A Piece of Paper

Life starts out as a blank piece of paper.

The Christian, having an idea, thought that it is best to be plane tickets for a vacation in Heaven. So he did. The Christian then gave the tickets and rode the plane. He was happy.

The Atheist, however, thought that it is best to be a land title for a large plot of land that he can do anything in. So he did. The Atheist never gave his land title to anyone. In his land, he found happiness in planting, farming, and enjoying the warm breeze and gazing at the stars.

Plane tickets or Land titles? Apparently, most atheists give more value to life than most christians. Ironic, isn't it?

The Christian Blind-spot

The totality of Epicurus' famous atheist quote led me to think that there are three possibilities of god's existence. First, a god doesn't exist at all (which is what I personally believe in). Second, god can be malevolent or simply doesn't care, the latter being the deist belief. Third, god is weak. Whatever the condition, believers, especially Christians, got their beliefs wrong, in one way or another.

If a god really does exist, his qualities aren't what Christians expect him to be, which is really sad and disappointing (for them). Defining every aspect as "divine", "absolute", "almighty", and whatnot just doesn't fit into a non-divine finite world.

Of the Seven deadly sins recognized by the Catholic church, he has committed all seven.

1. Pride - Claiming himself to be the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-whatever.
2. Greed - He wants everything for himself. Period.
3. Lust - In the old testament, he enforces incest and rape. Hell, he impregnated the "virgin" Mary.
4. Envy - He's a jealous god. Even believers acknowledge that.
5. Gluttony - Aside from the fact that offerings (material or spiritual) are mandatory, he wants people to "symbolically" eat his son.
6. Wrath - "The Wrath of god" has already been a cliche saying, hasn't it?
7. Sloth - Enforcing that one should do nothing once a week. I like it.

Christians are turning a blind eye at the truth of things. The clergy of olden times, even now, omit some passages of the Bible and only preach those that sound good. Both blinded by faith and blinded from the truth... it can only mean that faith leads to the opposite of the truth.

Close the storybook and open your eyes.

"Keep moving forward", they say

People are different. The masses merely dictate what definitions are and instill these onto their children and punish them if they resist. "Keep moving forward", they say.

What if someone from all that mass of humans turns the other way and starts walking? Certainly, the opposite direction isn't "forward" for the mass moving in the "normal direction" but for that person, he is definitely moving forward.

Success is a very subjective term, especially for people who have different concepts and standards. One man's trash can be another man's treasure. If you offer another person your path, you may be casting pearls before swine or something like that.

Defiance isn't totally a bad thing. In fact, defiance plays a very important role in the nature of humans, which is to seek knowledge. If you consider defiance evil, then I guess you should blindly follow orders like a puppet.

Perfection is Constant Free-fall

"Practice makes perfect. Since nobody is perfect, why should we practice?" - This is a popular philosophical quote made from conjoining two opposite quotes. Quite a nice juxtaposition, isn't it?

I don't have a real answer to that, though, but I do have another statement. "We are already perfect." Surely, someone would say that we aren't living in a perfect world. A perfect world would look better than this one.

Living comes with the irony that we strive to attain this so-called perfection despite not being able to actually reach it. Some people simply fall into despair upon realizing this. The sky isn't the limit anymore for humans. If it isn't, what is? There is no limit. There is no "perfection".

Imagine, if we actually attain the perfection we seek, what would become of us? If we obtain the answer to everything, if we attain immortality, if we attain absolute happiness, what would happen? Nothing would happen next. There would be no more room for life and no meaning to existence.

We are already living in perfection. This is the perfect world. People strive for the future and fail to live in the present. Every step further towards the future, what we stand on today is the present, no matter what happens. All the benefits we have encountered will always be balanced out by misfortune and vice versa. No matter how far a human makes progress, there will always be room for more. The human being might not be perfect by itself but human life is already perfect, no matter how it is lived.

