The reason I use the definition I do is that the word itself means without knowledge.  I understand why many people use it as the middle ground, and can see the utility in having a word that means " I dunno what I think."  I just personally find it easier to use what words mean rather than how they're typically used when having conversations.  That being said, I don't really have a problem with people doing it, it's just a pet peeve so to speak.

It becomes more and more apparent with the number of atheist vs theist debates that I not only come across but actually partake in that there are a few misconceptions and foundational flaws that can be dealt with once the basics are understood by any layperson. First...

Debate Difficulties

I've spent the last two days taking part in a rather lengthy conversation with a friend and his friends via Facebook which has reached epic lengths.  The subject matter aside for the time being I've encountered an issue that I've seen frequently but just cannot understand.  When person A makes a claim, and person B asks for data backing up that claim, why does the former often make a grandiose production of arguing that either the data isn't of anyone's concern, or that s/he doesn't need to prove anything.  Even worse is the tendency to try to change the subject and thus obfuscate the issues that we're discussing in the first place.  I've, over the last few years of my life at least, gotten much more comfortable with being wrong.  But that's because I seek to be correct, not to appear correct.  Why is this such a foreign concept to so many people?  We're all wrong from time to time, why fight it?  Why not embrace it and simply move on?  Or is one's preconceived notions and prejudices so damn important that they'll make a fool of themselves just to pretend that they were right all along?

Worldview

I recently saw a rather lengthy video of a youtube christian asking for atheists, naturalists, evolutionists, materialists, and any other 'ists' that aren't theists to prove that their worldview works better than christianity, if at all.  I've been pondering a few of the facets of this issue and have come to a conclusion.  Atheism is not a worldview.

Let me repeat that.  Atheism is NOT a worldview.

Atheism is a stance on a single question, ergo is incapable of being a worldview.  The qualifications that need to be met vary from 4 to 20 different things that must be stressed by a particular school of thought.  Naturalism can be a worldview.  Materialism is a worldview.  Evolutionism is a made up 'ism' so that's a negative Ghost Rider. 

My personal worldview ( I'm getting tired of writing that word) is naturalistic.  I accept the hypothesis that this universe we have, with all it's splendor, is a result of what happens when you give hydrogen 14+ billion years of stellar evolution.  I believe that we, as sentient biological beings, are an inevitability of complex chemistry, which is an expression of physics.  As far as a cosmological sense or a "what's the meaning" kinda questions I will simply state that we exist, if a person wants to validate that existence, to have a reason, then they must find one.  I don't believe in fate, outside of my conjecture involving Schrodinger and the force of observation causing a reality to collapse differently than it otherwise would.  I don't see why more people aren't as impressed with the fact, the FACT, that we are made of the remains of a star that went nova and exploded with a fury incalculable to most people.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it wrong, or if the people I'm being exposed to just are at a level or a place that makes it seem like child'splay.  I also wonder what a dinosaur would taste like. 

Philosophia eins

It becomes more and more apparent with the number of atheist vs theist debates that I not only come across but actually partake in that there are a few misconceptions and foundational flaws that can be dealt with once the basics are understood by any layperson.  First the definitions.

Theism- the belief in a god or gods.

Atheism- the lack of a belief in a god or gods.

Agnosticism- the lack of knowledge of something, usually used in a theistic/atheistic way.

It is incredibly important, before undertaking this endeavor, to understand a few basic things about how philosophical proofs work, which is little different from any other style of argument or debate. 

It is possible to believe anything.  It is only possible to know that which is true.  Another thing to keep in mind is that there is a bit of a disconnect in many people in which they feel that if they believe something it is true to them, and any dissenting views on the subject are up for debate, or are simply differences of opinion.  This is false.  There are many many subjects that have different, yet valid, points of view.  The best flavor of ice cream, the best sport team, the values of political leaders and economic styles.  There are also things that are not in this category.  The preservation of human rights, the care and treatment of other human beings and to a lesser degree most other animals. 

One last thing, which is possibly the most important is the burden of proof.  When anyone makes a claim a burden of proof must be met before that claim can be said to be valid.  If someone says that they had a specific meal for lunch, it'd be very easy to back that up, such as a receipt from a restaurant or leftovers.  There is a direct correlation between the likelihood of a claim being true and the amount of evidence necessary to validate it.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  And to quote a certain famous writer "Anything that can be claimed without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

Okay down to business.

Premise 1: The universe exists.

Premise 2: I exist.

Premise 3: I can learn something about the universe.

These are the basal assumptions that we all make, even if we seldom ever think about it, when discussing anything from the most far fetched hypothetical situations to the most banal of discussions.  Personally I, like many, hold these to be the only assumptions that are safe to make, and that only from necessity since without these three premises, all argument is invalid. 

