or fiction. I can’t disagree. Magic is either illusions or fiction, so I will continue to call God’s work magic until I have good reason to believe otherwise.

For the sake of this inquiry, lets say there is a God and that he can and occasionally does perform acts beyond our understanding. The key word here is our understanding. We know enough to land crap on Mars and clone donkeys, which is awesome, but we don’t yet have a “Theory of Everything.” Could some future, smarter version of humanity understand how God parted seas and raised the dead? If so, shouldn’t you, as a Christian who believes this stuff, be trying to figure it out? Not only would success validate your beliefs, it would likely make you rich and famous. Yes, it’s a long-shot that you would indeed succeed, but it is certainly a more worthwhile venture to “know the mind of God” as Einstein put it than to tell God what He already knows via prayer.

Conversely, if it is impossible for us to ever understand the process of miracles no matter how intelligent we become, why is that so? What property is it that category of knowledge possesses that no other information has? I know it’s a strange question, but it’s a valid one that applies to anything claimed to be supernatural.

I have a theory.* Since religion relies on faith, doctrine was invented to provide a learning barrier about the primary topic of the religion itself--God. This effectively squelches the pursuit of intellectual curiosity. If knowledge of God was discovered, then faith in God is extinguished; faith in God is needed for heaven, so knowledge of God removes the possibility of religion’s promised reward. Ignorance is bliss, and, as implied by most religions, necessary. The intended function of doctrine that makes understanding God and His power either impossible or damning is to discourage followers from trying to understand it. Truth seekers become science deniers while churches maintain their flock and bank accounts.

*The above is a theory in the colloquial sense and not by the scientific definition. It’s actually appropriate to say this is “just a theory,” but if you do so, please provide one of your own.

The 8th Sin Paradox

What's the Harm in "Morning After" Abortions?

I've see no secular reason why very early term abortions should be prohibited. To explore this further, I went to Google+ and spoke with Catholic Apologist, Paul Schlenker.

Me: What's the harm in painlessly killing something that is not only unaware and unconscious; but incapable of pain, awareness and consciousness if not for some assumption of a soul?

Paul: The harm is that by killing an embryo that is unaware, unconscious, and incapable of experiencing pain is that you prevent that innocent human being from developing further, being born, and living the life it has a right as a human being to live.

Me: So, outside of preserving the embryo's potential, the only negative affect is the emotional reaction you and others who are uncomfortable with abortion experience, right? The potential argument is problematic now that any instance of DNA can be said to have the same potential when you consider cloning, not to mention the potential of a sperm and egg. To say everything with human potential must be realized in our modern world would result in overpopulation and the waste of human hair and tissue a felony. (Yes, this highlights advancements of science into an argument about otherwise natural development, but without taking into account modern science we couldn't know a women is pregnant early enough for this debate to be relevant.)

Paul: Human hair and human tissue are human life, but they aren't human beings. A fetus is a human being. Human hair and human tissue are part of a human being, but they aren't, in and of themselves, human beings.

Many pro-choice people say that abortion is justified because a fetus is only a "potential life", not an actual life. I think that's rubbish. A fetus is an actual human being from the moment of fertilization, and it is fully alive. If a fetus is only a "potential life", at what point does it become an actual life? The only logical and reasonable point at which a fetus becomes an actual life is at the moment of fertilization. 

Me: The point was obviously missed in regards to hair and tissue. You must acknowledge that no harm is done from the point of view of the embryo, because the embryo has no point of view. If not for potential, I don't understand your argument that there is harm done.

Paul: Do you think it should be permissible to kill a person in a coma?

Me: No, I don't think it should be permissible to kill a person in a coma if they are likely to come out of it. If they certainly won't, then it is fine. The difference is that an agreement to kill coma victims sets a precedent that could directly affect me, people I care about, or people others care about. I don't want them killed if and when they are in a recoverable coma, therefore I don't want any coma victims killed. Do unto others, as they say. Also, even though neither the coma victim nor the embryo want to die--(because they can't want anything) family members and friends almost certainly want the coma victim to reach the potential of regained consciousness while the parents of the embryo obviously don't want the embryo to reach consciousness because otherwise the question of abortion would be moot.

I edited this conversation to make it easier to read and filter out the peanut gallery. The entire thread can be read here. Abortion is one of the few topics involving religion in which I haven't completely made up my mind. Maybe your input will help me with that.

An Invented Religion

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