PASCAL'S WAGER

 So, this great mathematician, Blaise Pascal, said essentially that you might as well believe in God because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. However, I find that he was a bit short-sighted. It is not simply a 50-50 odds to be considered. Perhaps Pascal did not have knowledge of all the different gods that people have been believed in - past and present. There are at least ten major religions today and then at least  hundreds if you count the minor ones. So, your chance of picking the correct one is greatly reduced. So, no, it is not as simple as Pascal would have us think. Also, if one god exists, then why not many more? And is the universe always dominated by the same god? Perhaps at one time Zeus was the head god. How do we know? For me it is all fairy tales and make believe any way.

Super Strong-Force Field Theory

 Okay, this is me dabbling into a field in which I have no formal training and I am just putting this out there. I was thinking about the strange behavior of entangled subatomic particles. I surmise that there must be a force to allow this phenomenon to exist - it isn't magic.

So, I propose the existence of a super strong force that permeates the universe. I call it the "super-force". Changes in the strength of this force occur at very, very small increments as one travels through the universe. Very small objects (subatomic particles) are more sensitive to this force than macroscopic objects. For a person to experience changes in this force, they would have to travel many light years in one direction.

Think of it like being in a blizzard in a white-out condition. You cannot see anything because it appears uniformly white all around you. So, we cannot detect the super-force because we are immersed in it. The effect of the super-force on large objects may be so subtle within our frame of reference that it is beyond our level of detection.

Old Man and the Park

 So, an old man who was quite wealthy, retired and moved into my town. Being a philanthropist, he had a playground constructed in our town for young children. We all thought this was really nice of him. But then, he put a set of shelves filled with assorted candies in the middle of the park. 

The rule was that the children could play in the park and enjoy it as much as they liked, but they must never eat any of the candy that is on the shelves. If they did, he would ban them from the park and hunt them down. They would be tortured forever.

The town citizens were enraged and had the old man locked up. 

However, when this is done in a mythological story on a grander scale, it becomes part of the holy book. The "old man" is justified in all that he does.

Boring Heaven

 The Abrahamic HEAVEN where...
... everybody worships one super-powerful authority!
...  the authority not only incarcerates the dissenters, but tortures them for eternity.
... there are no needs that aren't fulfilled.
... you are happy all the time.
... everyone believes and does everything the same.
... you are in worship 24/7 for eternity.
Things that heaven doesn't have...
Your family, Your pets, Food, Sex, TV, Movies, Computers

Yet, this is the reason for living and the  goal that 85%
of the world's population is basing their lives on.

Seems pretty boring and very socialistic.

Hmmmmm.... heaven?

 Many people live their lives as religious people so that they can reap the eternal reward of "Heaven" at the end. So, what is "Heaven"  and this great reward? Well, throughout the bible they mention that there is no sun, no moon, and no night. It is also very bright so make sure to bring eye protection. Also, there is a lot of glass, pearls, and gold. 

And what will you do? Well, it is one big church in this city (or country). So, presumably there will be a lot of singing of hymns, praying, etc. Everyone will be like angels meaning neither male nor female and of course no sex (ugh! who wants that dirty stuff anyway?).  According to Matthew 22:30 there are no husbands or wives in heaven. Then by logical extension, no fathers, mothers, grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc.  I'm not sure where you get the idea that all your family is there waiting for you?  Some scholars site the visitations of Samuel, Moses, and Elijah as indications that we retain our identity in heaven.  However, these were key biblical characters and are probably granted special dispensations.  Some scholars say that the reunion with loved ones would be secondary to the "joyful" experience of praising god 24/7 for eternity.

Examples of Biblical Characteristics of heaven:

Revelations 21:4  Everybody will be painless and happy.

John 14:2  : Everyone gets a room in the house.

1 Corinthians 2:9   Something never seen, heard, or imagined. (Huh?)

John 3:16   Live for eternity.

Revelation 22:1-5   Big river, very bright, tatooed foreheads, no night (no sleep?), big tree with fruit and healing leaves.

Romans 10:9-13  All people are the same. (No individuality)

Luke 23:43   Like paradise.

Matthew 6:19-21   Nothing corrodes, rots, or is stolen.

Hebrews 11:16   A better country and/or city.

Revelation 21:21-27   No sun or moon - no night - constant light from god.  No temples (i.e. churches) in the city with a lot of pearl, glass, and gold. 

......................

If I had a god...

MY GOD

I do not have a god, but if I did...

