Thinking Outside the Box 2

Additional thoughts of Martin Willett
Oh yeah, a most original thinker.

Nobody set out to create a system to communicate pornographic images and inane chat instantly across the globe from individual to individual. The internet we have just developed, some of it was planned, most of it was made up as people went along. Looking back on it gives an illusion of purpose and destiny. We know that the internet was not designed as a mass communication system, we know it because the founders are still among us and talking about it. The model of the people's internet we have now emerged as a growing consensus. We know this. But looking back it is so easy to misread it as an unfolding destiny, or a divine plan. The internet evolved, it did it in our lifetime and it did it without a blueprint or an architect. The real world works like that a lot of the time; complexity out of simplicity, something very big and complicated out of almost nothing.

Regarding Mother Theresa ... Thousands of people have witnessed her existence and written about it in newspapers, books and Church records. She is a thoroughly historical character. I also have little doubt that huge elements of myth are being woven about her. I do not see that woman as being anything special. She gave up a life of a peasant farmer to be an International celebrity and Church leader. Considering she was born Catholic and female and became committed to that Church it is difficult to imagine her finding any better way into the public eye; she could hardly be the wife of a dictator could she, for one thing there were no Catholic dictators in Yugoslavia, and the other reason, well, I will not be unnecessarily cruel but she was not exactly a looker was she? Selfless people work hard in their own communities and do not seek attention. There has been a lot of investigation into Mother Theresa which has exposed sides of her that are nothing to be proud of. I have not looked at them myself. However I always mistrust charity workers with an axe to grind. There is always the suggestion that their motives are very mixed.

Personal comment … It is very easy to become cynical about people. Wasn't it George Carlin who once made this comment: "The very existence of flame-throwers proves that at some time, somewhere, someone said to himself ... 'You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.'" ... it does kinda says something about the human race.

The best argument I can come up with for religion is that the "better" ones remind us of the rules that will best improve the quality of life. Religions did not invent these rules. Popular religions survive because they incorporate the rules into their belief system. Also, it is a relatively recent mutation of popular religions to stress these rules. This mutation was necessary to keep the more rational followers in the fold. Over much of history they stressed more negative ideas (such as "distrust anyone who believes something different")

The number of miracle cures attributed to trips to Lourdes is statistically less than would be expected by random chance, or to put it facetiously, a higher proportion receive miracle cures after visits to Las Vegas or Disneyland.

The universe is so very different from the way we pictured it several thousand years ago that it is almost farcical that so many people can cling on to old teachings based on the ramblings of men with no scientific training, no peer review and no clue as to what they were going on about. The only reason people believe these stories is because they are told that they are true. It is a self-supporting edifice of lies and delusion. Faith is good, so believing in stuff that seems unbelievable is actually a good thing. Believing in things without evidence becomes a virtue, whereas to scientists it is professional misconduct. The Bible is true, you are told by the people you have decided to believe, they go on to prove the truth it contains by quoting from it. The Bible is the Word of G-d, they tell you, look it says so here in the Bible, which, remember, is the word of G-d.

The world is only ever changed by action, never by squishy feelings inside, no matter how subjectively awesome they seem. Good people are not people who have good thoughts, good intentions and faith; good people are people who do good. Even for selfish reasons. I don't want to have a blinding revelation about the interconnectedness of the universe and feel the power of unsought knowledge, I want to have a good life. I don't need to know the fundamental laws behind the universe to know that poverty, disease, ignorance and war are bad. I suggest that all those people who believe they will have an afterlife should save bothering about the imponderables and knowing the mind of G-d until after the die. In the meantime get on with living this life and making the world a better place for the people we know for certain will have to live in it.

There can never be an explanation for the origin of the universe we see that will be self evidently true and meaningful in human terms because creation, nothing, timeless vacuum, uncaused causes and so on are all totally alien to our everyday life. We should wake up and accept that there will never be a feel-right truth.

There is no evidence of a G-d that I can see. I know of no mountains that faith has moved. I know of no catalogue of answered prayers that stands up to examination. There is no logical need to postulate a creator. No evidence of an intervener. No evidence of an afterlife. No evidence of salvation post flood or post crucifixion.

There is no meaning to life and to dedicate your life to looking for the non-existent meaning of your life rather than actually living your life seems to be bordering on the grotesque. The biggest wrong idea in our heads is the idea that there must be something in it. The synthesis fallacy; the idea that if you stick enough wrong-headed concepts together you come up with something that approximates truth. This is utter nonsense. Mysticism and science don't need bridge builders. Mystery is the enemy of science. The way for there to be a fuller understanding of science and religion is for science to expand and occupy all the intellectual territory held by religion. We need to train psychologists and neurologists to get on the same wavelength as each other and to fill in all the gaps of knowledge not to capitulate to the saffron robed mystics and to accept the idea that truth can be discovered by sitting cross-legged on the floor and trying not to think or any other such nonsense.

Too much of anything, however good if feels, is bound to bad for you. The drug effects of belief can take over a person and turn them into zombies; memeoids, people for whom the spreading of a particular meme is the only worthwhile part of their existence. Memeoids live only to spread their ideas. They are by definition willing to die for their beliefs, and many of them are committed to ideas that make that tactic seem heroic. All the Abrahamic religions that teach of an all-powerful sky G-d and an afterlife spawn dangerous groups of fanatic memeoids from time to time. They came to the fore in the Jewish rebellion at Massada, Jim Jones in Guyana and the al Qa'ida organization.

What is the difference between a prophet and a lunatic? Prophets hear the voice of G-d and talk with him. G-d reveals himself to prophets and they do his work. Lunatics hear voices in their heads. The difference is only good public relations. " G-d told me to kill my son" has been used as an excuse in courts a few times, but usually the defense lawyers use it as evidence of insanity. What is different about Abraham and Isaac? To me there is no difference. We have been told that Abraham did hear the voice of G-d, that his claim is legitimate. Just good public relations.

When people do evil things they are behaving in a human way, not responding to forces beyond their nature. Human nature contains within it the capacity for callousness and for calculated spite, for envy, for hatred, for greed. We also have capacities for caring, loving, nurturing, sharing, curiosity, generosity, lust and pride. We are not demons or angels. We are real, human, complicated. We have a lot to be proud of and a lot to be ashamed of. As long as we can stay focused and be moral then we can improve, or at least try to keep a reasonable grade point average.

When you flip a coin it will turn out either heads or tails. But what decides whether it will be heads or tails? Nothing is truly random. It's just that predicting the outcome is often too difficult because of the multitude of minute factors that must be input into the calculations. Into this complexity jumps G-d. The strength of the G-d meme is that it started out as the explanation demanded by an explanation seeking species. We can't understand why a certain event occurred (or didn't occur), therefore G-d must have made it happen ... Statistics is the tool used to help us analyze groups of events that, because of the many unrelated inputs required, remain too complex to be determined rigorously. If irrationality is all that remains, G-d appears.

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