Suspension of Disbelief

I made mention a while back about my belief that predestination was not real and gave evidence to support this. I used a logic based argument to explain that if there were infinite choices in life that there would be no possible way for predestination to exist. Likewise, I theorized that there were infinite possibilities and therefore predestination could not exist. However, now I would like to take another approach to the subject and perhaps thicken it a bit. Predestination can exist even if there are infinite choices. Look at it this way... You are only what you are made of. There is no external or "other-worldly" part of you. You are solely what your DNA makes you regardless of what religion tells you, without evidence I might add. Far be it from me to stick clear from speculation and stick to evidence-based scientific fact. Therefore, even if we have an infinite number of choices, we will always choose the one that we choose. Like I said, we are what we're made of. Th...

Talk about a brain wave... I was sitting around here reading past posts and it came to me finally... and as most things do... right out of thin air... Predestination is real. The butterfly effect is real. From the beginning, everything was planned and everything was going to happen, even in infinity. The sole realization however is that we WANT it to happen. People see predestination as what we don't want or are forced into, but it's the OPPOSITE. It's EVERYTHING that we want! Predestination is the physical manifestation in our actions of things we based on our genes and our interactions predetermined with others' genes whose result is also predetermined and WE WANT IT. It doesn't matter if it's predetermined so long as we want it. I'll have more on this later... I have to think it over some Also- Gun Laws Logic and a little something else.

Mr. Benson, a secondary school history teacher, comes across a significant problem when reviewing his syllabus. He has simply too much to teach. History is different than most other subjects in that way as it is always being written and always changing. Two plus two and the square root of x always have and always are going to remain the same, but interpretations of history change greatly over time. For much of the twentieth century, history was traditionally taught from the macrocosmic view, whereby for instance America would be studied by actions of the figureheads and events that created it: Washington, Lincoln, the Vietnam War, etc. However, by the end of the twentieth century an entirely different view of history had emerged based heavily on the ways that these figureheads and events impacted the common man. Now we speak not of Washington exclusively but of Washington and his troops at Valley Forge, not of Lincoln, but of Lincoln and his supporters and detractors, and not of the V...

Terrorism is the belief that the use of fear as a weapon is justified. Terror + ism = Terrorism. Attitudes towards terrorism can be defined in two ways and each definition is supported by someone based solely on their position to the reason for the terroristic idea to occur. One who believes that terrorism – the use of fear for gain – is a good thing sees the act of instilling fear in another group to be necessary to accomplish a goal. Those who hold the opposite opinion may also desire to accomplish the same goal, yet are not so taken by the by-all-means-necessary philosophy. They may disagree about the use of fear based on its ramifications, based on morals, or based on the rule of law. Likewise, those who do not desire this specific goal, will find themselves against the use of fear to accomplish it, out of sheer logic. The seed of terrorism is the idea. Every terrorist has some sort of idea or ideology that they wish to procure. Let us take the actions of the Madrid subway bombers ...

Wow, it's been a long time since my last entry. Let's make the most of it... Logic is something that people have a lot of trouble with. People don't like logic, especially when it dismantles their long-held beliefs. God, religion, marriage, politics, the whole gambit really, I've made myself clear on. I've argued logically and I've been dismissed. I give proof but they say that it isn't true even if I can back it up. These people sneer in the face of reasoned argument and logical debate. They believe things that make them feel good, make them feel safe, and over all make them feel accepted. God, religion, marriage, politics in general, and a million more topics. It's a wonder why I haven't stopped yet. Maybe it is just to damn important. Who has the right to stop children from getting an education? Really, who is it that has the right to tell someone that they cannot gain a proper education? Who is it that tells someone that they can or cannot marry ...