1) My god would not make me "love" him or spend eternity in unbearable anguish.
2) My god would not tell me how to buy, sell and treat slaves because he would condemn slavery as an abomination to humankind.
3) My god would not treat half the population of the earth as inferiors because of their gender. ALL people would be treated and respected equally!
4) My god would not create an infallible "instruction book" filled with ambiguity and contradictions and erroneous information.
5) My god would not be concerned about the gender of two loving people. 
6) My god would not create a world full of people only to horrifically drown because he was dissatisfied. 
7) My god would not be vengeful and jealous because these are petty human traits.
8) My god would rule over billions of stars and planets which would probably contain thousands or millions of inhabited planets.
9) My god would not instruct soldiers to attack a people and kill women, children, and men as well as their livestock.
10) My god would not instruct soldiers to take young virgins as prisoners for their own purposes.
11) My god would not make his followers turn against their family.
12) My god would not punish my lineage for my sins.
13) My god would be tolerant of other's beliefs and not order me to slay them.
14) My god would not believe in animal or human sacrifice.

... and I bet there are many more others can think of.
=============================================

Twins, Triplets and the Soul

I personally do not believe in the existence of a spiritual human soul or an afterlife. However, I do find it entertaining to muse on the concepts of such things and how those who hold such beliefs deal with incongruities. After researching a bit, it seems that the majority of those on the religious right believe that the human soul is formed at conception when the sperm fertilizes the egg.
Okay. If that is so, then what about identical twins and triplets? Do they each get a part of a soul? Is the original soul reproduced? If it is reproduced, are all versions identical? If they each get a new soul, does that mean souls can be created without conception? 
It may seem like a minor point, but if you are a religious person and have one or more clones of yourself out there, you may be very concerned about this. After all, the entire basis of their belief system rests on the eternal life of the soul. 
If the original soul is broken up, then what if only one of them gets spiritually "saved"? Do they all go to heaven or hell?

Minds of Children

The Minds of Children...

I think the secular movement must readjust the focus of it's efforts.  Religion seems to be so successful because it begins the inculcation process at a very young age - even before speaking and walking begin. Infants are wooed with religious songs, hymns and poems. This constant exposure builds and reinforces the emotional links to the religious community. This is followed up with the constant barrage of additional information and emotional links through group activities, "fun" holidays and communal traditions.
The secular community should put forth an effort to create child appealing songs, stories and poems. There is a need for "fun" holidays and activities to teach and promote creative, reasonable, and scientific ideas and principles. If such things exists already, I have not seen them and they need to be advertised more.

Thoughts on the SOUL

     Much of religious belief rests in a firm conviction in the existence of the human soul. It is proposed to be an entity unto itself that can exist without the physical body. Since the soul is said to receive a reward of happiness and joy for life(?) eternal, it stands to reason that it can also feel sadness, anger, disappointment and many other emotions. That does bring up a number of other questions concerning the soul and it's abilities.
     Does the soul feel pain? hunger? tiredness?

Humanistic Atheist Concerns

As a Humanistic Atheist I find that I am too much focused on what is wrong with religion. Although I find most of the activities and ideas of mainstream religion benign, the fringe believers can come up with things that really annoy mean and that I view as harmful.

For example, many of the local churches have programs and fund raisers which are helpful to society. They cover things like providing food and shelter for the homeless and less fortunate. I guess my main gripe is when they start trying to flex their religious muscle in the political arena and try to dictate behavior and restrictions which effect all of society.

That being said, I do not want to expend the largest percentage of my energy on being anti-religious.  I would rather spend most of my time and energy on being a good humanist. So, I will be trying to find activities and opportunities that lend themselves to my situation. Due to my responsibilities to my disabled mate, I do not have the freedom of mobility around town and extended absence from the home. I will continue my search for things.

Biblical Blood

I am appalled at all of the blood in the Koran, Jewish Bible and Christian Bible. They all contain the Pentateuch which has portions that are very specific about blood and the parts of slaughtered animal sacrifices. Put the blood here, but not there; offer up these animal parts, but not these; and so on and so on. In some places God mentions how he likes the scent of fresh blood and burning flesh. Was all of this obsession with blood and butchering really necessary?
Here is a sample of text from Exodus 29. What did these animals ever do to God? Put blood on your earlobes, right thumb and right big toe??? Ridiculous.

Exodus 29

¹⁵ “Take one of the rams, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head. ¹⁶ Slaughter it and take the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides. ¹⁷Cut the ram into pieces and wash the inner parts and the legs, putting them with the head and the other pieces. ¹⁸ Then burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the LORD, a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the LORD by fire.

 ¹⁹ “Take the other ram, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head. ²⁰Slaughter it, take some of its blood and put it on the lobes of the right ears of Aaron and his sons, on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. Then sprinkle blood against the altar on all sides. ²¹ And take some of the blood on the altar and some of the anointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and their garments. Then he and his sons and their garments will be consecrated.

