On The Shoulders Of Giants

The questions is: is there a god or not? Is the universe composed of matter only or there is more to it than that? I have looked at the arguments of both sides and found neither of them convincing. In my view, by argument alone, you cannot prove or disprove god. What about evidence? Is there any evidence that points to the existence of god or otherwise? In my opinion there is only one convincing evidence: the enlightenment phenomenon. The enlightenment phenomenon is when someone through meditation, solitude, seeking of truth or otherwise experiences something unique and as a result becomes enlightened. Of course, there are degrees to enlightenment and the experiences vary greatly. But in some cases we can say with a good degree of certainty that a person has been enlightened: Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, Ali, Rumi, Shams. These individuals and many like them have had unique experiences and became enlightened and transcended their backgrounds and rose to new dimensions. To me, that fact is miraculous and an evidence pointing to the existence of god. The rational mind would then want to know if religions came from god. My answer is most likely yes. The next question is if most religions came from god, how come they are tainted with misstatements, pandering and intolerance. In other words, for example why does god have a beef with homosexuals? I have thought about this question most of my life and I recently have arrived at an answer: the answer is that every religion was a political movement in a society that was far from Utopia, and in order for that political movement to succeed in such societies, it had to be tainted and it had to be brought down to the levels that people could swallow. I believe that homophobia in Islam doesn’t come from god but it is a left-over from the Arabian society of 1400 years ago. The reason that god said he created the world in six days, was that it was an easier sell back then than a scientific explanation of how the universe came about. The unfortunate thing is that religions are never honest about this fact because they can’t be. How can they criticize the same people that are going to carry the message to the future generations? It’s impossible. So we have to live with sketchy religions at best that are completely out of touch with the majority of us today. But not all hope is lost. If we look at religions as vectors, arrows that point from one social state to another social state, and put every religion in the context of the society that it was introduced in, I think the directions these arrows pointing are pretty clear.

I have finally decided to read the bible from cover to cover. It’s an intellectual cardio-marathon. I have a feeling that this is the time for me to read this book and I will get many ideas from it.

I have to admit that I have been hit by the internet bug too and my attention span has severely shrunk in the last decade. It will be a challenge.

LAWS OF BACKGAMMON
1931
PREPARED BY THE BACKGAMMON and
CARDS COMMITTEE of the
RACQUET AND TENNIS CLUB
NEW YORK CITY

APPROVED BY THE FOLLOWING CLUBS:

The Brook
Calumet
Cavendish
Hope (Prov.)
Knickerbocker
Knickerbocker Whist
The Leash
The Links Pacific Union (San Fran.)
Philadelphia (Phila.)
Piping Rock
Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh)
Racquet (Chicago)
Racquet (Phila.)
Racquet (St. Louis)
Racquet and Tennis Rittenhouse (Phila.)
St. Nicholas
Tennis and Racquet (Boston)
Tuxedo
Union
University
Whist

from Wikipedia:

In Islam, there are several grades of sin:

1. khatia: mistakes
2. dhanb: immorality
3. haram: transgressions
4. fasad : wickedness
5. shirk: ascribing a partner to god

I like the first four categories. A mistake would be forgetting about an appointment. Immorality in my opinion would be harming yourself. Transgression would be stealing. Wickedness would be to steal from a poor person. For the life of me, I don’t understand why ascribing a partner to god would be worse than wickedness. And my reason for that is that wickedness causes pain which in my philosophy is real but ascribing a partner to god would cause no harm because in my theology god does not feel pain and is not harmed by us. If I were god, I would not even put it on my list. I guess, I would have been a more anthropocentric god. But I am limited by my human mind and it is not surprising that my theology would be anthropocentric and different than god’s theology.

Did you know that hubbly-bubbly is a pidgin word?

I’m going to do something crazy and venture way out of my field, to say something that I have no business saying something about. Here it goes:

A disease is not necessarily identifiable by its symptoms. Several causes can lead to very similar symptoms and the treatment options could be completely different. In some cases, medicine (in the US, the FDA) understands that. That is why we have so many different anti-depressants because there are different kinds of depression. Depression is too broad of a term to uniquely identify the condition.

In some cases, medical authorities do not understand this very well. One example is most cancers. Many cancer drugs get developed that work very well on one group of patients and don’t harm the other patients who tried them but get voted down because they are not “effective enough” for the statistical sample.

The baskets we are using are too large to handle all possible treatments. We need to use smaller baskets and have a more utilitarian approach to medicine.

Of the three, only art is unaccountable, meaning you cannot ask an artist “Why did you do it this way?” Science and religion are accountable, they have to justify everything they do.

I dissected Hillary’s non-concession speech and Obama’s victory speech. I also have done something a little new.

Hillary’s speech:
Congratulates to Obama. (+)
Damage control. (0)
I have seen this and seen that. (0)
She’s talking about herself too much. (-)
Damage control. (0)
“What does she want? End the war, health care, children, 18m voted! ” (-/?)
Back to the problems. (-)
She’s picking an issue? Health insurance. (0)
Where do we go from here? No decisions tonight! (-/?)
My mother, 89. (+)
Story. (+)
( Score: -1/11 = - 9 %)

Obama’s speech:
Thank you grandma. Tonight is for her. (+)
Primary season has come to an end. (0)
A journey. (0)
I will be the Democratic nominee for the president. (+)
More thanks. (+)
Most qualified. (+)
Thanks Hillary. Congratulates her. More praise for her. More praise. (+)
Praising people. (+)
To chart a new course for America. (+)
McCain. Praise. I respect his accomplishments even though he wouldn’t acknowledge mine. (+/-)
McCain’s campaign is not representative of any change. (-)
War on Iraq. We should leave. (-/0)
Al Qaeda… Problems. (-)
Change is… diplomacy (”petty dictators”.) (+/-)
To lead the world. (+)
Tax break. McCain not knowing what change is. (-)
Story. (+)
More on change. (+)
That’s why I am running. Story. (+)
Americans are good people. (+)
America, this is our moment. (+)
Challenges ahead. Humility. Limitless faith in American people. (+)
The moment. (+)
God bless you. (+)
( Score 12/24 = + 50 %)

The contrast couldn’t be any sharper. (I mean, hypothetically it could. I’m just exaggerating to make a point)

From New York Times

So is it possible that Jon Stewart, who wields sarcasm like a machete on “The Daily Show,” has an unusually large right parahippocampal gyrus?

A spokesman for Mr. Stewart said he would have no comment — not that a big-shot television star like Jon Stewart would care about the size of his neuroanatomy.

Finally, semantic web is on the map. There is a new kid in town and it’s called Powerset. This is a smarter search engine for Wikipedia. Go to their website, search for something or type in a simple question and explore the cool features offered for free.