Atheism is an oft-misunderstood concept, since many people equate religion and theism, even though there are various counterexamples, such as buddhism which is a religion-yet most sects are without a god figure, ergo atheistic.  Deists believe in a god, generally, yet oftentimes have nothing like a religion in their lives or behaviors.  Atheism does not equate to belief in evolution, naturalism, or 'Darwinism' which is used mostly as a buzzword by believers to commit ad hominem attacks on people they disagree with.  It can be frustrating to attempt rational debate or discourse when the basic precepts of one's position is not understood, or when words are twisted from their definitions to their connotations or the false ideas associated with something.  Now that that's taken care of, we can move on to the next philosophical rambling.

Objective Morality

Being a philosophy buff there is something that I've been pondering on and listening to people superior to myself in both talent and experience, yet I do wish to try my hand.  Objective morality is a concept becoming more and more present in the arenas of discourse and debate, yet in my opinion is a false construct.  Objective means with no regards to and outside of any subjective point of view.  Morality is of course determining what is good or bad in the framework of a mind or will.  For example a panda is cute is subjective.  Bobbi thinks pandas are cute is an objective observation about a subjective point of view.  Morality, however, is intrinsically subjective, which is to say is subjective by definition.  What is morally right, wrong, or ambiguous is directly related to a point of view, and thus a bias.  Ergo it cannot be objective.  It is mostly heard in religious discourse, the existence or claim of objective morality, yet like the basis on which it is inevitably built in these contexts is false and flawed.  For a person to claim there is an objective morality would imply that there is an objective right and wrong in any possible scenario.  Is the slaying of another human being morally right, or morally wrong?  Are there not mitigating circumstances that can be imagined, or even evidence in the real world that can be used to throw doubt on the construct?  What is the objectively morally right way to engage in conversation, to start a conversation with a member of the opposite sex?  The same sex? Objectivity is a very difficult thing to nail down when dealing with anything of even a remotely ambiguous nature.  Mt. Everest is tall, subjectively, yet it is not objectively tall, in our solar system there is a volcano, Olympus Mons, that is several times the height of Everest, yet that is almost certainly not the tallest land formation in existence.  From the point of view of an ant, all trees are tall, some immeasurably so, yet from the vantage point of a star they are far too tiny to so much as acknowledge their existence.  It boils down to this, objective morality is a false construct put forth by religious folk to claim that they are morally superior to non believers or those who believe in false gods.  Yet there cannot be any solid claim that an example can be found much less validated.  I think it's mental masturbation, honestly, just going through the motions for a payoff that does nothing but make an otherwise irrelevant person feel smart or important.  But that's just my opinion.

It's not a sin my son, it's not a sin

It's what the priest says when he's parting an alterboy's hair down the middle.  Lolz.  Anyway segway from the tasteless joke...I'm kind of on a rant right now, the whole Anderson Cooper thing blah blah blah, and anyway thought I'd offer some information that a few people aren't aware of.  Before I start everything I'm about to say is based entirely on facts, true things, evidence, and sciency goodness.  I heart sciency goodness.  The huge issue in this country concerning homosexuality is based on the large prevalence of the idea of "The Homosexual Lifestyle Choice."  Firstly, there is no lifestyle choice.  Show of hands how many heterosexuals said to themselves 'well I gotta pick one so I guess I'll go with being attracted to the opposite sex, that sounds like fun.'  No one?  Put your hand down, if you go both ways you go both ways you don't count but this still applies to you.  No one likes a smartass.  Secondly homosexuality is not a sin, there's no such thing as sins.  There are many things that are wrong, evil, sick, twisted, republican, democratic, fuzzy, and whatever else, but there is no such thing as 'sin' as a real construct.  Homosexuality is genetic, it occurs when a series of genes is expressed via environmental triggers coupled with the existence of mutated genes.  It's like green eyes, curly hair, or freckles.  It also can be influenced by the number of male siblings that a gay man has.  The more older brothers Skyler has, the more likely he'll be a twilight fan and want to roll around the forest floor with a sparkly poser... vampires don't sparkle, only fairies do... and this is due to the feminization of the fetus by the mother's body during pregnancy.  This is also why there tends to be a slightly lower instance of bisexual males than bisexual females by genetic trait.  There are exceptions, but it is a fact that these things are genetic.  I get so tired of people ranting and raving about how homosexuality is against the bible, how they are abominations.  If a child is born with cleft pallet, spina bifida, down's syndrome, cerebral palsy, or any other of the myriad birth defects should they be sent to Hell for it?  What about dichromatism, various hair colours, freckles, birthmarks, no membrane thingie under the tongue?  Are they abominations too?

