Short Films on Atheism

I mentioned before that I had collected a series of short films and video clips covering atheism, religion, and science. This post contains the first half of that collection that focus on atheism.

Atheism: Jonathon Miller's Brief History of Disbelief


This hour long BBC documentary examines atheism in a very different way than other films and books that I've studied. It doesn't really try to promote atheism, it simply seeks to explain its causes. I wrote down in my notes that this film takes a very philosophical approach to belief. It also discusses some of the consequences of belief, visiting Ground Zero in New York City. It also addresses the history of religion in America, providing concrete evidence that many of the founding fathers were not religious men at all.


The God Who Wasn't There - The History of the Gospels


This clip is from the documentary film "The God Who Wasn't There", which I watched in full earlier this year. This particular section discusses the history of the gospels, how the story of Jesus fits into the known historical framework, and a comparison of Jesus and Christianity to older heroes and legends in folklore and mythology. I enjoyed the film and would recommend it to others, even though I recall that I had some reservations about it. The contents of this clip I think contain my favorite discussions in the film.

The Root of All Evil? - The God Delusion
Part 1

Part 2


This film features Richard Dawkins discussing the perils of religion. He also analyzes the stark differences between scientific inquiry and dogmatic faith. I personally find it immensely interesting, even though it does have some rather provocative moments. Dawkins visits fundamentalist Christian gatherings in America, speaks to Jews and Muslims in the Middle East, and visits various religious leaders in London. In the second part, the discussion turns to childhood indoctrination and an analysis of the contents of the Christian bible, particularly focusing on morality.

If Atheist Ruled the World


Finally is this humorous and terrifying video. These guys read out aloud text directly from online Christian fundamentalist forums. This stuff is absolutely unbelievable. It really scares me to think that there are people out there in this world with these sorts of warped views and opinions.

Finish What You Start

Lately instead of posting to my own blog, I've been reading and commenting on others. In particular I've been pretty active at the Atheist Experience blog. I had a great discussion with others in a couple recent posts there. The first post was a discussion about the moral/ethical implications actions of professed gods. I made the first comment to that post so if you're interested, read it through and follow where the discussion led (there was at least one theist who participated in the dialogue). Also in that post someone shared a quiz called "Religion 101" which I enjoyed. I don't agree with the wording, fairness, or relevance of some of the questions on there, but in general I think its great. The quiz can be found here. I have a Christian friend I've been having some religious discussions with off and on in the past few weeks and I'd like to ask if she would mind taking it and then we can have a discussion about the answers that she selected. The second post I commented on was about the "end times" doctrine in Christianity found in the Book of Revelation. The original topic was a discussion of how sick and disturbing it is to see believers actually express their desire for the end of the world to come and to observe all the non-believers suffering in agony, but the discussion in the comments went all over the place.

If you recall, earlier this year I mentioned that I had put together a selection of various video clips from The Atheist Experience that I wanted to watch together with my religious friend. And when our discussions broke down and she no longer wished to talk about the subject anymore, I started sharing the clips on my blog. The last time I shared a clip was way back in March and I'm not even half way through my list, so I need to finish what I started. Here's the next clip in the series on how the concept of "sin" is a control mechanism. In my notes I wrote to watch only the first four minutes and thus will only comment on that length, but feel free to watch the entire 10 minute clip.



The commentary by the co-host Don is rather acerbic, but I do think he makes an interesting conjecture on how sin is used to exploit people, and how ridiculous the concept of original sin is. If you don't know, original sin is the idea that you are guilty for all the "sinful" actions of your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etcetra all the way back to the original two human beings, Adam and Eve (of course, I don't believe that two homo sapiens spontaneously popped into existence from nothing in the first place). I don't have much else to add here.

Link to google video (Sorry, blogger isn't accepting the embed code for some reason)

This is actually a full 90 minute episode, not a single clip. The portion of this episode I want to discuss is the segment from 6:00 to 35:00. Yes, its nearly 30 minutes long. In my notes I wrote that this segment is about the following. "A dialog on what motivates people to believe in Christianity, reasons for beliefs, reasons for disbelief, and touches on young Earth creationism". At 12:00, the hosts discuss a Christian blogger who told atheists why they are atheists, and gave two reasons (both reasons he gave require the atheist to believe in God). I've seen this many times before, on both sides of the aisle. Rather than listen to why the other person believes or disbelieves in something, they assert their own reasons on that person and assert them. Sometimes they do this because its easy for them to refute. Sometimes they do it because it makes them feel more comfortable about their own beliefs. But regardless of why they do this, its wrong for them to do so. The hosts also mention that some people, such as Ray Comfort, claim that there are no atheists. Rather those that call themselves atheists do believe in a god (particularly his god), but are in denial about it or reject the god for some reason. Its quite an ignorant assertion.

Between about 14:00 and 22:00, the hosts divulge into a good summary of the difference between theism, gnosticism, and weak/strong atheism. Around 24:00 the co-host Tracie provides a great example of contrast between the reaction of two fundamentalist Christians when they are presented with conflicting evidence that the Earth is 6,000 - 10,000 years old. One believer is open-minded at looking at the scientific evidence and as a result, becomes convinced that that particular belief they hold was wrong. The other is adamant that nothing can nor ever will change their beliefs. The latter believer is the type that I have serious problems. They proudly boast about being close minded and either uniformly reject or ignore contradictory evidence. Regardless of what you believe or disbelieve, whether its gods, UFOs, or political ideology, I think it is a horribly awful thing to be dogmatic and close minded to contradictory arguments, evidence, and opinions. And religion, particularly many forms of fundamentalism, are excellent and promoting this maligned view.

The Crazy Things People Will Do For Their God

I've been reading posts on the Atheist Experience blog for the past couple of months now. There is one that Tracie (one of the hosts on the show) made a few weeks ago that I wanted to share and comment on.

Is Religion Beneficial to Society?

Tracie's post analyzes the thought process of religious believers who are willing to personal commit or condone atrocities such as genocide, murdering their own child, etc. if their god commands it. This is something that resonated strongly with me because, if you recall, my religious friend said she was perfectly willing to go into an elementary school and murder all the children there if her god commanded her to. It totally shocked me that she said this, and it still does. Below are some selected quotes from that post that I think are worth emphasizing, but really I recommend that you read the entire article.

And I would follow that section with all the letters we get from adherents telling us that their religion is good, who after a few exchanges say that mass genocide, mass infanticide, suicide-mass-murder, rape, slavery and child sacrifice are all morally acceptable if, and only if, a god tells you to do these things.

