Time for another rant that no one will ever read.

The focus of this year's post:

The Creationism vs Evolution Debate

For some time now, I've been seeing and hearing about a great battle going on in the "great" scientific, political, educational, and religious arenas, Creationism vs Evolution. It's been in the news, on the internet, turned into the basis for films, joked about, and otherwise thrown about. It shown to be a pressing issue in today's world. It is also shown to be something where you must take one side or the other on. Very rarely does anyone speak of any middle ground, unless it's in a comment on a story taking one side or the other. In the several years in which I have paid any attention at all to the "Science vs. Religion" battle, I have found only one article saying "Hey, maybe these two things can work together." However, this middle-ground-ism makes very little press because (I'm assuming) editors like the controversy, and merging the two would cut off an entire debate.

I think of myself as firmly entrenched in this middle ground. I am a fairly scientific person. I am also a Lutheran. I really don't see why there is any debate, and I believe that I could argue either side rather well. What really bugs me, however, are all the articles that say how "Believers in religion are ignorant fools who don't know anything." Now, of course, I realize this to be a simple Ad Hominem, and to be verifiably false. There are countless scientists that are also very religious men (or women). On the other side of the debate, you have those who follow the bible to the letter and claim that anyone who doesn't believe in it are heretics. However, there are several things wrong with this, including, but not limited to, the fact that:

A) Some people who believe in this don't follow the bible to the letter either, and are therefore heretics,

B) Some of the people who follow this line of thought haven't even read the whole bible, and therefore are not aware of all the laws therein, and

C) There are a multitude of other religions, denominations, and sects that say the same thing, and (at least the more radical) followers of each of these religions have a tendency to get violent with other religions.

I'm sorry if the above arguments seem a little lopsided, I just put down the first things that popped into my head. Moving on, I would like to issue a challenge. Science, or at least true science, is generally acceptive of being proven wrong. When a hypothesis comes along, it is thoroughly tested. If it proves to be sound, it can become a scientific law. However, no matter how many times it is proven to be true, it only takes one test to be false to question the veracity of the law. This is because it is generally accepted that even if something would appear to be true most of the time, it does not necessarily mean that it is true all of the time. Therefore, you cannot prove any scientific "fact" to be totally true, 100% of the time. However, the inverse is also true. Just because something doesn't normally happen, doesn't mean that it can't happen. As for the challenge, pick a story from the bible, koran, talmud, or any other religious text you want, any story at all, and prove without a shadow of a doubt that it is false, that it can't happen, never has happened, and can never happen. Take your time…

Keep trying…

Go on…

I'll wait…

Well? Any luck? I thought not. I won't blame you if you didn't even try. It would be totally impossible to prove that anything is impossible at all times, in all places, and in all circumstances. I'm not saying that this proves or disproves anything, but I would like to say one more thing on this train of thought: if you were writing down the history of something, would you focus on the normal, everyday, mundane occurrences, or would you write down the strange, the fantastical, the out-of-the-ordinary things? Now, what if this history wasn't written down until hundreds of years after it occurred, being passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation before being recorded in a physical form? Which parts of the story would survive? How much will the stories change between the eyewitness account and the fireside story told by the great great great grandson of the eyewitness? What sort of changes will occur in transcribing, let alone translating, the text? While the basis of the story may still be there, the details may be skewed, or missing all together.

This leads me to my final point. Radical supporters of evolution denounce creationism because it says in the Bible that humans were made from dust, even though fossil evidence shows that species changed gradually over time. Does the bible say that some omnipotent being just popped humans, fully formed, on the Earth? While some people claim this, this is merely a literal reading of an imprecise translation of a centuries old tale. While most translations say that the creation happened over several "days", the question arises "Is the modern meaning of day the meaning that was meant here?" While it could have originally referred to a day as a 24 hour period, it could also mean (by our modern definition) a billion years. While the Bible says that man was made from dust, is this again just an error in translation, trying to fit one word from one language into another language that does not have a word with the same meaning? What is the literal meaning of dust? Webster-Miriam Dictionary says that dust is "fine, dry powder consisting of tiny particles of earth or waste matter." Tiny particles. Are humans not made of "Tiny particles"? Today, we would call such "tiny particles" atoms. So is the Bible not correct in this assumption? It does not say anywhere that humans were not made fully formed as humans, it only says that they were "made from dust," or in more current terms, from atoms.