 ²² “Take from this ram the fat, the fat tail, the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver, both kidneys with the fat on them, and the right thigh. (This is the ram for the ordination.) ²³ From the basket of bread made without yeast, which is before the LORD, take a loaf, and a cake made with oil, and a wafer. ²⁴ Put all these in the hands of Aaron and his sons and wave them before the LORD as a wave offering. ²⁵ Then take them from their hands and burn them on the altar along with the burnt offering for a pleasing aroma to the LORD, an offering made to the LORD by fire.

⁴⁰ With the first lamb offer a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a quarter of a hin of oil from pressed olives, and a quarter of a hin of wine as a drink offering. ⁴¹Sacrifice the other lamb at twilight with the same grain offering and its drink offering as in the morning—a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the LORD by fire.

The 10 Commandments - First 4 are a waste!

So, the "all knowing and all powerful" supreme being could have made some better laws, especially the 1st four.  The first 4 commandments are statements of God's insecurity, need for revenge and about running the religion.

Instead, it would have saved a lot of human misery and suffering, if he, the Lord, had addressed these topics...

You should not own any human beings.
There are no witches, sorcerers or demons.
Men and women are equal in all aspects of life.
Every human has the right to or not to follow a religion.

Oh well, I guess he was bored and needed the entertainment!

Thoughts on the Evolution of Religion

Early man knew very little about his world. There was no explanation for most of the tings that happened in his life.  Dreams indicated that there was another dimension to existence. How could you see a dead father unless there was a place where he stilled existed? Man created good gods and bad gods to explain the things that happened in his life. Special members of the tribe and society came about to help interpret the desires of the gods and communicate with them.

Hurricanes, storms, droughts and floods were all the work of the gods. You must appease the gods by sacrificing those things most precious to you... first born children, the best of the crops and the healthiest strongest livestock. Then, we started studying the skies, rivers and season and realized that there were perfectly understandable reasons for the things that happened.

Ah, but the gods could still get upset... we still had times that the moon went grey or the sun was blotted from the sky. There were also those strange lights that appeared in the sky at regular intervals. Surely, these things were the works of supernatural creatures! However, we discovered geology and plate tectonics and these thing were explained away.

Lightning comes from the heavens and must certainly be sent by the gods to punish mankind. None could fathom anything strong enough to wield such terrible, powerful destruction. Then we discovered electricity and the electrodynamics of the atmosphere and all was clear.

Still, mankind was dying in mysterious ways. A man would fall ill and the sickness was manifested in his family and friends. This again must be the work of gods. These people or their forbears must have done something to upset the gods. Yes, they are probably secretly evil in their thoughts! The gods know all! However, we discovered that there was a microscopic realm of organisms that perfectly explained all that was observed.

Modern science has explained so many of the things that were originally attributed to supernatural forces. As science progresses, the believers in the supernatural become more and more obstinate in their beliefs.  Hopefully this will change one day.

It is Difficult...

Living in an area of the country where the people are nice, but narrow minded poses some problems for the free-thinker. If I was to reveal my true self to those that I deal with on a regular basis, I fear that many would shun me and at best just be tolerant of my presence. Unfortunately, many of the people with whom I deal are quite fixed in their beliefs of Biblical matters. My disbelief in such things would be difficult for them to deal with and accept. If I was to reveal to them that I am an atheist, I believe many of them would respond with disbelief and statements that "Oh, that is too bad." or "Oh what a shame." It is as if they feel sorry about my inability to believe in the foolish ideas that govern their lives. If those beliefs make them feel better and cope with their lives, then all the better for them. However, I cannot in clear conscience confess to believe in the same things that they do.

Thoughts on "budget stores" under Trump?

Many of the low priced budget stores, such as Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Tuesdays, Aldi, etc., depend on imports from countries where items are manufactured inexpensively. The low cost of production and the low cost of importing these items is reflected in the low prices at the retail stores.

The new administration has spoken repeatedly about raising tariffs significantly on goods coming into the country. This administration also says that it will bring many jobs and companies back to the US and this too will have the effect of raising prices.  It is just a fact that producing goods in the US is more expensive than making them overseas. For example, Apple has stated that it would have to increase the cost of the iPhone over 100% if it was produced in the US. This would drive the price up to around $1300. The budget stores will be forced to raise their prices and may suffer a loss of sales and possibly go out of business.

Everything is relative. If all the prices in the big brand store chains also go up significantly, as they likely will, then the prices at the budget stores may still be considered a bargain. However, the goal of the Trump administration is to make the prices competitive with the prices of US goods.