Religion can take a human being who is willing to condemn an action as immoral in a particular circumstance, and get them to say that same action is moral in that same circumstance, if a god says to do it.

Someone might want revenge on Hitler to the point of hoping for a merciless, vengeful eternity of torture. But an average child? Or even an average adult? It’s hard to believe anyone would say that any of our friends and neighbors should be deserving of torture for ten minutes, let alone eternity?

There is something unnerving about living in a society where the predominant religion is one that can make a standard, normal human assert that atrocities should never be committed—except when god says to commit them.

There are many interesting comments to this article as well. I made some comments of my own there and talked about my religious friend, her willingness to commit murder for her god, and her response to my question of how is she different than a jihadist. (Her answer was "they're not really talking to god"). Here are some good responses I got to that from other comment writers.

cipher:
The sad thing is that Tyler's friend could easily have said, "If I heard the voice of God telling me to murder children, I'd assume that I was losing my mind" - but that wouldn't occur to most of them. It seems more reasonable to them to say, "Why, yes, I'd murder children."

tracieh:
Actually they do say things like “god would never say that.” But it's just too easy to point to all the times their god is described to have had people do these things in their own Bibles. Then you say, “You mean this god?”

tracieh:
I agree that it is unbelievable to see that they will say it outright--sometimes without a moment's hesitation. But god is always right—so killing children becomes right if god says to do it. That’s how "god" works in people's heads.

tracieh:
She’d "really" be killing for _god_, but they are killing because they’re deluded about what they think god is (i.e., their god isn't the "real" god). So, they’re not justified. It’s only justified if you do it for the "real" god. And since her religion is the "real" one and theirs is "false"—they’d be terrorists, and she’d be a martyr. Funny, though, how that works both ways, right?

I really, really wish I could ask my religious friend to read this post and all of the comments. If she ever agrees to talk to me about her faith again (although I doubt she will) this is going to be one of the first things I want her to read along with my earlier post about belief in hell.

I believe you're going to hell...and I hope I'm wrong.

I've been thinking about the concept of hell a lot lately. I would like for you to think about it too, especially if you are a believer in some form of hell. First lets take a brief look at what hell is, at least in general without getting too far into specifics or different religious explanations.

What is hell?
Hell is a place that human "souls" go to after their mortal life on Earth ends. No other species on Earth, at least according to most mainstream monotheistic religions, is at risk of going there.

What happens in hell?
You are subjected to the ultimate form of torture. Your "soul body" will burn in a lake of fire. You will be tortured and mutilated and suffer the most unimaginable suffering from the moment you die for all eternity. There will not exist a single moment of respite from this continuous torment.

What factors determine whether or not I will go to hell?
It varies according to which belief system you adhere too. But according to my religious friend, you can go to hell for either of these two conditions. (1) You do not accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior (ie, you are not a Christian). (2) God will judge your life and if you did not "follow his rules" as he outlines in the bible well enough, then he damns you to hell. Muslims, from what I know, believe all non-Muslims go to hell but I'm not sure if any other conditions apply.

Once I'm in hell, how do I get out or make my situation any better?
You can do nothing to change your fate after you die. Once you're in hell, you will stay there for all eternity. God will not forgive you and will not show a single ounce of mercy for you no matter who you are, no matter how apologetic you are, and no matter how much you are suffering and crying out in pain asking for mercy. He will allow it to continue. Forever.

Where did hell come from?
Like all things, God made the decision to create it. He deemed the existence of hell, of eternal torture, a necessary and just thing.

How many people living today are destined to go to hell?

Let's provide an estimate how many people are going to go to hell, shall we? Well, the answer of course depends on which religion is correct. (Most) Christians say that all non-Christians are going to hell while (most) Muslims say that all non-Muslims are going to hell. For the sake of keeping this short, we will consider just these two religions. Also because I'm not God and can't judge whether someone is a "proper" Christian or Muslim and doesn't deserve hell, I'll just say for the sake of argument that 100% of persons of the correct faith are not going to hell. I'm also going to ignore denominations and just assume that both Catholic and Protestant, Shiite and Sunni, etc. are all not going to hell (even though many of these denominations believe that this is not true). So lets take a look here. The graph below is from adherents.com and lists an estimated distribution of the world based on religion.



Now according to cia.gov, the human population of the world is somewhere in the ballpark of 6,706,993,152 people, or 6.7 billion. As a comparison, the population of the United States is approximately 307,212,123 people, or 0.307 billion people. The US population accounts for 4.58% of the current world population.

If the 66% of the population that is non-Christian world is damned to hell, that's 4,426,615,480 people, or 4.4 billion. 4.4 billion people are deserving of eternal torture and punishment according to mainstream Christian belief. And if we assume that Allah is the one true God instead of the Christian one, looking at the 79% of the non-Muslim world we have 5,298,524,590 or 5.3 billion on the verge of eternal damnation. To put that in perspective, if the Christian teachings are true then a quantity of people that is over 14.4 times that of the current population of the United States is deserving of the worst suffering imaginable, forever (the number of non-Muslim damned is 17.2 times).

Holy crap!!! I thought your god was supposed to be a loving and merciful character? How is it that so many people sing praise to Jesus (who is God) or Allah and say nothing but wonderful things about them when they surely realize that of the number of people who are currently living on this Earth, he is sending 4.4 b-i-l-l-i-o-n of them to be tortured for eternity simply because they don't believe in him? I am having trouble finding the correct ways to express the seriousness of this. Lets think about the horrors of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. About 2.2 billion people on Earth believe that the other 4.4 billion deserve a punishment that is far, far, far, FAR worse than what those poor, innocent Jewish and other minority victims suffered. Furthermore they deserve to suffer in that state for all eternity without a shred of hope for temporary respite, not even being allowed a second death. If Jesus is justified in torturing those who are "inferior" for not believing in him, why don't I ever hear Christians making the claim that Adolf Hitler was justified in his actions during the Holocaust? Is the only difference because Jesus is a God while Hitler was merely a man? Does that mean that there is a different set of morals and justified actions for a God than a man? If God is justified in everything that He does, does that imply that the more powerful or knowledgeable a being is, the more correct their seemingly unethical actions would be?

I know that what I am about to say may cause a lot of Christians, Muslims, and people of other faiths to become furious but I will say it anyway. If the god (Jesus, Allah, Yahweh) in your religion is going to send all non-believers of your faith to be tortured for eternity without respite, then your god is much worse than Adolf Hitler. And much worse than Joseph Stalin. And much worse than Mao Zedong. Your god is much worse than all three of those genocidal mass murderers combined. I would love if someone could explain this and convince me why I am incorrect about what I just said.