Government today holds many duties and there are many others in contention. However, there has to be a reasoned approach, a ranking system, delineating worth amongst these optional duties, as at the present rate of taxation all is impossible. There is a fundamental flaw in the way we have set up government in this regard. That is, government has been made a top-down system, whereby federal ranks over state, and state ranks over local. While this is useful for the retention of a Union, it is unhelpful in regards to budget spending. Economically, government would work more smoothly in a bottom-up fashion whereby local leaders receive first dibs on funds, state second, and federal third. In this fashion, society would work more fluidly with schools funded, roads paved, and so forth first. Likewise funds would exist for city police and firefighters at a higher, yet still necessary, rate. Contentions would be had to the lack of funds left available on state and federal levels after the city...

Time is not conducive to free thought. That is, time when used elsewise is useless to philosophical debate. Laborers and wage workers have little time for abstract thinking. They have jobs with duties and don't want to be fired. Some would say that education leads to erudite thought. This is false. Erudite thought is brought about by two things: necessity and interest. However, in kind, when bogged down in activity, the erudite are useless to thoughtful endeavour. They haven't got the time to do it. This dichotomy seems at odds against itself, but you have to take into account that there are uneducated people who have created brilliance. Einstein, for instance, was a habitually bad student, yet he became the greatest thinker in many generations. So now we see that education does not dictate success either. Interest does. An interested mind fosters learning, understanding, and inspiration. There are after all many educated people who are unsuccessful because of disinterest. If y...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJO9Czh12XQ

Traditional teaching styles conflict greatly with new ideas of what education should be developing. Old styles teach a rigid design where students learn and teachers teach. Students are treated more as animals whose urges and instincts are meant to be penned up. And, it is those student who successfully succumb to these guidelines that are most valued. Subservience. Yet, these actions, based on these systems do not correlate with action that must be taken in the real world. Schools would stress fact memorization and forgo independent thought. It does not matter why the book tells you that the Civil War happened, only that what it is said should be taken for truth unquestionably. Newer teaching styles promote input and break down the wall erected between the students and their teachers. I believe that school should have purpose. It is not simply a daycare for children. It should be an institute of learning. Learning requires the free exchange of ideas. Therefore, schools should require ...

So yesterday I went on my first of five in-class observations. I visited a 12th grade AP US history class and then a 9th grade world history course. I went into it without much trepidation, probably due to the fact that I find it hard to feel nervous on four hours sleep and after an hour driving. The school was immaculate, thus quickly putting mine to shame. It was a clean cut newer building. The people were great. I really mean that. The 12th grade class that I went to fit into the usual mold for AP students, but the 9th grade class I visited was head and shoulders above any standard level 9th grade history class that I have ever seen. The difference between my high school and it's atmosphere is the difference between please and thank-you and bitching and moaning. It was just awesome. Teacher and student alike brought a positive attitude to their presence there, even for a Monday. And even if they didn't want to be there it was commiserative they were all in it together. It se...

Please remain patient.

Monday, January 21, 2009 Dear Department of Misplaced Items, I hope that this letter finds you well. I, unfortunately, am not so well. I seemed to have misplaced a few household items. I would not be bothering you about them, if it were not for the fact that I assumed they would have turned up by now. I hope that you can help me locate them; they are of vital importance, and I have reason to believe that they have been stolen from me. I approach you not without trepidation however, as I know your legendary ability to find lost objects, and too the complexities of your department to which occasionally one can contribute the lose of ones own self. But too, what I have lost track of is equally legendary, difficult to recover, and perhaps more so invaluable. You see, dear sir or madam, that I seem to have lost my rights, and I cannot for the life of me understand where they have gone to. The situation has become grave, oh finder of misplaced items, for just yesterday, upon questioning my ...

My waking hours are blistered with terror this and war that. Fear. We live in a world where fear dictates our every move and our every decision. It wasn't always this way. In 1941 FDR reminded the American people that they had nothing to fear but fear itself. And sixty years later we forgot. Benjamin Franklin once wrote "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." He knew too what FDR spoke of, that we cannot live our lives in fear and we cannot do things in haste because of fear. The Bush presidency is littered with mistakes of this sort. And it is the future that will pay. I will not speak of the numerous and wide ranging violations of essential liberty that we've made. I will not speak of the fear that has gripped this nation, particularly in its heartland, where attacks are in the very least more unlikely than in urban America. These atrocities have been listed elsewhere, and as I'm sure...