I do believe that I have ranted for quite long enough. While I would love to continue this conversation, I feel that if I were to continue I would forget my original thought process (as indeed I have already done) and go off on wild tangents, leading nowhere. So I shall now bid thee farewell, and remind you to keep an open mind while pondering about…

LIFE

THE UNIVERSE

AND EVERYTHING

Ego and Iago… er… Aladdin

And now for something completely different… a man with a tape recorder up his nose. Wait, wrong sketch.

The ego, as some of you may know, it (according to freudian theory) the part of the psyche which is the conscious, the part that is aware and the part that controls the self through everyday life. It is the part of the self that presents itself to others. It also tries to protect the rest of the self by building a facade around it, putting a front to the real person by showing what the ego believes others want. The ego is also an attention hog, demanding that all focus should be on it, or on things that it believes that it needs to keep up it's charade. Because of it's nature, the ego hides the true self behind walls of defenses, and if it is left unchecked, it can lead to an insatiable quest for more and more power and attention.

As I was thinking of this, some weeks ago, it occurred to me that Aladdin is a perfect example of the different states of Ego. (I am of course speaking of the Disney cartoon Aladdin, which I admit is not a true telling of the story, but is none the less, a more widely known version)

In the beginning of the movie, Aladdin has, in essence, no ego, as he is living on the street and therefore has no need to hide his true self from friends (as he has no friends save his monkey Abu). This unattachment from society lets his true nature shine, one which is mindful of helping the defenseless, even if it means harm to him. Meanwhile, Jasmine is sick and tired of being forced to live a strict life and having her ego forced upon her. She wishes to get out and see the world, to cut all ties to the stresses of social life and let her true self reign free. The two meet, are attracted to each other (probably due to the fact that they recognized that the other was showing their true self and not hiding behind a mask life everyone else).

Back in the palace, Jafar, who is obsessed by a quest for power by his domineering ego, strives to find a way to make his dreams come true. Long story short, he tries to get Aladdin to get him the lamp, Aladdin gets the lamp, but then keeps it for himself. In the process, Aladdin finds out Jasmine's identity. This knowledge makes his ego grow, making his believe that he must somehow impress Jasmine in order for her to even consider marrying him. To meet his goal, he has Genie (Jinn, Djinni, however you want to spell it) "make him a prince." As he strives to reach his goal, his ego grows bigger and bigger, and all the while he becomes less like himself. He pretends to be who he isn't and begins to tell lies in order to try to woo the princess into liking "him" (his ego self), simply because he does not think that she would like his true self. Along the way, he begins to believe the lies he made and starts to believe that he got where he is now on his own accord, abandoning the lamp and allowing he to be stolen by Jafar, who instantly uses it to try to satiate his ego's drive for power. After realizing that the same beast that is in Jafar is the one who nearly caused his own downfall, Aladdin uses Jafar's ego against him by tricking him to become trapped as a slave to his power by becoming a genie himself. Aladdin abandons his ego, finally realizing that his true self is the road to happiness. The end.