Coping with a belief of hell

Why do people continue to hold on to the beliefs that all others who do not share their faith are going to be damned with eternal torture? Isn't it distressing to them? I haven't met all 4.4 billion people of the non-Christians nor have I met all 5.3 billion people that are non-Muslims, but I am willing to wager that a large majority of them are good, decent people and I'm sure that nearly everyone would agree with me on that. If I personally held that belief that those people deserve to be tortured, I would be devastated! I generally care about other people, including those that I've never met. My mission in life is to do what I can to make the world a better place for both the people living on this Earth now and for those who will live long after I am dead (and burning in hell?). I think I can understand better now those people of faith who make it their mission to convert as many people over to their belief system as possible, so long as they are doing so because they genuinely believe that these (innocent?) people would otherwise be tortured by their "loving" god (add sarcasm). But not all missionaries have that sort of altruistic intention in mind I'm sure.

I also think I now have a better understanding of the grief that must exist in a religious family when a close friend or family member rejects the teachings that they have shared. I grow more thankful every day that I did not grow up in such a family, because I know it would be so much harder for me to be who I am. Having become close friends with a religious person was hard enough on me. When she told me that she believed that I was going to hell, despite having nothing but positive things to say about me at that time, it really did hurt. And it was also very confusing and difficult for me to accept. How does she cope with that belief if she cares about me? How does she also respect my right to believe or not believe what I choose and not try to actively convert me? (I'm glad that she doesn't try that by the way). Is it just something that she doesn't think about? Does she avoid becoming emotionally attached to any person who she believes is going to hell? I wish I could ask her these things.

Is hell something that people deserve?

Whether my religious friend or another person believes that I and X billion number of other humans on the planet are going to suffer from a state of eternal torture upon death is one matter. I think that a question that many believers fail to ask themselves (and should) is "Do these people deserve that?". Lets examine three possible responses.

"Yes, I believe you deserve to go to hell for not sharing my belief."
Well then I wonder how your position is any different from Hitler, as incendiary as that may sound. Hitler believed that all Jews and other groups should be thrown in concentration camps, starved, beaten, and murdered en masse. You believe that all non-Christians/non-Muslims/etc. should be thrown in a lake of fire, tortured, mutilated, and tormented for all eternity. You both believe that certain groups of people deserve this inhumane, unimaginable level of punishment and suffering.

"I don't know, that's God's will."
But you still believe that these people will go to hell, right? So obviously your god thinks that they deserve to go to hell. And because your god is infinitely more powerful, more knowledgeable, and more benevolent than you (really?), you are just willing to default to his/her/its decision and respond "Yeah, that's cool with me". Personally, in some ways I find this answer to be almost more insulting than just saying yes. Perhaps you feel guilty, so you want to avoid the question and shift the blame to your god. After all, this is his judgment, right? Have you ever considered questioning his judgment? Have you ever considered saying to your god "Hey, I disagree with you torturing these billions and billions of people for eternity and I think you should stop"? If you haven't, then why the hell not?

"No, I don't think that you deserve that simply for not sharing my faith."
Great! You are more moral than the god that you worship. You are not alone either, because most human beings are as well. I know that if I was a god, I sure wouldn't be putting these people through so much suffering for not believing in me. Especially if I was the sort of god that wanted people to believe in me based on "faith", or belief without evidence.

I believe that you are going to hell, and I hope that I am wrong about that.

Everything I've said builds to this final pressing question that I've been pondering for the past week. If people genuinely hold this belief about hell, why do I never hear anyone say "I believe that you are going to hell, and I hope that I am wrong about that"? Do they really want to be correct that 4.4 billion or 5.3 billion of their fellow human inhabitants of Earth are going to hell, to be greeted by the screams of the billions more already there and to be followed by the trillions who will die later? I have been told that I am going to hell countless times throughout my life, yet not one person has expressed any sort of remorse about that belief. They've never told me that they wished that particular belief that they held was not true. Does that mean that they want it to be true?


I'd guess "probably not", at least for most decent and caring human beings. So why don't they abandon it? Why is religion this "all or none" deal to so many people? Can you not continue to believe in God while rejecting the belief in hell? Can you not believe in a heaven if you do not believe in a hell? Many people have already rejected many aspects of their belief system, whether they realize it or not. I have yet to meet a Christian who adheres to Deuteronomy 21:18-21, which states that you should stone your unruly children to death. (I've also yet to meet a person who does not admit that they were not unruly at some point during their childhood). I could list dozens, perhaps hundreds of examples like this that you would reject, I promise you.


If from the bottom of your heart of hearts you believe that I am going to hell, that will always make me sad. Even more so if you are a beloved person to me. But I hope that you'll at least have given the idea of hell some thought. And maybe, just maybe, you'll say to me one day "I believe that you are going to hell...and I hope that I am wrong".

The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Hell

Ah, the problem of evil. One of my personal favorite topics of religion. This clip discusses an e-mail that a theist sent in to the show to provide an answer for the problem. For those too lazy to click the link and read the wikipedia article, the problem can be summarized as this: if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, then why does evil exist in this world? During my studies I learned of a wonderful philosopher of ancient Greece, Epicurus (341 BCE - 270 BCE). Epicurus presented the following conjecture.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

I won't comment too much on this clip because I think it pretty much speaks for itself. One of the arguments rhat the theist presents is that God asks us to bear suffering in our lives but the eternity we will spend in heaven (or hell) makes up for it. Don, the guy to the left, then brings up an excellent point. "Isn't that what they told the 9/11 attackers?" Exactly. These terrorists were so convinced of the prospect of this superior afterlife that they were totally willing to end their mortal lives, as well as the lives of thousands of innocents along with them. This is why strong beliefs in unverified theological propositions is dangerous to the believer and dangerous to others. Don't even try and say that its just Muslims either. Christianity has the blood of millions of innocent people on its hands as well, and I imagine many other religions share the same guilt.


Another problem related to the problem of evil is the problem of hell. I like this argument even better. It is very similar to the problem of evil: if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, why does hell exist? Why did He decide to create hell and to send souls there? Is the idea of hell compatible with a creator that is omnibenevolent? I certainly think it is not. I reject God's omnibenevolence outright. The reason being is the problem of evil, the problem of hell, and all of the atrocious and immoral acts that God commits Himself in the bible, asks others to perform for him in the bible, and such actions of others that he condones in the bible. If God does exist, he is not omnibenevolent. I perceive the Christian God to be much more evil than good. Same with the Jewish God (Yahweh) and the Muslim God (Allah). Sorry other religions, I don't know enough about your god/gods to provide my own opinion on whether or not they are good or evil beings.


