Quick Thought 6 - Concept Chain

Before I write a post that I was meaning to get onto, I'd just like to write this down, mostly as a aid to me ;)

Doublethink is Faith

Faith is blurring the line between believing and knowing

Believing comes from Trust

Trust is a Choice

Choice is Right, Wrong, and Everything in Between

Choice mixed with Believing shapes Perception

Perception is Reality, because Reality is percieved

Which is why Faith/Doublethink can shape reality

Faith/Doublethink underpins Religion

Which is why Religion can shape Reality

And you can change your beliefs

Which is why You can shape Religion

Which is why You can shape Reality

Random Line 1

Everything is better than Nothing

Quick Thought 5 - The Universe: Where did it come from, and should we care?

The origin of the universe seems to be a hot topic for any religion, becuase most religions assume that an Atheist or Agnostic's thinking about how the universe must be flawed due to their own logic. If everything had to have a beginning, had to come from something, then what did the something from before the universe come from?

I happen to be a rather unconventional Atheist, and I believe something rather different. IMO, the universe has always been there. I'm quite a fan of the "Big Bounce" theory, where the universe forever expands and contracts. A fair few people won't have any problem with that, though a lot more probably will. To those who wildly disagree, if you can have faith in a God just because you read a book about him, why can't I believe in the universe having been around forever because I reckon that's right?

More importantly though, I think that people care far too much about this. Really, something that happened billions of years ago shouldn't be on your mind that much. If at all. You've got a life, why not just get on with it rather than avidly debating the finer details of how you got it in the first place. If there is a God, I'm pretty sure he would want me to use the life He gave me to the fullest.

Quick Thought 4 - GM Foods and Overpopulation (with a splash of Global Warming)

You might be thinking, hey, what the hell have those two things got to do with each other? At first glance, sure they look apart, but they're actually closely tied to each other. The problem is simple: There are too many people for the habitable land on earth. Even if you don't believe that, 9 billion people will definitely be too much. There are two things that have driving this massive population spike: little access to contraceptive and a food surplus. The food surplus though is the main issue. An excess in resources allows expansion, a bigger excess faster expansion. Our farming technologies flew way ahead of our population, driving it up. The thing is though, that growth can never last. Nothing can grow forever. And that is exactly the problem we have at the moment. Not enough land for the people, and certainly not enough land for the food.

As humans do, some smart scientists hit upon the idea of GM foods. Perhaps not intended for this use, but damn useful nevertheless. So, you think we would at least have started to solve half of the problem. GM allows for crops to be grown in different climates, produce more productive harvests, become less susceptible to diseases. However, this isn't the case. Because now we get protests about GM.

Now, I do try to look at all the possibilities when I look at these issues. But really, if you test well enough, and only make small changes, there is virtually no risk for GM. Putting one potato's genes into another potato is hardly going to make a killer carrot.

But what does get me about this situation is that a large proportion of people who are against GM foods are all for the right of the "unborn child" to the extent where they do not accept that we have an overpopulation issue. Come on guys, surely you can see that there's an issue here. Cities becoming more crowded, more squatter camps everywhere. The people in poorer countries across Africa multiplying like rabbits. And there simply isn't the food to feed them, if you don't use GM, because there isn't the land to feed them.

This is where that little splash of global warming comes in. Taking the average estimate that the world will warm by about 4 degrees, we actually have a lot more to worry about than a bit of low-lying land being lost. Because, with higher temperatures around the equator, Africa will become uninhabitable. Europe will mostly become uninhabitable. the US, China, Mexico, most of Brazil, all uninhabitable. The land that you gain will be Norway, Canada, Russia&Siberia, Antarctica, parts of Australia and parts of pacific islands around NZ's area becoming more habitable. Now, have a look at the below map:


Green is habitable. Yellow is desert, brown is floods, drought or extreme weather. Red is land lost due to rise in sea level.

So, can you see how much less land there is available? Remember that anything at the top or bottom of the map is stretched. So, less land for food growth, and time needed to get it all started.

Here we now have a triple-whammy: Global warming, no more surplus food, no more surplus land. It's simply not going to work unless we do one of two things:

- Control population
- Use GM to our advantage.

If you want organic food, you must have less population. If you want more population, you must have GM food. To me, at least, it's that simple.


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Next Quick Thought on the origin of the Universe. Hey, why not go overly complex?

Quick Thought 3 - Religon and Animals

A reply to the thread on gfxfactor.com, about religion.