Perfection is flawed. Conversely, flaws are perfection. Perfection is mediocrity. Mediocrity is perfection. It is our flaws in existence that make us perfect, in a way many people fail to realize. It is like gravity pulling you both ways - constant free-fall. You feel like falling into one side but you're never actually falling.

Going to "hellven"

If there is at least one area in the universe where this god isn't present, that would mean that he isn't omnipresent. Since the believers state that their god isn't in hell, that debunks everything because, if this god is indeed omnipresent, he should be present in hell as well.

This is indeed a paradox similar to "the rock that god can't carry". Hell is defined as the absence of this god. The believers made a flaw in their concept of omnipresence by just defining this "Hell".

Say this god is also present in hell. Since this god graces everyone in his presence, hell would be meaningless. There would be no punishment since his presence would nullify whatever punishment there is. Sinners are free to sin. This god's in hell with all of us anyway.

If this god "loves" everyone, why did he create hell in the first place? Why is there even a concept of hell, a concept of punishment, a concept of sin? If he loves everyone and wants to free everyone he loves from the clutches of sin, he would have done so even before he created mankind.

He wouldn't have created that tree of wisdom.

One might say that since he loves us, he has given us the gift of free will, the burden of decision. Despite the choices we make, we should all experience "heaven" in the end. Then again, having to send other people to hell while keeping a few in heaven is a form of discrimination. Is discrimination a form of love? No one with a right mind would think so.

In one way or another, the concept of hell will be pointless. Hell is merely a fictitious "place" that adults use to scare their children with, passed down from generation to generation.

What is a soul? Really...

"You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body" - C.S. Lewis

Let's assume that the above statement is pure fact. When we die, we, as souls, supposedly leave our bodies. Let's also assume this as fact. Our bodies possess five basic senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. There are other senses but let's just stick with these five that we are most familiar with.

Since we discard our bodies upon death (or upon astral projection or something like that), it is only logical that we also lose input from our five senses. Moreover, we also lose our ability to think, since our brains are part of our body. So if we leave our bodies, what would we feel? Or better yet, what would we sense? Or even better yet, what would we be thinking?

We only gain an interface in the material world as long as we are connected to our bodies. If we lose our bodies, it would be like a computer without any peripherals. No monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, RAM cards, processors, etc. So basically, we're just left with just the motherboard. How on earth can you operate a computer like that?

This concept conflicts with the idea of reincarnation wherein memories are passed on with the soul from one body to another. Memories are stored in the brain, and the brain dies and decays with the rest of the body.

I think that the bare soul alone is conscious somehow. It is a mere consciousness that can't see or feel or even think. It just exists and is conscious; it's some sort of strange energy.

Some stories (including the bible) and especially some emo sayings state that a soul can be inflicted with pain and suffering. If that is the case, how exactly? I guess it would be a pain in the... uhh... consciousness?

Eternal Life = Overrated

Long ago, humans don't actually fear death itself; they fear being forgotten. The civilizations of old believed that they can put a stopper on death. Ancient Egyptians, ancient Chinese, Native Americans, Hindu mythology, and even Christianity had all been urged to live for but one cause: eternal life or life after death.

Uncertainty has always been a problem, especially for the ancient people who had made up stuff to stop people from panicking. The people, knowing nothing else to believe in, took everything as truth: hook, line, and sinker. They believed in salvation after death. Regardless of the conditions, they all aim for this.

Thinking about it, what would be in store for humans if ever they achieve immortality? Nothing really. They'd just live longer. After that? You'd be so sick of life that you would beg for death.

Imagine playing a game that you know you can't lose. It would be fun at first but after exhausting all possible areas, it would be repetitive, not just once or twice, but a million times over. Moreover, you would have a serious case of procrastination due to the assurance that you would be able to do it before you die - because you can't die.

Surely, you can do the things you couldn't have done if you're capable of dying: do extensive research, master several martial arts, rule the world. But once you're immortal, nothing will drive you to do these things. Your basic survival instincts would've already shattered. You wouldn't need to eat, sleep, work... You wouldn't feel the need to do pretty much anything, even for loved ones.

