But evil in a sweet, beautiful, warm, exciting kind of way...-Manolo
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
...pray the lord my soul to take...
Many of us are familiar with this prayer through our religious catechism, our family, or Metallica. Every prayer though should end with "..and may your word be done". I do not want to wonder into why people pray. I want to ask what we can expect on a practical level from praying?
In my mind everything has already been played. God sees ALL of time laid out in front of him/her. Asking the deity to change something for us is meaningless cause God does not interfere in our life, thus free will is his/her ultimate gift. The ancient Greeks had a saying that we use until today and goes like : "syn Athena kai xeira kinei". It means that God will help those who help themselves. Schopenhauer says that there can be no happiness in this life. But man can be heroic and that is the highest man can attain to. Being heroic, what does this mean? It means knowing everything has already happened. It means accepting whatever the future has in store for you. It means knowing all that and still making dreams, fighting for your chance and your success and putting all yourself into defying all odds and making your goals real. Because after all we do not know our destiny until the moment it is revealed to us. No matter what we wish for not all of us can have health, success, money, fame etc. Someone has to die, be sick and poor. Not all of us can get our prayers answered and there is no sense in turning against the deity.
Until then we can ask the God/Allah/Yahweh/Buddha not to do for us but to give us the strength to go on and keep working towards our every goal without being discouraged of what might be the result of our efforts. Everything has been played out already, but in the words of Rocky Balboa "It aint over till its over kid".
-JimB
In my mind everything has already been played. God sees ALL of time laid out in front of him/her. Asking the deity to change something for us is meaningless cause God does not interfere in our life, thus free will is his/her ultimate gift. The ancient Greeks had a saying that we use until today and goes like : "syn Athena kai xeira kinei". It means that God will help those who help themselves. Schopenhauer says that there can be no happiness in this life. But man can be heroic and that is the highest man can attain to. Being heroic, what does this mean? It means knowing everything has already happened. It means accepting whatever the future has in store for you. It means knowing all that and still making dreams, fighting for your chance and your success and putting all yourself into defying all odds and making your goals real. Because after all we do not know our destiny until the moment it is revealed to us. No matter what we wish for not all of us can have health, success, money, fame etc. Someone has to die, be sick and poor. Not all of us can get our prayers answered and there is no sense in turning against the deity.
Until then we can ask the God/Allah/Yahweh/Buddha not to do for us but to give us the strength to go on and keep working towards our every goal without being discouraged of what might be the result of our efforts. Everything has been played out already, but in the words of Rocky Balboa "It aint over till its over kid".
-JimB
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
great minds....destroy alike
You could say that the importance of the best religious and philosophical minds is evident by the destructiveness of their worst and most fanatical followers. This must be the top 3 names of individuals who, contrary to intention, have caused humanity a great deal of pain:- Jesus Christ (Crusades, Conquistadors, Holy Inquisition)
- Friedrich W. Nietzsche (Nazis)
- Karl Marx (Communist Russia)
-JimB
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Victor Hugo...truly yours
Beautiful quote about really falling in love:
" I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, - and the stars through his soul".
" I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, - and the stars through his soul".
In our life we float here and there as in an ocean with no land ahead. Two things we need to survive: philosophy to put solid ground under our feet, and art that lifts our body and spirit to the sky.
-John
Thursday, August 2, 2007
1%...maybe more
The most famous argument for the degrees of similarity between humans and their close primate relatives, the chimpanzees has been out of a ground-breaking paper published in 1975 in Science. There evolutionary biologist Allan Wilson of UC Berkeley argued that humans where only 1% genetically different to chimpanzees.
An article under the NewsFocus section of the Science magazine published on 6/29/07 (vol.316, p.1836) reports otherwise. I will not follow the article and get into the scientific reasons for not believing the 1% myth. I will give another example that I hope will clear the air. Let me say to those who don't know me that I am not a young creationist. On the contrary, I believe in evolution. However the "1%" argument put forward by people trying to generate love and respect for our fellow animals is not entirely true. I back the motives but not the false argument.
An article under the NewsFocus section of the Science magazine published on 6/29/07 (vol.316, p.1836) reports otherwise. I will not follow the article and get into the scientific reasons for not believing the 1% myth. I will give another example that I hope will clear the air. Let me say to those who don't know me that I am not a young creationist. On the contrary, I believe in evolution. However the "1%" argument put forward by people trying to generate love and respect for our fellow animals is not entirely true. I back the motives but not the false argument.
Imagine that both humans and chimps are building ships. It is something they both know how to do. Each group possesses an ancient book with all the information on ship construction. The human book has 24 chapters and 1000 pages, whereas the chimp book has 10 chapters and 200 pages. Humans got a hold of the chimp book and compared it to their own. In it they found that the in the 10 chapters of the chimp book where many almost identical instructional passages to the human book. When comparing these passages word for word they found them to be 99% similar (1% different). Nevertheless the human book contained new passages and some of the old had been enriched in more detailed explanations on the science behind building ships. The human book has 14 more chapters and 800 more pages
. The human book also has some quizzes and comic strips in it, and also other passages that don't make much sense. The fact though is that in these 800 extra pages many are very relevant to ship construction.
Just because the passages that are common between the two books are only 1% different, it does not mean that the whole books are 1% different.
-JimB
. The human book also has some quizzes and comic strips in it, and also other passages that don't make much sense. The fact though is that in these 800 extra pages many are very relevant to ship construction. Just because the passages that are common between the two books are only 1% different, it does not mean that the whole books are 1% different.
-JimB
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