Never let me go....I walked out halfway

We use cultural tools, like songs, dances, stories to reflect our worldviews and struggles. I love movies. The whole range of movies from ‘X man’ to ‘Cider House Rules’. But as far as I can remember, this was the first show I walked out half way.

If you haven’t seen the show, the summary is as below.

“As children, Ruth, Kathy and Tommy, spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults, they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other, while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them.”

The haunting reality was that they were reared (a fitting word) to be organ donors, to the point of death. Unlike stories of similar genre (eg Coma), a rebellion or a saviour would rise to right this. In the show, characters seen to resigned to the fate and the society seen to accept this.

My innermost sense of justice, of right and wrong was assaulted. It is not that I can boast of high moral standing or sensitivities, but I found the context too vulgar.  My innermost cries out “People are PEOPLE...not animals !”. But why not? How does your worldview draw a line on this? What reference could you take from what you believe to partition this?

Is God there?....

I think it is appropriate that before we conduct a test on anything, we should first design the test first. This is the basic principle that applies from the laboratory, in engineering right to the court room. So... 

Taking a bit back from the fast track of debating whether God is there or not, let’s just ponder on what the proof that is required to satisfy this.  It does not matter on which side of the fence you sit, I value your comment. If the comment could be brief, it is easier to be understood.

Thank you

IPhone....learning about worldviews

I did had some skills in writing computer programs using stone-age language like BASIC, FOTRAM, Dbase ,Fox and C. Enough to write some entertaining as well as useful business packages. As a logical extension my family expects me to be the forefront of knowing how to use every electronic devices, from coffee machine to IPhone. It is a curse.
Actually I found it easier to learn from another user then from the instruction manual (however idiot proof it was). The pace and efficiency of such learning is helpful.
I have found the comments left by 'Irrational' and Rachel to be very insightful and exhibit rationality. If you are reading my blogs, do go back and read the comments. Irrationals had also given me some areas (exponentially increasing) to reflect on that I hope to attempt to. When I do not comment, I hope to reflect in further blogs. When I do comment, it is not the push to have the last word.
About my views and reflections, I am only claiming as much as 'I see it meaningful to me'.
Thanks for the comments.

Teapot Overturned...teapot part 2

When I was around 8 years old, I was the only one in my class who knows enough of the rules of chess to play. I went about teaching my friends how to play. When I was losing the game, I changed the rule. I cheated.

Russell’s analogy of the teapot, presupposed that a teapot exhibit features with the elegance of design and must be manufactured. It is beyond our human acceptance that such an object can be there unless an agent planted it there. If it looked designed, there must be a designer, and if it looked manufactured, there must be a maker. It is ridiculous to think of the teapot’s existence without a designer and a maker.

It is funny how the same rule does not apply to the universe as well. It is stated that chance plus matter plus time is all that it needed for the complex universe to happen, and finely tuned. If there is not enough time (since the big bang), there we can have another theory, the multi-universe. Why then cannot there be a teapot orbiting round the sun? Given time, the bombardment of particles and radiation, multiplied by a system of multi-universe, I would think the teapot is much easier to be created then a blade of grass.

I was caught by my friend who pointed out my inconsistency in applying the rule of chess. I contradicted myself. It only took another 8 years old to see it. Surely you can detect someone cheating here.

Russell's teapot...Teapot Part 1

Before I comment on this analogy, I am putting it up in it’s original form.

Russell's teapot, sometimes called the Celestial Teapot, was an analogy coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell to refute the idea that the burden of proof lies somehow upon the sceptic to disprove the unfalsifiable claims of religion.

Russell wrote the following:

If I were to suggest that . . . there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

To me what it is trying to say is...

The Christian’s assertion about the existence of God is as unlikely as finding a teapot orbiting the sun, and as ridiculous. The teaching gains acceptability because of its root in traditional practice.

I will give my thought on it in the next blog.

Of golf and heaven

My golf had been going from bad to worst. I struggle with my imperfections making the occasional success memorable. I love it. I would be disappointed if heaven does not include such activities. But will the hole be bigger and the course easier?