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I'm an Atheist, in that I believe that there is no got. But I'm kind of a strange case, because in a way I want to believe in God. I like the thought that you could magicially be re-incarnated or live forever in heaven, but a part of me says no. It's like religion has a big neon sign on it saying FAKE, and I'm holding a pair of super dark sunglasses, and I kinda want to put them on but I also want to see other things. I think though, I'll put down the glasses, because I've been thinking about heaven and I cannot honestly understand how you can live for eternity and not be bored out of your brain. Seriously, what would you do for eternity? Even being a slug would be better than that, but here again I doubt. It just doesn't seem to make sense. The same consiousness in a different being? Imagine you came back as an amoeba. How can you keep the same consciousness of a human, and put it in an amoeba? Even if a soul did exist, I don't think there'd be enough room in a cell for this.

And here is where people will say: Amoeba aren't important. That, I agree with, to an extent. However, they are a form of life. The thing that does get me though, is that many of these people will go on to say: Animals aren't important. And here is where I strongly, strongly disagree. Because most of these people will be the kind of people who will say "Animals are nowhere near as important as humans". It's at that comment, when I start ranting.

Of course animals are as important as humans. Don't let any religious belief, any holy book or scripture tell you differently. Because, dammit, we are animals. A couple of million years ago, we were barely as intelligent as most of the animals that you so often classify as dumb. And a couple of million years, relatively speaking, is a blink of an eye. Here, these people will say "Animals can't think for themselves. They have no soul, no conscioussness. They can't plan.". You know what? Of course animals can think for themselves. I suggest anyone who reads this and finds themself disagreeing with what I'm saying should research the Kea. This is a parrot. A small bird. And it is damn intelligent. It's a rather curious creature, and it's way of finding out what things are like is to take them apart. Now, to take a man-made object apart is difficult. It requires problem solving. Which these birds posess. They can figure out, hey, I'm pulling this bit of rubber that way, and nothing's happening. I wonder what will happen if I pull it the other way. You would expect a dumb, thoughtless animal to continue pulling in the same direction, then give up. But you don't. You see intelligence.

And how dare you say that you are morally above any other animal. Humans, the most barbaric, brutal and disgusting race on earth for the majority, and we are the only species that gets claim for a soul and conciousness? Yeah right, give me a break.

And planning? I'm sure you've heard of a squirrel. Don't tell me that they, one of the most ordinary of animals, doesn't plan ahead.

Humans really only have two advantages over the rest of the animal kingdom. The opposable thumb, and a efficient form of communication. Our entire societies sprouted from these two things. We aren't different from animals. We are animals. Now how about we realise that, eh?

I'm not saying we should all become vegans, at this point. We have to eat to survive. It's how we're made. I think something different: Give the animal a happy life while it's alive. I'd like to think that the steak that I eat last night came from a cow which had a peaceful, safe and calm life before it found its way to my plate. I wouldn't want it treated harshly before hand.


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Next Quick Thought will be on GM food.

Quick Thought 2 - The point of Life

"But I wouldn't trust science as far as I could throw Einstein. Why is it so important anyway? Can't people just appreciate something without having to dissect it, and drain the mystery from it?"

You seem to assume that science and mystery cannot co-exist. That is not true, especially not at the moment. The new breed of scientist, and indeed modern thinker, accepts that they will never know all the answers. You simply cannot operate at the highest level in any scientific field if you don't accept that you won't know some of the answers. But they're interested, so they'll have a crack at finding something out anyway. This may seem pointless, but I'll explain why it isn't.

One of my classmates, in RE, when we were asked what our view of our point of life, said jokingly "My point in life is to find my point in life". I believe this is exactly right. It doesn't matter if you know you will not succeed in finding these answers, somewhere deep down. What matters is if your interested or not. Because if your interested, and if you feel that it means something towards the point of your life, you will study it, dissect it, whatever wording you choose. This is even the same for those who are believers. They say they've found their point in life, and yet you still get religious scholars, clergy, people who dedicate their entire lives to find meaning in their holy book. Deep down, they know they're not going to get anything really useful for it. But it's their point in life. Why not investigate it? What have you got to lose?

Because, really, when we stop and think, if we dare, and think long enough, we'll find the real answer: There is no point to life. This possibility, in the search for a point, rarely occurs to us. Life wasn't created, or didn't evolve, for a point. It's our job to make our point in life up. Whatever it is. Because, what would you rather do: life a life that you decide is worthwhile, or live a life with no point?

Quick Thought 1

The only certainty is uncertainty.