Let's face it. Immortality is but a mere fantasy. Everything is transient. We all live because we all will have to die someday. If we are to aim for something as we live, isn't it always better to live for the sake of living?

To live is to die. If you won't die, you're pretty much like an inanimate object.

Self-fulfilling Instinct

By instinct, humans have acted upon selfishness. Man lives to feed himself, satisfy himself, fulfill himself, pleasure himself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Every action made would still lead to the fulfillment of oneself.

A person prays to his god for the the betterment of his family, blessings for his children, peace for his world. Even if he wishes for the welfare for people completely unrelated to him, it will still give him a sense of fulfillment and self-satisfaction. There is no denying that.

But selfishness where the only beneficiary is the self is considered evil by human morals. Not wanting to share, ignoring beggars, greed, lust, gluttony... Why? Selfishness just took on a different form.

There is no such thing as absolute selflessness. You desire to do something for others. Selfless selfishness? Selfish selflessness? Humans are built with the instinct to pursue his own happiness. It just so happens that for some people, happiness comes from helping others.

Declaring people that pursue their own happiness without affecting others evil... That concept just tips the scales. The majority had instilled into themselves the idea that nobody has the right to become selfish.

Humans live for themselves. Humans are individuals. Humans are not born to follow a general consensus - they're born to pursue happiness, regardless of whether their pursuit adheres to the consensus or not.

Selfishness isn't evil. It's just human instinct.

Sadistic Ventriloquist

If this god is omniscient, then there is no "free will", assuming that he also created the universe. Since this god is omniscient or all-knowing, he must have already known what will happen. Since he created the universe, everything in this world is scripted by him. There is no free will, only an illusion of it.

If there was no free will, there would be no point in having us do these "tests" since he already knows the result. Moreover, if a follower decides to defect from his faith because of the gravity of these tests, it would be this god's fault for doing so. Therefore, this god is a sadistic ventriloquist and we are the puppets following his every whim.

The concept of heaven and hell would also be a farce. Since there would be only one outcome (the outcome that this god knows), the people would surely enter their destined realm. The concept of repentance and redemption would be all for naught, another reason to call him a sadistic ventriloquist.

If he already knew that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit and wouldn't want his creation to fall into sin, he would not have created that cursed tree in the first place. But since he supposedly did, then it is either he didn't know the outcome or mankind was meant to sin.

Believers believe that every obstacle in life is a "test" from him. As we all know, we test something in order to know the outcome of certain events. College entrance tests, medical examinations, crash tests, taste tests... All these are needed since we can't see into the future in order to determine whether you're eligible to get into college, whether you need special treatment, whether the car needs better airbags, or whether the soup tastes salty. If this god is omniscient - and by extension, knows all future events, why would he need to test our faith?

On the other hand, if free will did exist, the concept of omniscience would not suffice, since all would be subject to uncertainty. Since he is not omniscient, he wouldn't satisfy the definition that Christians have made.

It's either there is a god and he is a sadistic ventriloquist, or there is no god at all and everything just happens at random.

I'd go for the latter. The thought of a sadistic ventriloquist is just scary...

Neither Omnipotent nor Benevolent

"Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?" - Epicurus

If this god is both willing and able to defeat evil, then why is evil still present?

A friend of mine tried to retort this claim by saying "god needs time to combat evil". Okay... But that would lead to god being not so powerful. Power requires workforce and time as expressed by the equation Power = Work / Time. Therefore, assuming that this god is omnipotent (power being of an infinite level), the divisor of the equation, time, must either be zero (meaning this god doesn't even need to snap his fingers in order for evil to disappear) or the dividend of the equation, work, must be infinite. His mere existence will make evil disappear. Having any value for time other than zero would give the quotient a definite amount, which contradicts the concept of omnipotence.