Yeah, that did not work quite how I wanted, but I think I got the point across (by reinterpreting the movie scene by scene.) Once again, I am sorry if the post is overly long, I just wrote what came to mind. I'm sure that if I tried, I might have been able to say what needed to be said in a more concise method. I am planning on having other posts which analyze various topics (for instance, a look into the Lion King and how it relates to christianity.) However, I must now get to bed. Come back later for more insights into

LIFE

THE UNIVERSE

AND EVERYTHING

The Fall of the Wall

I believe that we are on the verge of an economic depression, caused by the same thing that caused the Great Depression in the 30's. The Great Depression was caused in part because of great numbers of people buying things on credit, especially stock. After some time, the people noticed that there really was no money in the stock exchange, as most of it was borrowed money from the bank.
Fast forward 80 years. Our economy is on a tipping point. The banks are hard pressed to support people, and the housing market is bust. People are beginning to realize that the economy itself has no actual money in it. The money in the economy is borrowed from the bank in the form of a loan. The loan must then be paid back with interest. However, to pay the interest, you must have more money. To get more money, you must get a loan from the bank. It may not be you that gets another loan to pay off the first loan, but any money that you use to pay back interest comes from a loan, which in turn has interest. This has caused an endless spiral which is devastating the nation's economy. It is only a matter of time before it is revealed to all that the great facade that is the economic market is held up by nothing but itself, the proverbial pulling oneself up by their bootstraps. What capital that has value (that which comes from actual products of worth) is quickly being spent across the seas on cheap, poorly made crap.
Far too much of the economy is caught up in services, and far too little is actually producing goods of any value. How many lawyers, doctors, sales associates, and businessmen are there in the United States? How many farmers, miners, factory workers? The work force has been moving away from the country and into the city, and thus moving from producing to supporting. However, if there is nothing produced, what is supported? All that is supported is a sham, a front that hides the fact that our country makes nothing and expects to garner support from other nations by doing nothing except waving it's military arm about. The people complain about poor salary and high costs of living, but the salary is far too high as it is for the work that is being done, and the living cost far to low to support the huge amounts of unnecessary merchandise shipped from far off lands. The United States has transformed from a shining example of what a country should be into an ugly, parasitic leach upon the world. Not only that, but it has started to spread it's mentality into other countries. Many more countries worldwide have begun to lose jobs in production just to bolster those jobs that, in all actuality, do nothing for the world economy.

I'm sorry if this looks like a rant, but I just had to get it off my chest. Hopefully I will be back soon for more insights into
LIFE
THE UNIVERSE
AND EVERYTHING

Hi there, it's me again.

Been a long time since I've posted. Thought I might stop by to say hello. Hello. OK, that felt… um… yeah. Well, I graduated, got my Eagle Scout award, and have helped start a webcomic. You should check it out. Not that anyone is out there reading this. It's called Life in Oblivion. You can find it at http://oblivion.comicgenesis.com

Time, in all of its intricate intricacies

Sorry for not writing in a while, all one of you who read this at all. I have been caught up in stuff, ranging from school, reading, Eagle Scout Project™, (potential) comic, and girlfriend. That about covers all of the current stuff. on to some other stuff.

I just read a article talking about a new theory stating that time is slowing down instead of the expansion of the universe speeding up. I would like to say one thing about this. They say that it is slowing down for no apparent reason. I think that there is a perfectly reasonable reason. Time and space are interconnected. There was no time before space. But when the "Big Bang™" occurred, stuff happened extremely fast, at least in our perception. But, if time and space are interconnected, then time was going infinitely faster because the the space was infinitely smaller, aka the more compact the space, the faster time goes. To the outside observer, stuff happens extremely fast, but in reality it is going at a rather reasonable speed for its "time-frame." Therefore, space may be expanding at a constant speed or even slowing, but either way it is still expanding and by expanding time flows at a slower rate then in a more compact space. We won't experience any changes because everything is effected, just as we wont necessarily notice if space expands 100 fold because if everything expands evenly, then the distance between atoms would also greatly expand, meaning that we would be 100 times bigger, as the atoms would also be 100 times bigger etc so that we would still be on the same scale.