I had some interesting discussions with my religious friend about heaven and hell during one of our meetings (this was before our falling out of course). In fact, I think that I will share those in my next post.

Religion's Role in World Improvement and Homosexuality

This video is about religion's role in making the world a better or worse place. The hosts say that religion, or something like religion, is required to make good people do bad things. I wouldn't go so far as to say its the fault of religion. I believe that it is the fault of dogma. It is the fault of holding an unwavering position that the person holds and refuses to question or challenge it. Regardless of what dogma it is that one holds, regardless of whether it is good or bad, is unhealthy and unsafe in my opinion. Remember, my dear friend who I have great respect for and is an excellent person is willing to kill children if given the order. That is sickening to hear and it disgusts me, especially when it comes from someone as great as she.

Here's the thing. Every one of these religions have different beliefs. They can't possibly all be right, but they can all be wrong.

I like that statement. In fact, in the past couple of days I've been trying to hypothesize how believers, including my close friend, regard religions other than their own. (I'd like to speak to some of them, but I don't have any theists in my life that I think would be comfortable talking about this). A small part of the reason for my atheism is because I look at all religions, not just one. I look at the different beliefs, the dogmatic claims they make, the truths that they assert without evidence, and the testimonials given by followers of each faith. Whenever anyone has a "personal experience" with their God, why is it that it is always the God that they worship? Why don't Muslims hear from the Christian God, or Christians hear the word of Allah? (I'm sure there are a few cases where one heard the God of another religion, but such cases are a minority I presume).


The topic then turns to homosexuality and the caller states that his church teaches that it is wrong because God made people to have children. I really like how Matt (the host on the right) responds to that. He basically asks the caller to think for himself, and to question whether it is morally or ethically acceptable to condemn homosexuals. If his only justification is hearsay from his preacher or indirectly from his God (written in the bible), then he has pretty bad justification for holding that position. I agree completely. When you are accepting an argument or statement from someone else, you need to have good reasons for doing so. I admit that I trust many things that scientists say because I've studied and participated in the scientific process, and I have confidence in the results it produces. Its not the product of one scientist, but of many. And that community together weeds out the false theories and evidence so that they can be as certain as possible that the views of modern science are correct.


On the contrary, if you believe in a single person (your pastor) and you believe everything he says is absolutely true, what if one day he suffers a stroke or mental disorder and starts spouting nonsense that is not true? For example, what if he claimed that God said all homosexuals should be stoned to death and that it was the responsibility of every member of that church to follow that command? Would you still accept his statement verbatim and not question it? Oh and by the way, God did say that! "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." - Leviticus 20:13. If I was a theist, unless I received the word from God himself, I would not accept what others told me that God did or did not say. How can I know that what they perceived was true? They could be lying, they could be misinterpreting what God actually said, or they could just be completely nuts.


Toward the end of the video the caller says that if everyone was homosexuals, humanity would end. The hosts make an excellent point that even were that so, how would that make it immoral or unethical? I really like what Tracie (host on the left) follows up with. "If the next generation were all women, would that mean that it is then wrong to be a woman?". Kudos to her for that great point. While I'm on the subject, I should mention that I am a strong supporter of gay rights and its not because I am an atheist. Its because I looked at how gays are discriminated (especially by religious people...hmmm) and decided that was wrong. It was wrong in the exact same way that African Americans were discriminated against and that women were discriminated against. (I say "were", but really a lot of that discrimination sadly continues to this day). I would also like to point out that religion, again, was a significant factor for the discrimination of all three of those demographics. Religion makes the world a better place, right?

Various Topics on the Christian God

I took a bit of a break from blogging this last week. It really takes a lot of time and effort to blog about these topics, look up information, formulate arguments, etc. Plus I think now that the major conflict with my friend is over, I'm a little bit less enthusiastic about this. But I'll continue writing about it for as long as I see fit. At least I promise to finish my collection of videos from the atheist experience.

Which brings me to my next clip which comes in two parts. This one is a little light hearted and poking fun at things, but I have a strong agreement to many of the views that the hosts present in this video. There's not much to comment on for the first 4-5 minutes of this clip, although that's probably the most amusing part of the video. I'll punctuate several points in the video by the time that they occur.

Part 1.



@ 4:45 - What are you going to do when you die and you find out that all of this [God] is true?
I would then believe. Its as simple as that. I'll be surprised then of course, because I think that the evidence strongly suggests that the bible is false in many many different areas. But what I would like to turn around and ask a Christian is "What are you going to die and find out that your religion is not the correct one?". Maybe the Muslims are right. Maybe the Hindus are right. And guess what, you Christians can then join me in whatever version of hell the correct religion may prescribe and we can have a lengthy discussion about it then.

@5:15 - If the God that exists is the one spoken about in the bible, I still would not worship him.
I agree with this statement. If God is all powerful and chooses to exterminate life that is "incorrect" (such as is written in Noah's Ark), I would not worship that God. I would condemn that God for his immoral and unjust acts towards life. I don't care if he "created everything". Life is not something to be toyed with. If I have a child, does that give me the right to stone them to death for being disrespectful to me? Does it give me the right to kill them at my whim? "I created you, and I can end you" is an immoral stance. But for some reason, Christians seem to think that its okay that God can do that. I will not worship something that I do not respect, even if I believe that it exists. And if I find out that God exists someday (the God written in the bible), I will no longer be an atheist, but I also won't be a Christian. I will be a theist who believes in a petty, jealous, unjust, immoral diety.

But that doesn't mean I won't try talking to him. I'll try to convince him that the things he has done and is doing are wrong. I don't care that he's omnipotent or omniscient. If he thinks that he is right and that committing genocide and infanticide and accepting human sacrifices are all good, then he has a lot of explaining to do to me before I'm ready to worship him. He has the power to convince me and he knows how to do it, so don't tell me that its my fault for being a lowly human who can't understand his great plan.

@ 5:25 - You're born guilty because of something your ancestors did.
I reject this as well because it just isn't right. All these infants are born into the world guilty of the crimes of their parents, their grandparents, and so on? If some man or woman ever committed some atrocious wrongdoing to me, for example killing someone I hold close, is it right for me to blame it on their 2 month old infant? That's ridiculous! We are all born innocent, not guilty. I reject such a system where I have to continually apologize to God, the only perfect being, for being imperfect. He made me imperfect as he made all other life imperfect, so shouldn't he be apologizing to me for making me less than perfect and thus making me "guilty"?