While there once was a man from Nantucket, this is not his story, nor is it the story of a boy from Boston, a lad from Laurence, or a fellow from Framingham, but a story of a kid with yellow skin, a red cap, a give-em-hell attitude, and a fourth grade education. And hell yeah, he coulda made sergeant! But he didn't. No sir he did not. You would figure that something so big, so absolutely needed in this fucked up world of pale v. brown skin, may not live up to the high standards of one B. R. Superfan but of, in the very least, the promotion of the product itself. For shame. For shame, for you have failed us. Twenty years ago you learned how to make us laugh and how to make us feel and we too learned these things from you. But time as it is today, status quo has gone stale. The same ol' same old is old and not worth paying for to see. It was eighteen years in the making and quite frankly it may take eighteen more before I'll pay to see another. Sure I'll still watch for f...

Where do we get the delusion that we're so great here in America? Honestly, have you seen some of these fucked up people? It never ceases to amaze me that we can have a country, whose model of government was tantamount to epic at its outset, and fail so completely to create a nation of enlightened citizens to populate it. It's them too, who say our Arab friends are so uncivilized. It's them that believe that it is their job to "democratize" the Arab world. Only in America do we put warning caps (the little orange thingy) on the ends of fake guns, but leave real ones alone. Oh please, forbid us from taking their manly obsession away. Let us not belittle their phallic stupidity. Fake guns need to stand out, while the real ones, you know the ones that actually kill, we can't make them stand out, the pre-injured quail might see Dick Cheney coming. Screw the old man, he wouldn't have seen the orange tip anyways. There's only one reason we have guns, fundame...

The sun doesn't shine as brightly in North Upperton as it did before the bombs fell, before the air turned acrid and thick with the soot of fear and the indignation of governance. It wasn't the fault the Cook family that the wars of their husbands' wrought backlash on their sons. Nor was it Mr. Jones' fault that half of the town's children were born that way, deformed, malformed by the poor drinking water. Indeed, it was only one person's fault in North Upperton. Mr. and Mrs. Paulson's son is shunned now. He took part in the war. He volunteered; he "joined up". There's only so many reasons to say no when they wave the flag in your face; only a short few excuses as to why you hate your country. Sooner or later, you're going to fold. Sooner or later, you're going to start believing things you'd never have believed before. More soon than not, taking the life of another will seem glamorous, necessary even. And by then, you've mortga...

Once upon a time there were two good friends, nature and nurture. Nature consisted of all that was genetically oneself. And Nurture was the resulting person formed when one's Nature gained consciousness. It would be easy to say that Nurture is the effect of different peoples' Natures, as I previously contended, but this I now realize would be to belittle the significance of Nurture. It is in actuality, the end result, the person created based upon the rules outlined in the genes of man, Nature. Nurture is one's total being, both conscious and subconscious. It is the result of an interaction with another and one's Nature, the rule book. Nature is solely your genes. It labels your tendencies and your desires. It creates the basic model for your life. All information and stimuli that pass through you in one manner or another must be translated by your Nature into a response suitable its genetically implaced rules. Nature determines when you get happy, when you get sad, ...

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins "The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them." -Mark Twain "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying." -Woody Allen "On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does." -Will Rogers "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin "If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain." -Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. "Love all, ...

"If there were no God, there would be no Atheists." -G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) Hmm... this one had me thinking for a while because, if you've been keeping up with my philosophy, I have previously mentioned that man does not gain knowledge; he steals it; man does not create something new; he builds on something old. Essentially what I was saying is that there is no originality in human thought because we are incapable of actually creating a new thought. Think of any invention that we've made; they're all a fusion of two or more different old ideas. It is the evolution of thought. That brings me to the aforementioned quote "If there were no God, there would be no Atheists." Usually, when I read something at some point during the reading I come to a conclusion about what they were trying to say, what their stance was, and especially in politics or philosophy, what they really meant. Analyze any speech or essay and you'll learn a great deal about why t...