Hopefully that made some sense. I just went on ranting and didn't pay attention to what I was writhing half the time. Maybe next time I will make more sense. See you next time for even more of…

LIFE
THE UNIVERSE
AND EVERYTHING

And now for something completely different

Surprisingly I will not talk about anything that has happened to me since nothing major has happened to me.
ON TO THE RANDOM MUSINGS!!!

The United States is a fairly decent place, if you don't count the over-commercialism, crime, failing economy, etc. Life is fairly good here, if you are paid decently. Unfortunately not everyone is paid decently. Most people don't get outstanding wages until they have A) been in the same job for a long time, like CEO's (climbing the corporate ladder) or doctors and lawyers (paying for their education) or B) are extremely lucky and play a sport, where they get paid very well for a short period of time before they are told to retire. Inflation is ruining the economy and imports and flooding the market with useless junk while we send all of our surplus out of country. In short, the economy needs to be completely reworked.

First off, taxes. Most people say that we need to lower taxes so that we have more money to spend and raise the standard of living. While it is true that it would increase the standard of living a bit, it would harm the government by removing their only source of funding. However, one could remove most of the taxes like property, income, and stamp taxes and replace them with one tax, Sales. The US government currently has no sales tax. However, if it implemented one, it could cover all of its expenses with a single tax, say 50%, only on non-essentials. Therefore any poverty-stricken people could survive on what little they receive and not have to worry about their money going to straight to the government. It would also make those who actually have money pay for the government whenever they buy something like, say, a new car, TV, house, etc. This would also discourage waste as the prices are considerably raised.

Next, minimum wage. Totally pointless. One of the main arguments for it is that it raises the standard of living. Unfortunately those who say this do not grasp some simple economic principles. Firstly, the money for the increased wages of the workers has to come from somewhere. This means that to pay the minimum wage workers, the company has to either lower the wages of the higher payed employees or increase the cost of goods. I know of very few people who would be willing to accept the former, so usually the latter is applied. Considering the fact that most companies have to pay minimum wage, this means that prices go up all around, making the price of goods increase and therefore negating the raising of the standard of living argument as the goods went up in price as the wages went up, equalizing any gain in standard of living. In fact, this could DECREASE the standard of living, as many manufactured goods rely on other goods to produce and ship, and when the wages of these go up, each part of the manufactured good costs more, increasing the cost of the final good exponentially.

To counter this, I propose that instead of a minimum wage, we impose a maximum wage. If wages cannot exceed a certain amount than everyone lives at or near the same socioeconomic level. If we put the maximum wage at $1 an hour, prices of many goods would drop greatly, many common items to as low as a couple of cents each. This solution would not only equalize everyone but greatly increase the standard of living and make the value of the dollar skyrocket. Unfortunately, prices of foreign items might be ridiculously high until they recognize the increased value of the dollar. On the bright side, this would encourage growth in the sectors of the economy currently covered by other countries, making our country more self-sufficient and able to compete with various foreign companies with higher quality products at cheaper prices.

Some people might see this and say that it sounds like its only a step away from socialism or communism, but in truth this is not necessarily a bad thing. Most of the bad press about communism is either because of poor management or propaganda set forth by big business that felt threatened by the fact that they would lose control. But that is for some other time when we look into…

LIFE,
THE UNIVERSE,
AND EVERYTHING

Today… Is a very auspicious day…

UNIFICATION DAY!!! The day we sent those brownco… wait, wrong character.


Well, this week was very eventful. Got 490 pokemans on Pearl, making my trainer card upgrade to gold. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard came out yesterday, gonna be installed today (WOO!!! LIVING ON THE BLEEDING EDGE!!!) Now all I need is a new computer to get all the features (64 bit processing, etc). Currently on a eMac with a 1.42 GHz G4 processor, thinking that a new Intel iMac would be nice. Problem is my maternal unit might not appreciate me obtaining a computer that is better then hers. Parents.


In other news, I can't think of anything else to say. Hopefully next time there will be some insight into…

LIFE
THE UNIVERSE
AND EVERYTHING