That will be another disappointment.

Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkin’s suggestion of the nothingness that we can expect after death is just as frightening to me as hell. I love living, and I gather most do as well. We have statements as ‘I feel so alive’ when people want to express a wellness they are experiencing, as contrast to ‘I feel so empty’ in dark days.

The hopelessness of nothingness is frightening. 

lesson from the tombstone

Coming back after visiting a friend who is battling a terminal condition is always sobering. A few weeks ago I also visited the deathbed of another. I am sure you had such experience as well.

While it seems right to go alongside with people in that situation, I always struggle on what to say or even to say anything at all. We are crushed to honestly reflect internally of the immensity of the moment and while yet trying to be polite, and politically correct. At some moments during such times, like flashes, certain thoughts dogged us. Is the confidence we placed on our worldview enough? It is not about scoring points in an argument, a display of superior intelligent or just mental entertainment. Just listening to our self and maybe we need to go just another mile in our search.  

Carved on a tombstone

“Here I am, there you are.

There you are...here you will be.”

happy when drunk

Last week our scrappy volleyball team lost in the A group final. It was a great achievement for a team that had not ever even made it to B group final. I thought that my spike could be even a more effective killer if the net was a little lower. Mentally I started to dismantle the rules to suit me, ending up taking out all the challenges. Where I finally end up, even the ball is not there. The games not only become meaningless but non existence.

I believe that activities become meaningful when fenced with rules, just as life with the fencing of ethics.  This again exemplify the suggestions (answers) to the philosophical questions is bounded by the need to be coherence to the other questions. This is an important test to any suggestions of answers.

In another as found in the suggestion below,

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

- George Bernard Shaw

Meaning is lost by the drunkard, when ethics is trodden, and destiny is a hangover and damaged kidney.

Somehow  I suspect that everyone (even the drunkard) with a sober mind will disagree with GB Shaw. We don’t play games with life without having to pay.

Going to the dark side...reading 'The God delusion'...

Yes, I was more than just contemplative, apprehensive or just wondering is it a waste of time when I look at the thick imposing book (actually an audio version). I was scared that my precious belief would be explained away, and God will disappear. Will a simple mind like mine being able to comprehend and think critically when I am led down the corridor by a writer of such brilliance?

I am glad I did. The experience had given me courage to also think through my beliefs and also to read more of the other views, but more….I am now more prepared to listen to others respectfully.

Durian (or blue cheese) philosophy

To those uninitiated to the stinky fruit found in south east asia (durian) ...one word ..don't. The experience may be like slupping strawbarries ice cream in a filty toilet. To some it is the same as the stinky blue cheese. Durian, I hate, but blue cheese, I will die for. The tangy taste of the moulds growing out of a well matured cheese explodes to a thousand flavors.

I guess philosophy, world views or belief that is based on religion is similar to a certain extend. There is a certain divisiveness when philosophy is on the plate at any discourse. Unfortunately, some to extreme results. Although the answers given by sectors are different, the questions are similiar. As there is a universal hunger for food, the philosophical hunger brought about by the questions are similar. This evidence in the song we sing, the book we write and read, the stories we tell. There is also a universility in the question. Four questions seem to be the main, whereby other subsets are derived. 

The question of Origin

The question of Ethics

The question of Meaning

The question of Destiny

The belief system must answer them with logic as we know it, and all the answers must be nitted together as  a coherence whole.

Betting on creator..or creatorless

Something I find it rather obvious rationality as to the choice one make as to place our bet on believing there is or there isn't a creator behind creation.
The supporter of creation by chance acknowledge that in the view of the complexities we see that it is a very very very ( a lot of verys) small chance for it to happen. But never the less IT MUST HAPPEN THIS WAY.
So there is no meaning to life, and also no meaning after life.
Another person living believing and being accountable to a creator (he call God), had constructed a purpose as well as a hope for life after death.
If the first person is right, the second person do not suffer any worst off from his bet.
But if the second is right, the first is doomed.
I rather follow the second, it is the most rational choice.