Morgan Freeman is god; he's merely playing an actor. Near bankruptcy, Pepsi once offered to sell the Pepsi brand to Coke. They rejected. Oops. I write these things because I can't think of ways to make these things into full entries. You will spend in upwards of 30 years of your life sleeping. Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez both are ahead of Barry Bonds in home runs for their ages. Green eyes are a mutation. A chromosome controls whether or not you can curl your tongue lengthwise. Annual flowers must be replanted every year, yet annual events happen every year of their own volition. Evolutionarily, penis size is shrinking. Apparently, making out in the backseat of a car is now a sin to the Catholic Church. The guy that plays on The Shield is the only person who could play the Kingpin if they choose to have him appear in the Spiderman movies. Seriously, you know which guy I'm talking about. There is trace amounts of cocaine in Coke. Democrats sandbag failed candidates whil...

I really don't have anything to say, but my posts have been infrequent lately so I figured I should try something. Then again, the page views have been just as infrequent, so I don't know why it matters. Hehehe. It's not that I care really, just add it to the pile of shit. And what a pile of shit it is too. That's where it all goes for me, the pile of shit. Vacation, family, summer, to the pile with them all. How many people can say that they hate summer vacation? I know, it's scary; I wouldn't have believed it myself before college. Well live and learn. How many people truly, honestly, completely and utterly cannot stand their families? Me! Me! Ohh! Ohhh! If I could sleep away June-August I'd be more than happy. Why? The atmosphere! It's night and day, good and bad, heaven and hell, open and closed. Plus there's no one around

According to Wikipedia there are between 12-14 million Jews in the world, the biggest piece of which (40% or 5-6 million) live in the United States. If the United States were to prohibit civil marriage to the Jews because they didn't follow the Christian moral code there would be a massive uproar in the world as we know it today. But if we take all this nation's non-heterosexual population, whose population following the idea of 2 in 20 would be around 30 million in the United States and 500-600 million in the world, and decide that prohibiting them from civil marriage is a good idea, far fewer would care. Would someone please explain this to me? Is it residual from the Holocaust, because really that excuse is getting old? Non-heterosexuals have been discriminated against in very much the same way since the beginning too, even in the Holocaust. Any ideas? FLYFREEFOREVER

It just goes to show that the human race is a complete intellectual failure that we cannot even agree to treat everyone as they want to be treated. We haven't the foresight to see that this will more than make up for itself. What is all this about homosexuality being a choice. Sure that's an easy solution, providing we forget about all the countries that prohibit it at the penalty of death and still it remains. You can't get much harsher than that. What's the worst thing to grab while fumbling around in the dark for a bath towel? Well, based on my experience I'd say my teenage sister's lace bra. But, hey my mom's would come in a close second. Have you ever noticed that the things in life that we can't live without cost the most. Houses, cars, children, refrigerators, washers, dryers, you name it. Milk prices are going up this week because of the cost of fuel. Some are also blaming the cost of corn feed for cows. With increased ethanol production, corn pr...

Alright, I heard a great joke today, so I'm going to share: Q. Why do girls like Jesus? A. Because he's hung like this (extends arms) and promises a second coming. Hehe. FLYFREEFOREVER!

Here are a few things to think about. I mean it, really think about them. 1. It's commencement season yet again and I found something rather interesting regarding high school graduations. The people who get the most applause are those who, for whatever reason, were very unlikely to graduate while those who actually did a lot of work and earned their diploma. The applause is gauged on how unlikely it was for them to stand there rather than as a measure of the quality of their work. Doesn't anyone find this slightly odd? 2. The Democratic and Republican Parties first primary debates have occurred. Both were extensively and exhaustively covered on cable, but barely at all on broadcast television. What kind of message does this send America's voters? If you're poor you aren't important? 3. If Paris Hilton was anyone else, not famous that is, then should would have been seen as the drunk driving maniac that she is. But, no, because she is Paris Hilton, people ...