@ 7:35 - I'm God and I created everything. Including hell.
This is another item that boggles my mind when trying to understand how Christians can believe that God is good. He created the system of heaven and hell. He decided that he will not provide concrete evidence of his existence because he wants people to believe in him on "faith". And those who look at the evidence, examine arguments, and come to a well-reasoned and rational conclusion that this God probably doesn't exist are to be punished. And by punished he means tortured, burned, mutilated, and put through the most unimaginable suffering for all eternity, with absolutely no hope of forgiveness. Some Christians have probably thought this through themselves because quite a number actually do not believe in hell at all. It probably came down to them having to chose between rejecting the notion that their God is good and rejecting the notion of hell.

Part 2.



@ 0:55 - What will you say to God after you die? I'll say that I was honest in my thinking.
Exactly. If it is a crime for me to be honest about what I think and believe? Belief in something like a God is not so easy as to say "I believe and I accept this as true". I could say that, but the words would be meaningless because I don't actually believe it is true nor do I feel it is true. Is that my fault? Am I wrong to have such high standards in believing in some invisible all-powerful being that created me and loves me and is present with me at all times? Even the 10 commandments say thou shalt not lie, so should I lie and say that I believe in God when I really don't? I could convince everyone that I do, except for God of course because he knows what I really think about him.

@ 2:30 - Would you lock your children up in a basement and torture them forever for not loving you?
Many Christians like to provide the analogy of human is to God as child is to parent. When I say I don't believe in God and don't understand why he would punish me as severely as he said he would for no believing, I often hear the argument "well imagine if you had a child that you loved and they didn't respect you or believe in you, how would that make you feel?" Disappointed at the very least, devastated at the most. But if we're going to go there, how does the act of torturing and burning and raping my non-believing child for eternity justify itself? Especially when I want my child to believe in me, find me, and form a relationship with me but I am absolutely not going to prove my existence to the child? That's a horrible God and I hope that he does not exist.

Agree to Disagree

My friend and I got together last Thursday evening and discussed what had happened between us and where our friendship should go from here. We spoke for a little over two hours and thus I'm not going to go into every little detail here. We actually did discuss religion and science a little bit although I wasn't intending too. We only discussed it where absolutely necessary to clarify a viewpoint. There were some moments where each of us became a little emotional. So here's what happened...


She Said
I asked her to start by telling me how she felt about everything. She explained to me that she was upset that I was so consistently "negative" about her beliefs. (I wasn't meaning to be negative, I was just skeptical). She was upset that nearly all of the questions I asked and remarks I made were in this light. In one of my e-mails I said something to the effect of "I don't mention the positive things because we already agree there, so there's not much to discuss". In hindsight, I think that was a mistake on my part. When I went to church with her she asked me what I thought of it and I started by telling her the things that I agree with before getting into the things that I disagree with. I should have tried to be more like that throughout the entire discussion, though it was difficult for me to agree with events that were said to have taken place nearly 2000 years ago. I could have at least agreed on some of the principals taught in the bible, because I do agree with a good number of those. She also said that she arrived at the (false) impression that I was having "fun" with her, pointing out contentious issues about her faith. I told her that absolutely was not the case and that I never at any point intended to upset her.


So throughout my "negative" questioning of her faith for several weeks, she was getting more and more upset about it. The day of our falling out she was at work (where she often has to deal with many rude people) and it was a combination of what I said at that moment, the ongoing negativity, and what was going on at work that caused her to have the outburst that she did. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was somewhat relieved to hear all that, because she reacted in a way that totally shocked me and I didn't understand. Because she had all that pent up frustration towards me, it makes much more sense that she acted the way that she did. So then I asked her why didn't she let me know how she felt before this event happened. She said it was a flaw in her personality to hide those sorts of feelings, which I can perfectly understand because I used to be the same way. So we both agreed that that was something that she should have done.


One of the things that she said that somewhat surprised me was that she was more upset at my follow-up e-mail the night after the falling out. I had carefully crafted that e-mail to try and be as sensitive as possible and to explain why I had said the things I did, and I even gave her an example of how my thought process works. Particularly, she was upset because I said in that e-mail that I was disappointed that she never asked me any questions. I wanted her to ask me questions so that she could better understand where I was coming from and thus better be able to communicate how she thought and felt to me. She told me that she simply didn't have any questions, as there is no "doctrine" of atheism to question and I had been telling her how I felt through our discussions as well. I do find it a little strange that she had absolutely no questions for me at all and part of me thinks that our discussions would have gone better if she did ask me questions, but its too late for that now. I also still don't really understand how my saying that I was disappointed she never asked me any questions could make her upset.

He Said
Then it was my turn to talk. I told her how I felt sad because there were now things that we could not share together. I explained how some of her beliefs actually hurt me (like how she thinks I'm going to hell) and that I had been fine up until now because I was at least able to talk to her about them. I told her my opinion that some of her beliefs that she holds are actually detrimental to the well-being of herself and those around her. (For example, the statement "I would kill children for God" and "Evolution is just a theory"). I also told her that I had been writing to this blog for the last month about all of these things and I also talked about calling in to the Atheist Experience TV show and talking about our falling out. I told her how to find the blog and video clips in case she was ever interested in reading/watching them.


Then I presented her with a couple of analogies. Both analogies were to illustrate to her how I feel. The first was a role-reversal analogy where I was convinced that eating a diet full of trans fats and sugars was healthy for you and she was trying to convince me that it was not. The second was where I contracted a horrible disease but refused to see a doctor because I didn't trust doctors, and instead asked for a carpenter to give me medical advice. Both analogies were used to explain to her the fallacies of relying on a non-scientist like Carl Baugh (a creationist "scientist" who I've mentioned before) to explain science to her. Fortunately, what I found out was that my perception of her infatuation with Carl Baugh and his Creation Evidence Museum was not an infatuation at all. During our discussions, she had recalled hearing about him once and noticed that he had some "science-like" explanations on his site, so without looking at them too deeply herself she had referred me to them for an explanation. So she wasn't apologetic towards him at all and didn't necessarily believe that what he said was the truth, which made me breathe a deep sigh of relief because her acceptance of his pseudoscience that I had falsely perceived was probably the issue that I was most upset about.