Moving right along.  I would love to be able to talk to these kind of people and ask them seriously what the hell is wrong with them.  I have a nagging feeling that a large pipe or hammer with 'understanding' engraved on it might be necessary.

Yet more nonsense

So Anderson Cooper came out of the closet.  4/10 on the surprise scale.  9/10 on the bravery scale.  Over 9000 on the balls scale for doing what he did in the current political clime.  I for one am not nor have ever really been interested in homosexuality, however I do support those people that are comfortable enough or brave enough to do what is necessary to be true to themselves.  The only reason I comment is that there was a comparison brought to my attention that likened Mr. Cooper with Sandusky, the Penn State coach that has been all over the news as of late.  A woman, a broadcaster in radio I believe, said that it was Christian values, well the vestiges therefrom, that keep us as a society from all being like Sandusky or Cooper.  First off homosexuality and pedophilia are completely different, for many reasons.  Consensual sex between adults, whatever their gender, is their own damn business and no one should care or have the arrogance and audacity to say what is right or wrong.  If Pedophilia and homosexuality are linked, equivalent even, then would not the molestation of little girls be normal and natural for heterosexual males?  I don't really get what's going on in the heads of some people.  Scratch that, I do know and it pisses me off.  In this country, and largely across the world to my limited knowledge, pedophilia seems to be a christian thing, look at the Catholic church, the Boy Scouts of America, various other smaller organizations.  I don't usually rail at religion, I'm not a fan and I decry it whenever tasteful, but I will right now.  For anyone, especially a woman, to claim that Christianity is the best way to live makes me laugh like an evil genius.  I wonder what she would have to say if someone showed up with a few strapping men with meat-themed nicknames and had one of them rape her.  If she is raped she is required to marry her rapist, because it's her fault.  Would she like the country to be run via biblical laws and leave her a third-class citizen?  If her favorite dress is a cotton poly blend then she should be executed, if she touches a man or speaks to one while on her menses, put to death, if her children disrespect her she is to kill them or be, survey says... put to death.  I don't understand why so many people run about claiming that their morality is superior and divinely inspired when the one who inspired it cannot even overcome a village of people with iron chariots, or who instructs his followers to rape and kill, pillage and annihilate, mutilate the genitals of themselves and their children, and even commit infanticide and cannibalism.  Seriously what the hell?  I'm not one to hate an entire group of people, outside of nazis and the Dutch (just kidding no hard feelings over the whole slave trade thing) but every time I see the news I get more and more irate because no matter what happens it gets far more offensive and disheartening.  The westboro baptist church should be rounded up and executed like feral beasts, I'd do it myself if I could, with no compunction nor mercy nor hesitation.  But I'm utilitarian, and as such have no qualms with destruction of the few for the preservation of the many.  But I digress.  My feelings aside, I honestly believe it would behoove our nation and our image as one to weed out these psychopaths, remove people from office who literally believe in talking snakes and donkeys, child shredding bears, and a boat with a drunkard and two of every animal.  It's one thing to believe that there's something more, something greater.  I think it's wrong but I don't know everything and am perfectly fine admitting both that and when I'm wrong, I'm wrong, yet I do think this country, this world would be better if we had a couple billion more people who used critical thinking and a couple billion less who think the world is 6000 years old or so.  But back to the point I started with.  If a person compares homosexuality to pedophilia, they're idiots.  If they don't see why then they must be religious.

Musings and Ponderings

So for the last few weeks I've had some weird stuff floating around in my head.  I try to ignore the human interactions with most of the people I deal with on a daily basis, they usually annoy me.  There are a few that cause me no small measure of absolute lividity, but I digress.  I've been working on a (rudimentary at best) practical black hole theory that makes use of someone that isn't on the inside of physics quite yet.  I explored the possible uses of the sub-particles that emit gravity and those that are effected by it, and I've conjured up several concepts that are just fun to toy about with.  I've also begun to refine my philosophical arcs of thought, an attempt to eliminate the tangential lines of reasoning and discourse which I have a habit of indulging in.  After a bit of coercion from a friend and a professor I've decided to begin to write down and keep track of my ramblings and inane ideas here.  I'll only give brief blurbs about most of it (for reasons of working on thetic topics and to not bore most people into a catatonic state.)  Now I'm wondering if pair annihilation reactions can be mitigated, or even controlled with clusters of super high but massless gravitational particle thingies...

WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER WHEN YOU ARE IN A BAD MOOD?

Solving the problems of someone else, or playing around with thought experiments.  I lose myself in what I'm doing and no longer feel that I am in any mood whatsoever.