As for having the work variable set to infinite, it will also nullify the time time divisor since time will be meaningless for something of infinite capability. It will still lead to the same question.

Saying that this god needs time to combat evil is saying that this god is not strong enough to do so. Therefore, if this god really is omnipotent like the believers say, he's just not willing to combat evil (according to Epicurus' quote).

It just boils down to a choice: either this god propagates both good and evil or he is against evil and just not powerful enough to totally suppress it. If the only requirement to totally eliminate evil is for humans to turn back to god, he is indeed powerless, not being able to handle it on his own.

Considering the concept of Yin and Yang, good cannot overcome evil and vice versa. That leads us to the possibility that god and Satan might be two opposite faces of the same card, creating a definite balance that holds the universe in place. This equilibrium, in turn, creates a paradox in the Christian belief.

This god could now be "all powerful", but his own negative power negates his positive power. Now, it's either god has Dissociative Identity Disorder or Christians just misinterpreted everything from the beginning. Whatever the choice is, their god wouldn't really fit the ideals that they might think.

Brain ache? I'll sum it up: This god doesn't equate to omnipotence. This god doesn't equate to benevolence. This god isn't god - the reason why all throughout this entry, the word "god" with the capital G never occurred.

"Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?" - Epicurus

Wings of Wax

For millennia, humans have envied other animals that can fly, birds to be more precise. Wings have fascinated humans everywhere. In popular Greek Mythology, we learn of the story of an inventor named Daedalus who made wings to escape into the sky with his son Icarus. In history, we learn of the daring exploits of the Wright brothers and their attempts to make an airplane. Ancient South American civilizations even worship a winged serpent named Quetzalcoatl. Flight has been a dream of the human race since the beginning.

Like most ambitions, once one is fulfilled, another begins. When man gained the ability to fly, they wanted to soar higher - so they did. They reached great heights people from a thousand years ago never thought of. The adage "The sky is the limit" seems obsolete today because mankind had reached beyond the known limit. Every finish line is the starting line of yet another race.

As humans continue to soar, they express desire for more. They draw pictures of humans with bird-like wings, angels as they are called. Somewhat beheld like perfect, angels have spread in culture, set like some unreachable goal. As with all humans, they live in pursuit of their goal, not the goal itself. Envisioning oneself as a human capable of flight is indeed an uplifting habit a typical person does. Dreams of flight seem to be the anti-thesis of a nightmare.

But with all flight, one needs to land. One cannot fly across the skies forever. That is the only thing about flight most humans fear: landing. It's either you land or you crash down. The sinking feeling during flight in a dream can spell a nightmare. In the story of Daedalus, Icarus strayed too far from his father and went to the sun like a moth to the flame. In the end, the sun destroyed Icarus' wings, causing his death. But landing doesn't seem to exist in a human's point of view, since human flight had defeated the purpose of the finish line.

Soaring until we die - it seems like a miserable fate for us humans to have. It would be better to keep our feet on the ground, literally and figuratively. If ever we feel the need to fly, fly where you know you can land safely.

... Or crash on the ground headfirst.

What is Luck?

What is Luck?

1. the seemingly chance happening of events that affect someone; fortune; fate
2. good fortune; success, prosperity, advantage, etc.
3. an object believed to bring good luck

Really now... What is Luck?

Say there's a bus accident and out of the thirty passengers on the bus, only one survived. Many would say he's lucky since he survived while the others died, but is he really lucky? If he's really lucky, the tragedy wouldn't have happened in the first place.

Say you're a poor kid living in the slums of some rundown city. By some random chance, you happen to meet a rich kid who tells you about himself. He tells you about how his parents gave him good food, clothes, and education yet lack quality family time. You compare it with your own life and realize that you're lucky to have a loving family despite the hardship. But if you're really lucky, you wouldn't be in the slums in the first place.

Say you're the child of someone who has a weak heart. Your father dies in his sleep, rather than suffering in agony. You consider him lucky that he escaped suffering. But if he's really lucky, he wouldn't have had a weak heart in the first place.