The other major issue I had been upset about was her willingness to do anything for God, regardless of how immoral it would be otherwise. I explained to her just how sick it makes me feel when I recall her saying she would murder children if asked by God, and I told her I hoped that she could understand why I feel that way. She pointed out that it was highly unlikely that that would ever happen and I immediately agreed her, but pointed out that we agreed on that for different reasons. I agreed because I don't think God exists, and she agreed because she thinks God is a wonderful being. That led us to discuss the bible a little bit, and I pointed out to her again that God does murder children (and nearly the entire world) so if the bible is accurate and true, then it is not so unlikely that he would ask. I explained to her that as a person who had never read the bible and never believed in or perceived some sort of invisible all-powerful being, reading the bible is a rather horrifying experience. I asked her to try throwing out her preconceived notions of God and his greatness next time she reads the bible, and if she can do that she'll understand why I reacted towards it in the way that I did.

Philosophy of Thought
At one point my friend provided me with her own analogy asking how I would feel if she began questioning something about my life. She used exercise in her example because she knows that's something important to me. She asked "What if I told you I think you're dumb wasting all of your time with exercise, wouldn't that upset you?". But I told her no, it wouldn't upset me at all. In fact I'd like to hear more about why you or anyone would feel that way. And I think we realized then that this was the core of why our discussions went as badly as they did. We have different philosophies of thinking and understanding the truth.


In my philosophy, I like to look at everything and examine all viewpoints, arguments, and evidence. My beliefs are based on these things, but my beliefs are not permanent. If new valid evidence or a well-reasoned argument comes along, I will evaluate it and if necessary, change my beliefs accordingly. I do this because I want to hold as many true beliefs as possible, and hold as few false beliefs as possible. I think the best way to know the truth is to look at everything and continually analyze and evaluate things. And I feel I should never dogmatically hold myself to believing something as true. On the contrary, my friend has already decided what she believes is true. She is not interested in finding out about other arguments and evidence that may insert doubt into her beliefs. She doesn't want people to question her position, while on the contrary I do.


So I think this was the central problem between us. I was treating her in the same way that I would like to be treated by asking questions and looking at evidence that contradicts her stance. On the other hand, she was treating me in the same way that she would like to be treated by not questioning any of my positions. So I was frustrating her and she was frustrating me. Some of the people I had spoken too just prior before our meeting told me that we need to "agree to disagree", but I told them that I don't think I'm capable of that in this case. I'm sure that other people can't "agree to disagree" with others as well on topics that are important to them, such as racism (can you "agree to disagree" when you find out your friend is a member of the KKK?). My stance here is "I will agree to disagree if I understand why it is that you disagree with me". And I think I got my reason for why she disagreed with me because of our different philosophies of thought.


At least I can now understand why she would hold her beliefs with this philosophy. I think I have been around so many analytical thinkers (engineers/scientists) in the last few years that I forgot that there are people who think in different manners. I still do disagree with that philosophy of thought though. I feel that it is an absolutely horrible way to find out what is true. If you intentionally make yourself close-minded and don't look at outside opinions and evidence, how could you ever know whether or not you are right? I think I'll elaborate on truth and thought in a later post.


Conclusions
So after we both laid it all out, I brought up the question of whether or not our friendship should continue. (There are some other issues between us besides religion, but that's not interesting enough to share here). We decided that our friendship should continue, that we both want it continue, and that we won't revisit this topic. But I made sure to tell her before I left that I would be always willing to talk about anything with her, although if we decide to talk about this again in the future we should probably first talk about how we're going to talk about it...@_@


The discussion went much better than I thought it was going to. We also shared some casual conversation and had a few great laughs together during the discussion. I left feeling much better about the situation with my friend than I have felt in the past month. I only wish that we had this discussion much earlier.

Some Religious Humor

I've been talking about some very serious issues in the past several days, so I thought it would be nice to have a post with some humor and a more laid back discussion. I watched the movie Religulous this weekend. It was very entertaining, had some great comedic moments, and also had a touch of sad seriousness. I was a little sad it didn't cover more religions though. It covered Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Mormonism. I recommend seeing it regardless of your beliefs. Its both entertaining and I bet you'll learn a thing or two.




This is a video clip from George Carlin's stand-up act. I know its not meant to be taken seriously, but I think he makes a very good point about sun worship. Worship of the sun makes more sense to me than worship of some invisible being whose existence can not be verified. Everyone can see or feel the sun. We know for a scientific fact that were in not for the sun, we could not exist. Indeed, many ancient civilizations did worship the sun, or attribute some personification to the sun and worshiped that. Perhaps the reason that people don't worship the sun now is that we know the sun is nothing but a star. A big giant ball of burning gas that will eventually run out of fuel and its existence will cease (as well as all life on Earth). Kind of sucks when you compare it to the Abrahamic personal God who is an intelligent being and cares very deeply about every tiny aspect of your life, loves you no matter what, and is always ready to forgive you for being you.



Finally here is a funny clip I found this morning. This is from a new Comedy Central show called Important Things with Demteri Martin. It is a fake advertisement for a new rat extermination product that uses religious differences to cause rat colonies to self-annihilate one another. The punchline at the end is especially ironic. "And I can feel good about it [killing the rats] because they are dying for something that they believe in".

Important Things with Demetri MartinWed 10:30pm / 9:30c

Power - Creedocide

Joke of the Day
Stand-Up Comedy

Free Online Games
More Funny Videos

Why I Believe

I want to throw out a little disclaimer before I start getting into the real meat of this religious discussion. I realize that religion and gods and beliefs are a sensitive subject for many people. I further realize that there is no way that I can prevent offending someone. But what I can do is try to be as respectful as possible and to always be willing to discuss what I have said in my blog. So if you read something here and you take offense to it, leave a note in the comments telling me so. But also make sure to tell me why you were offended. I am completely willing and open to have a conversation about what I write and why I write it. So please likewise be willing and open to having that conversation with me when you disagree.


I have stated before that I believe in science and do not believe in any religion that involves some supernatural phenomenon. Why do I believe in science? Why do I trust scientists and not religious preachers when I want to understand the truth about the world?


Evidence
First and foremost, scientific understanding is based on evidence. What we can measure, what we can demonstrate, and what results we can reproduce. Scientists don't just sit around thinking about how something works, get an idea, and then seek to find evidence to support their idea. On the contrary, they seek evidence to disprove their idea. Sometimes they find evidence (or lack of evidence) that doesn't completely disprove the idea, but discredits it to a degree. And in their work, they make sure to point this type of evidence out to others so that they can evaluate it as well. But if they find that the total accumulation of experiments and evidence supports their theory, they will write up a scientific paper summarizing their findings. This paper is submitted to a journal, a conference, or some other venue where other scientists with equal credentials can review the work. These scientists then too seek out to disprove the author's theory. They will criticize and analyze it to a pedantic degree, perhaps pointing out experiments that were not done in the original work that they feel should be done. They will reproduce the experiments in their own laboratories to examine if they get the same results. And if no scientist can come up with evidence that completely debunks the theory and the theory is the best explanation that anyone can come up with to explain how something works, then that theory is accepted as a scientific fact. But at the same time it is still also a scientific theory, a theory that currently does the best job at explaining the observable fact. This can be confusing to a layman, which explains why some people think evolution is simply a theory. But the truth is that evolution is both a scientific theory and a scientific fact.


