Magic and Religion

People enjoy a good magic show. Most people know what they are seeing is illusions and slight-of-hand tricks. Even so, people are entertained and enjoy a show. People suspend doubt and reason in exchange for wonder and amazement. To me this is exactly what people do with religion and should be the definition of faith (at least for objective people).

Any rational person realizes that religion is a bunch of smoke & mirrors. They can easily (though often they need some help to walk out of Plato's cave and see the real world) see the lack of evidence or reason behind their beliefs. But by suspending doubt and reason they can live in a world with talking bushes, angels, miracles ... magic!

Personally, I enjoy being entertained, but I know when to draw the line between fiction and reality.

Belief vs Reason

There is a fundamental difference between believers and some atheists I find note worthy. Some atheists do not believe in god, or anything else, because it defies reason. This is completely contrary to believer who believe in spite of the lack of reason. Some even embrace it! This makes for profoundly different people. People like me will accept something as true if it is reasonable, where as believers will believe something that is given to them in spite of the fact that is may make no sense. Some pick god, others pick aliens (not that they may not be real, just that they aren't anal-probing people for kicks). They accept it on "faith" and pity others who don't. The fact that people don't believe in something because there is no evidence is reason, the fact that people believe things in spite of evidence or reason is naive.

But belief isn't about reason it's about filling a want, like buying a candy bar. You want one so you justify that you need one (I haven't eaten much today...) and buy one. God exists because people want to believe in a glowing-white guy who can help them. Maybe all they need is a friend.

4.5 trillion, Bah!

When I first learned about the U.S. national debt and Bush's addition I was stunned (as I said here ). But of course this isn't the whole story. In fact this is merely a crumb compared to the fiscal gap. Most environmentalists argue that global warming, water pollution and increased affluence damage the planet and we will have to pay for it in the future in the form of; worse weather so worse crops, mandatory filtration of all water we use and health care costs from respiratory diseases caused by inhaling polluted air. Usually the economists blindly say, oh we'll invent something. But here is a problem for future generations that you can't get away from best described by economists Larry Kotlikoff :

"Well, right now, the amount of outstanding debt in the hands of the public is about 4 1/2 trillion. If you look at all the bills that the government has to pay from now off into the future and all the taxes it's going to be collecting, and you look at the difference, which we call the fiscal gap, that amounts to $51 trillion dollars. So the official number is 4 1/2 trillion. "

That's a ridiculous number! The only way out is a pandemic to kill off a lot of the retiring people (I certainly don't want that) because a lot of that is social security for the baby boomers. It just shows the ignorance of the electorate since if any politician where to take this on he'd be cauterized! Maybe it was a good thing the order closed to the U.S. to show us how dependent we are on U.S. foreign trade since when they devaluate their currency to help pay for some of this gap we will be hit as well.

Sad

Though I usually don't write about my personal life but I need to write this somewhere. Someone close to me has changed from casual god believer to god/jesus believer. This weighs heavily on my heart. I understand why: they needed hope and could not see the big picture. I guess I should leave them alone. After all ignorance is bliss...
But then again a small idea can have disastrous consequences (blue-eyed blond haired people are better).

Cheats into heaven

Lets have some fun. Assume heaven is a place where you will be perfectly happy. Usually this includes seeing your family and loved ones. But what if your parents where great parents to you but cheated on each other, used god's name in vain and stole. They should be sent to hell. But once you died wouldn't you like to see them? Would god bump them upto heaven to make you happy? Or would he say tuff and you spend eternity sad in heaven?

US election results

Outch! Well I was wrong. I always assume people will vote with their heads. How awfully wrong I was. Well any bets on whether Bush will break the $10 Trillion dollar mark? I think so.
At least The Daily Show will continue to be hilarious since if there is one thing Bush's administration is good at it's TV friendly mistakes. Good luck Americans (glad I live in Canada).

Common Bond

It is an interesting consequence of religious uprising that more secularism is born. In almost all societies the religious right is fighting the moderate religious and the secularists. Though the religions are different, the secularists that are created are the same in all societies. This actually increases the number of secularists. To me, this is a wonderful turn of events.
Proof and point. In 1979 the free society of Iran was replaced by an Islamic theocracy. In 2002 a survey of Iranian men and women found 16% of men and only 9% of woman attend a mosque or other religious practices. That's a lot of secular people!

In B5 there is a claim that even worse than death is the death of hope. This gives me hope.