The word "luck" seems to be forced into seemingly good situations that are surrounded by a large chance of a bad. But that isn't good fortune at all. Such absurdity...

Luck doesn't seem to work that way so let's redefine it. "Luck is success, prosperity, advantage, etc. in a specified set." "Luck is partial immunity (to some degree) of strife."

Say you're a perfectly normal human in the planet. Everyday, every hour, every minute, and every second, out of the billions of humans in the world, a handful dies, a bunch is stricken with disease, a handful are drowning in poverty, and almost everyone has experienced misfortune... save for yourself. That's the only instance where you should be the luckiest person in the world.

Everyone's lucky... in a way.

Light is Cursed

"Let there be light," as said in the Book of Genesis. Yes, light is essential in our daily lives but other references state otherwise.

The fallen angel Lucifer's name literally translates to "light bearer". He is cursed, banished from God's realm, never to set foot on Heaven's Gates again. If he's the bearer of God's first creation, why banish him?

In Greek Mythology, the titan Prometheus gave humans the gift of fire. After that, he was bound to a rock by Zeus and let his liver be feasted upon by a bird of prey everyday for eternity.

Why curse them? Had they done anything wrong? They brought light to humans; light which is very essential to human living. If they did anything, humans enjoyed it and lived with it for a long time to the present time. What's the big deal?

Without light, humans and most creatures are rendered helpless. But the light stated here may not be light in its literal sense. Light means knowledge, hence "enlightenment". Even in its altered sense, this light is still essential to human living.

Lucifer and Prometheus defied the one in charge of the world, God (or Zeus). They brought to humans the light of knowledge. Lucifer, tempted the humans to eat from the tree so they can attain enlightenment. Why is it bad?

God probably wanted us to be in eternal bliss. Since Ignorance is bliss, he didn't want humans to attain the Power of Knowledge.

I can say this for sure though: If god does exist, he has no power over us. He is absolutely not omnipotent. Same with Lucifer. Humans have the power to choose between Knowledge and Ignorance. That is free will. If we would be grateful to some spiritual entity, we should thank Lucifer for giving us the gift of Light.

Upon choosing the Curse of Light, we, as enlightened ones, shall suffer. Suffer what? Suffer the responsibility of this wisdom. Knowledge is Power. With power comes responsibility.

Spiritual entities aside, it is our choice if we head back into the Bliss of Darkness or the Light of Knowledge. As with all dualities and mediocrities, we should all head to the middle, where we can savor the pursuit of knowledge while leading a blissful life.

Hatred

Hatred.

Usually, when someone does you harm, hatred ensues. The feeling of wanting to inflict harm against another person, the eager wishing of misfortune befalling that person.

But... Have you ever got the feeling of hating someone who hadn't really done anything to you? I know I do. One time, I just saw this person's face and anger suddenly rushed through my mind. That person didn't even know me and vice versa but I can't easily shake the feeling off. This ill feeling can be maddening at times.

But I also think... Someone could also be hating me as well with no real reason. I'm not really being paranoid but of the hundred people I see everyday, there is bound to be one who hates me. This cycle of hatred is bound to happen. It's natural. All humans feel the feeling of hate.

It's rather strange to know that a person's mere existence can cause this much conflict for various reasons. Someone sneezed and someone else caught the disease. Someone walked and accidentally stepped on someone else's foot. Walking, bumping against another's shoulder. Talking loudly and unknowingly annoying another. Unknowingly inciting envy, jealousy, fear, anger... hatred.

By the time you have existed, you are forcibly thrust to this never ending cycle. Once you're in, you can never go out. The only way to prevent being thrust in the cycle is to have hid your existence from the world... or to have never had existed at all in the beginning.

We all live in a world of hatred. Chauvinists, Sexists, Racists, your next door neighbor, the next person you brush shoulders with, or even someone you have never even seen before...