In case you missed it, the process of a scientist coming up with a hypothesis, testing it, measuring results, and having those results scrutinized by other qualified individuals is known as the scientific method. I believe that it is the best way for us as a species to find out answers to the world we live in and the universe that we exist in. Providing and testing explanations for new evidence that we discover is the best way to learn the truth about that evidence. For the most part, religion has it backwards. Religion provides an answer, then tries to find evidence to match that answer and discredit any evidence that conflicts with that answer. So called creation science is a blasphemous label against science. And yes, I realize the irony in using the adjective blasphemous here :). It is a pseudo-science, a want-to-be science that will not and can never be true science. The reason is because creation "scientists" have already made up their mind about what they believe are the answers to the questions they seek. Rather than being objective and open about it, they fervently seek out only evidence that supports their answers and try to hide, obscure, or explain away that evidence which serves to discredit their answer. That is why no creation science efforts will ever hold any acceptance within the greater scientific community.


Furthermore, I place my trust in the results of the scientific process. I do so because I know that even if one or a few scientists are "bad apples" who want to prove their theory true even when the evidence indicates it to be false, there are a thousand fold more scientists who will see the flaws in their work and will not accept their theory as fact until those flaws are addressed. I myself have been a part of this process and I have learned to respect it. While in academia I submitted scientific papers and had them reviewed. Some were accepted and others were rejected. And when they were rejected, I was provided with explanations from the reviewers on why they were rejected. I too have been a reviewer of many papers. Some of the better and more sound ones I accepted, while the ones which were weak or significantly flawed I rejected (and gave legitimate reasons why I rejected them). Contrary to what I imagine my religious friend believes, I am much more harsh in my criticism of scientific papers than I am on any particular belief system.


Trust
The issue of trust is very important, and could merit its own post. I am not an expert in evolutionary biology, geology, chemistry, or theoretical physics. In fact, I am a non-expert in pretty much every scientific discipline, and only consider myself to be a well-educated and interested reader of science. I don't have the time, energy, nor lifespan to devote my entire being to seeking out answers to everything in life by myself. So I have to ask myself "Who do I trust to give me those answers?". I've already laid out my reasons for why I trust science, and I think that I have very good reasons for trusting them. So why then, does my religious friend distrust science and instead trusts in the bible?


I'll probably never know the answer to that question since she is no longer willing to discuss it with me. I have never asked her why she believes in God, because I honestly don't care whether she does or not. I do care when her belief in God prevents her from forming relationships, when it causes her to be willing to commit murder of innocents, and when it causes her to deny scientific evidence and accept false truths. During our first discussion I pointed out to her that the bible had over 40 authors and three languages, and that some of the old Christian scripture (such as the Gospel of Thomas) were not included in the compilation of the New Testament. So I asked her "Why do you believe in the bible? Why do you believe it is the inerrant word of God from the man himself?". Especially since we can not verify who a single author of the bible was. Her answer baffled me.

"I don't know, I just do."

Seriously? This is the book that she, at some point, decided to believe in and follow to the letter. And when asked why she believed that, she couldn't provide an answer? I honestly find it to be ridiculous! So in the e-mail that I sent to her after she became upset with me for my disagreements with her church's philosophy on marriage and sex, I pointed out to her the following verse in the bible, 1 Peter 3:15.

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

I implored her to stay true to the bible and provide me with a real explanation. In her e-mail response (which was also the last time I had any real communication with her, about a month ago), she told me she understood that her response then was not an acceptable answer and attached a testimonial about her life as a believer and why she believes in God. Well, that's fine and all. But I never asked her why she believed in God. I asked her why she believes that the bible is the work of God and not the work of men. I know that she trusts in God, but I don't know how she can likewise trust that the bible is inerrant and is the word of God. There are many Christians who don't believe that it is, so I am infinitely curious as to why she does believe that. I have my own speculations about the answer, which I may share at a later time.


Anyway I am getting off topic. I've stated why I trust science and why I distrust "creation science", but why do I distrust religion? Well the answer is pretty simple really. It again boils down to evidence and dogmatic beliefs about the truth. I find no credible evidence of an invisible being that penetrates everything and everyone, influences the universe at every location and every instance of time, and cares infinitely about me as a person. I am willing to listen to evidence that people can provide me, but just because I don't know an answer to something doesn't mean that suddenly "God fills the gap". Ancient civilizations used to think that gods pulled the sun across the sky until gravitational theory was well understood. So you see, God filled the gap back then too. Just because we currently do not have a good scientific explanation for some phenomenon that we witness does not mean we should automatically attribute its workings to some mythical being.


The answer to why I distrust religion is that it asserts that it knows what is true without evidence to support their claims. Time and time again, religion has shown to stand in the way of real truth. Just look to the Catholic church's prosecution of Galileo Galilei for seeing the evidence that the Earth revolves around the sun, instead of vice versa. It took centuries for the church to formally vindicate this innocent man from his "crime" of promoting this scientific truth. Any body, religious or otherwise, that would try to hide such evidence (as the church banned his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems) automatically loses any crediblity with me as a promoter of truth and understanding. The fundamentalist Christian movement, not learning the mistakes of the past, are now repeating the same dire mistake with Charles Darwin and evolution. They would seek to erase the scientific truth, or at least "muddy the waters" as much as possible to make the public doubt this truth. And what's worse is that they target the children, trying to insert intelligent design into schools as if it were a scientifically valid theory that holds equal validity with evolution. It doesn't. It is a theological belief with no evidence to support it. In my own observations, I noticed that the ID movement expends much more energy trying to discredit evolutionary theory than trying to prove their own theory (if you can call it a theory). Even if evolution were disproven (nearly impossible given the massive amounts of fossil, genetic, and modern evidence) it does not automatically mean that the story of creationism is true.