The effect of refocusing on the American economy is supposed to be higher wages and benefits for the American worker. This is the idea behind trickle down economics which depends on the generosity, humaneness and fair play of corporate America. Corporate America does not have a very good track record in this area. Trickle down economics has been tried in the past and was found to be unsuccessful.

POST SCRIPT: Now that Trump has been in office for about 6 mos., I see that he is not holding to his campaign promises for the most part. Hilary is free, there is no wall, he is having trouble with health care and coal workers are the only ones working again.  he recently had a meeting with the German ambassador which was followed in a few days with an announcement that Aldi stores will be expanding their American base. I don't think this is a coincidence.  So, there probably will not be a big tariff on imported goods.

Why the really big spending in Christmas season of 2016

Holiday spending was up 3.5% to 5.0% according to who you talk to. This is a significant increase from last year. It's the best it has been in a long time. Why?

Well, I think I finally figured out why there was such an increase in holiday spending and, yes, Donald Trump may deserve the credit.

The Republicans were all going out shopping singing "Happy Days are Here Again" and thinking that they were going to be making more money. No worries about the future and everything is going to be wonderful when America is great again! So they were spending and running up bills!

The Democrats, foreseeing a future of doom and gloom and economic collapse figured that this is going to be the last great Christmas before the new President gets in. So, they went on a spending spree to cheer themselves up and try to enjoy one last good Christmas.

Of course there are other explanations for this trend (and I'm sure we will see them), but let's not confuse the issue with facts.

See your pet in heaven?

PETS IN HEAVEN

I have been reading information from various sites online concerned about the question as to whether of not pets go to Heaven. The religious sites do not have anything definitive to prove that people will be seeing their pets in Heaven.  Their answers are things like...
a) God wants us to be happy in Heaven. Our pets make us happy. Therefore we will see our pets in Heaven.
b) The Bible doesn't say that animals won't be there, so that means they may. Believe what you like.
c) God says that in the New World the "Lion will lie down with the lamb." This implies that there will be animals in the New World.
For statements a & b, all I can say is it sounds like wishful thinking and telling them what they want to hear. Statement c refers to the "New World".  I'm pretty sure the "New World" is the earth after the second coming. So, again, it doesn't address Heaven itself.

Some Things I Do Not BELIEVE...

I Do Not Believe...

1) ...in an after life. Death is the end of your conscience existence. Make sure you are kind and loving to all those who are dear to you. There is no second chance. This world is all there is and it is a wonderful, beautiful, frightening, and ugly place. Yes, it can be all those things. Reality doesn't care for you. There is such a thing as misfortune, which is, for the most part a chance occurrence. A person is just the victim of circumstance. It is a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Human misfortune can also be the consequence of poor decisions. let's face it. Some dumb ass people just go through life making one bad decision after another.

2) ... in supernatural beings that control or influence my life. All the various religious stories are nothing but myths and fables concocted by man to explain his reality, control other people or fulfill wishful thinking.

3) ... filling the heads of young people with the threat of eternal suffering and pain for not following a a certain religious dogma.  This encourages a belief in supernatural forces causing people to behave in uncharacteristic ways and explaining chance events.

Thoughts on President Trump...

I think Trump would have the same effect internationally as he does nationally. He seems to have the stance that you are either with him or against him. This leads to the kind of polarization being seen in the country now. On the international stage, the world would be divided into our friends and enemies. Some of our "friends" would be countries who disliked us but sided with us out of fear. The polarized world where everyone is sworn to protect each other would become a tinderbox, just waiting for the first infraction. Next thing you know, we are in WWIII.

The Rose Garden

The Rose Garden

I went to the garden alone, while the dew was still on the roses.
It was morning and I thought I was alone.
Then I saw him sitting there on the bench - a middle aged man that looked a bit hippy-ish.
So, I sat beside him and spoke to him.
"Hi, how are you doing?"
He sighed as her leaned forward putting his elbows on his knees and looking at the ground.
"Well", he said, "I'm a little down. Things aren't going quite the way I expected. There is too much greed and hate and sadness."
"I guess it is human nature." I said.
"Yeah, but I told them to fight that. I told them to love one another, help one another, treat each other the way they would want to be treated."... he sighed again and I saw his shoulders sag a bit.
"They were supposed to feed the hungry", he continued, " and give to the poor, but they think the hungry and poor are just lazy and looking for a handout. I don't remember putting conditions on their actions. They are all just too attached to their worldly goods."
 I felt sorry for him, so I patted him on the shoulder and told him that I hoped things worked out okay for him.  Then I continued my walk through the garden.