Human Nature versus Human Morals

In my two previous rants about the "Duality of Nature" and the story of the rampaging bus conductor, I made another interesting conclusion. I summed up another duality: Human Nature versus Human Morals. Both are attributes of human beings but very much different.

In my philosophy, I have slightly erased the concept of Good and Evil (mainly because that concept is pretty vague and it differs per person). Right and Wrong is also pretty vague as well. But then, I conjured up a very primitive and fundamental concept: Instinct versus Emotion.

Human Nature comes from instinct and it pretty much explains what we do in our everyday life: eating, drinking, sleeping, etc. But it doesn't end just there. Our instinct is what makes us organisms - beings that live, that exist. Human Morals is what separates us from being just an organism. It is responsible for giving worth, value, and different meanings to things which don't originally have before we evolved. It is what arose from the realization of "self".

From human morals, humans have converted many things into those with sentimental value. Courtship and sex turned into romance and love. Territory became property. Competition became fighting for honor. It is human nature to try to explain phenomena through observation and experimentation but human morals try to explain things through spiritual means.
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I've always heard from cheesy teen romance situations when a girl thinks a guy is but a pervert or a playboy, which is definitely the result when looking at it through morals. Looking at it through nature yields a different outcome. The guy in question ogles at big breasts because it is in his subconscious desire to ensure that his offspring is given high quality breast milk. Big hips = Proper womb for fetus. Thinking about sex = innate desire for procreation. Human morals simply distort this natural instinctual behavior into something "immoral".

An explanation to that would be that cliche saying that guys think more with instinct while girls think more with emotion. For some unexplained reason, guys have more of this "Human Nature" while girls have more "Human Morals". It would be too extreme to say that "guys are animals", though. It is true that guys think more with instinct the same way animals do, but as human beings, guys still have Morals. Girls just have a lot more.
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As I stated in another previous rant, there is also a struggle between yet another duality: Peace and Existence. Obviously, Human Morals aim for peace and harmony and it is Human Instinct to live, thus it is attributed to Existence. If we eradicate one side, there would be a huge trade off but...


Emotions / Instinct = Humanity


Let's go back to the Book of Genesis. Adam and Eve were living a peaceful life in Eden until they ate the fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which we can call... that's right: Human Morals. Say they never ate it. Lacking Human morals, they can continue to live their peaceful lives with just Human Instinct. There might be havoc due to some occurrences of "immoral behavior" but since Human Morals isn't integrated, they wouldn't know the difference between war and peace. There wouldn't be "war" but there wouldn't be "peace" either. With the equation above, the net Humanity will be zero.

Since we attributed Instinct with "organism" and "body" earlier, it can be inferred that the Moral is what comprises the "soul". According to the many beliefs of the afterlife, our bodies rot as our souls bask in God's presence or be sent to the state of Nirvana for the rest of eternity. Having discarded the body which contains the instinct (as it would be useless otherwise), we, as souls, are left with morals. But with no real "society" to apply the Morals on, they would be just useless widgets. With the equation above, the net Humanity will be infinite... But since Humanity can only amount to 100% since no one can be "too human", the net humanity is undefined.

This is yet again another paradox solvable by the cliche: Balance. When more Instinct is applied in the equation, humanity levels drop, sending us down near the level of animals. When more Emotions are applied, humanity levels rise, sending us near the level of divine beings. The scale can never end up as a vertical line; neither Human Nature nor Human Morals can be completely erased from the reality we know. It can always be horizontal: a "perfect" symmetry called a Human Being.

First Post

"An Extraterrestrial Perspective"... a somewhat awkward name with a somewhat awkward ring to it. Some people told me that I'm probably an alien. Maybe I am... maybe I'm not. I wouldn't know if I were. Sometimes, I just wish it was that way - to explain the source of my ramblings normal people would consider... incoherent...

Damn. Someone already made a blogspot URL with psychostress in it. It's friggin German. I simply HAD to append the number 101 to the URL. Why 101? No real reason.