Wow, I am really bad at staying on topic. I think I am just going to quit here and now before I diverge again into some other tangent. But to summarize the main points in my post:

• I believe in science because it uses existing evidence to formulate theories to explain the evidence.
• I disbelieve in "creation science" because it asserts a single theory as true and then seeks evidence to support it (and ignores evidence that refutes it).
• I trust in the scientific method because it prevents bad science from being written as true.
• I still do not have an answer about why my religious friend believes in the bible and trusts it to be the inerrant word of God.
• Just because we can not currently provide an explaination for some phenomenon very well does not automatically prove the existence of a higher power.
• The church has in the past, and does currently, try to hide and distort scientific evidence that contradicts their dogmatic ideologies, which is one reason why I distrust them.
• I distrust any institiution, religious or otherwise, that asserts a dogmatic idea as truth and fact, especially when they fail to provide sufficient evidence to support that claim.

2008 Was Great

Hurray, I'm finally getting back to updating my blog again! I had intended to update it after finishing my half ironman race in early October but just never got around to it. I did manage to squeeze in another small aquathlon in mid-September before my big race though. I actually did the exact same aquathlon the previous month of August and although I did pretty well then, the timers screwed up and gave me a very, very slow running time (its hand timed, not chip timed). Well this time I did even better than last and they didn't screw up my time, and I actually ended up getting 3rd place overall! I was feeling pretty happy about that.

I felt more nervous than usual going into the half ironman, primarily because at my last long race I had lost consciousness and didn't finish. Surprisingly enough, the water was cold enough (just barely) to make it wetsuit legal, which made me happy because I love swimming in my wetsuit. Its like my safety blanket for the water. :) The swim went pretty well, although at one of the two turns I didn't turn sharply enough and ended up swimming pretty far off course. The bike was fast and furious for the first 15 miles or so. There were many good cyclists out there pushing hard and they brought me along with them. What I was worried about, and rightly so, for the bike stage were the aid stations. I had never practiced grabbing water or food while on the bike before and my coordination/balance on a bike is pretty bad to begin with. Sure enough, at the first of four aid stations I didn't slow down enough and missed my initial grab for a water bottle. The next 3 water bottles were all lined up like ducks in a row, and I couldn't avoid them so I just smashed into them one at a time with my helmet and water sprayed everywhere. It was pretty funny. I did manage to grab one successfully towards the end of that station thanks to a spirited aid worker who ran alongside my bike to make it easier for me.

But the race went downhill from here. For some reason, my back started to fail on me. Its happened to me before, both in training and in races. I think it happens when I just push myself too hard. At about mile 20 the pain was so strong that I knew there was no way I could keep even my average pace for another 36 miles. At that point I just decided to let it all go, not worry about trying to place high in my age group, and just relax and enjoy the ride. So I did. Although it still really sucked to see so many people pass me on the bike that I knew I could destroy on a good day. It was a slow ride, but still painful. But because I was taking it so easy, I felt very, very energized for the run.

But the run wasn't too great either. Apparently my nutrition intake on the bike wasn't the best (not enough electrolytes or something). I had the worst leg cramps that I have ever felt in my entire life. After about a mile and a half into the half marathon I thought "maybe I'll stop and stretch it out and it will get better". WRONG! When I pulled my leg back to stretch my quardracept it felt like all the muscles in my leg just exploded. Forget running, for a brief moment I could barely walk or stand on that leg. It was awful. So through trial and error I found that I could generally run for about a quarter to a half a mile before the cramps came got so bad that I couldn't run anymore. So I'd run, then walk and recover. And then run, and then walk and recover. And I repeated that process. But when I ran (especially towards the end of the race) I was flying. I'm talking like low 6-minute pace. I had so much energy from taking it easy on the bike and having plenty of recovery from walking and through the aid stations. It was really frustrating for me to feel so energetic in the middle of a competition, and yet my body was unable to respond to me.


But I finished. I didn't pass out, I didn't die, and I finished. And you know what, that was good enough for me. There will be other races for me to be all about guts and glory. It felt nice to release myself of that for once. I was planning to do a 10K race a couple weeks after the half iron, but I backed out of that because my body was just too destroyed to keep going. Not from the half iron really, but from the entire season. I started my training in October 2007 (without really even intending to do a half ironman, or even do a triathlon at that point) and I finished with my first half iron in October 2008. It felt good to accomplish something personal. Something outside of academia and outside of work. Something for me.


So lets see, in November I of course was very, very happy when Obama won the presidency. Its only been a couple weeks into his administration so far so its too early to judge, but I believe that good things will come in the future. November and December of last year were kind of lazy months for me. I was going to take only 2-4 weeks off from training, but I ended up taking more like 8-9 weeks off. It took my body longer to recover than I thought it would, but thankfully I'm back to 100% now after running for several weeks. No shin splints or other injuries, it feels awesome. Because I took off so much time, I backed out of doing the Austin marathon again (I feel so guilty about this...its the third time now that I said I was going to do it and then ended up not doing it). Right now I'm focusing mostly on my running since triathlon season is still a few months away. I'm looking forward to seeing how much I improve this year in my competitions. All in all, 2008 was a great year for me in both racing and in life.


Work hasn't been so great lately though. I've been getting more frustrated and annoyed with my job. And for a variety of good, valid reasons. Its unchallenging because I hardly do any design or coding. I mostly investigate whether X API provided by Y company is capable of implementing Z feature. Its unmotivating because I work pretty much by myself as the only fulltime VXI software engineer in the entire company. Its unfulfilling because even though the driver software sucks, I can do little to change it because rather than fix the core of our problems, the company is content to patch little problems one by one. I could go on and on, but I won't. One day a couple months ago I got so frustrated that I actually left work early because I couldn't take it anymore, then went on a long "rage run" to decompress. It was that event which made me say "I can't do this anymore" and I have since started looking for a new position. I've found plenty to be sure and have recruiters contacting me quite a bit (although not so much recently), but I am being very picky about my next job, and not just settling for whatever. After all, what purpose is there in leaving one crappy job for another? I may talk more about this situation in a later post.


I worked on Allacrost quite a bit toward the end of the year but then I got side tracked with something unexpected. Its difficult to explain fully the situation because it is rather complex. What I will say is that it deals with some fundamental questions about life and about learning from others who have different perspectives than your own. Without even realizing it, my emotional attachment to someone has led me to a sort of new awakening. In the past six weeks I have studied and learned so much about so many things. History, science, psychology, sociology, and religion. I've gained or reaffirmed so many views about various matters, and unfortunately I've recently been left with no one else to express them to. I've been nearly possesed by this and I need to get these ideas out of my head, so I'll be using this blog as a means of expressing and recording those views. I plan for this to pretty much take over my blog for at least the near future, but the good news is that I'll definitely be more motivated to blog often. Maybe even daily depending on how things go. So stay tuned. There is much for me to say.