The Full Glass

Looking at a glass as half full is a positive sentiment--unless it's already overflowing.

More On Ditching Beliefs

I have no delusions that my perceptions are my own and are not truly reflective of reality. Knowing this, I try, however, to leave room for altering those views when new, valid, and useful information comes along.

Personally, I don't like the word "belief" because of all the religious baggage that comes with it and is not easily separated from it. I like to say I know something or I think something. The meaning of those words might seem similar to belief for some, but the connotations are completely different, which makes the words far from synonymous.

That being said, I would rather use the word perception instead of belief when it comes to the results of my interaction with the universe. Again, it doesn't have the religious baggage and is, therefore, more accurate.

Some people claim that this kind of stuff is minor--"only semantics," they might say. While I agree that it is semantics, it's instead very important and not something to be taken lightly. The words and phrases we use help to paint the picture we make of the world we see and experience. Definitions are useless because they leave out the most important thing--the connotations and context which give meaning, the actual thing we absorb and/or convey about a word or phrase. Poetry and fine literature wouldn't exist otherwise.

I would suggest that no two words are synonymous because meanings are different. I would also suggest that the same word heard/read by two different people are also not synonyms. Each person attaches subconscious meanings to everything heard or read. And, since no two people are alike, the meanings they develop will be unique.

Finally, for me, my atheism is simply a subset or side-effect of my non-belief on/about everything. I have purposely decided that beliefs are not virtuous and, therefore, need to go. People get killed over them as well as cause strife in ways too numerous to count. We need to keep our minds open for new quality information to inform our perceptions. If we believe something, it stops that from happening because a belief is a settled, static state of mind with explicit resistance of change and improved information. It's dangerous and holds back humanity from achieving new and wonderful things.

Diplomatic Psychiatry

It seems that the tactics of diplomacy would be useful for psychiatrists. So many of them challenge someone's assertions as lacking merit that the patient simply shuts down or hardens their positions. In order to reach someone the first step is to sincerely and truthfully acknowledge that someone's feelings and view of their problems is real and possibly even valid. Many studies show that attacking a person's view of themselves or the world increases entrenchment of those positions. To get someone to move, attacking is, therefore, not the best option. First get on the patient's side and then make small challenges in an open way that does not include deceit.

Patriotic Backfire

It seems that whenever someone pushes for something based on patriotism, that thing they are advocating makes the country something to be less patriotic about.

Forces Against Pursing Happiness

Needing to work together in a society that tries to push people to be independent causes so much stress and anxiety as to make pursing happiness all but impossible.

Life Support

Existence is a support group for everyone’s eventual death, no different than a support group for older parents about to die. But we don’t treat each other as well, looking to get over on one another as if no one dies.

Divine Abuse

It seems to me that the way believers defend their god is very similar to the way an abused wife "defends" her husband (and her marriage) before realizing there's a way out.

Happiness Is Losing Your Self

It seems that the most common form of mental peace is described as the loss of “I”--the sense of individuality gives way to a connected experience to everything else. It comes from drugs, meditation, strokes, etc. People don’t get a “moment of clarity” and declare they were separate from everything. Yet, we still fight to maintain a sense of separate uniqueness with all of its unhappy results.

You Don't Deserve It

No one deserves the required experience of their own success or failures because they are not solely reached.

Wasted Plans

No matter how much we plan, we seem to rarely use those plans when the time comes.

See What I Mean?

While trying to rationalize, people will switch back and forth between definitions and meanings in order to suit their prejudices and immediate needs.

Immoral Reason

If a god can make anything moral by declaring it so, even though we can reason otherwise, why do we have reason at all? Is reason then to be delcared immoral?

Flat v. Hollow

Looking at the rest of humanity as an atheist is like attending a never-ending debate between people who believe the earth is flat and those who believe it’s hollow.

Nothing IS a Theory

Nothing is a theory. A theory is an explanation of a set of facts and/or how those facts produce an observable phenomenon and likely contains within it a means to disprove its validity. To say something “is just a theory” would be similar to asserting your secret dessert is “a just recipe," a statement that is pure nonsense.

The Theory of Gravity, Music Theory, Theory of Mind, and Theory of Crime, are just a few theories that go right along side the Theory of Evolution, all of them offering explanations of the subject being studied--not something that eventually gets “upgraded” to a fact. Available facts gets used to build the theory, which changes as new or corrected facts get discovered.

If people misunderstand the scientific use of "theory" they don't understand that the best layman's equivalent is "explanation." When anyone hears someone use "theory" in the scientific sense, replacing it with "explanation" would be extremely helpful.

 

A Regrettable Afterlife

Even if you are a god-believer and believe you are going to heaven through "grace," wouldn't it be better to look back and say you made life as pleasant as possible for as many people as possible rather than looking back and seeing the pain and suffering you caused through bigotry and intolerance?

So Glad Things Have Improved

Suggested possible response to those making claims of being hellbound: "Thanks so much for the reminder of the myths and superstitions developed by ancient peoples because they didn't have access to the information we now have. It was a shame they had to live in a time like that. Can you imagine what that was like? Yikes."

The Glue Test

Do you ever get the feeling that some zealous believers are just like 2nd graders who refused to grow up, still primarily using the part of the brain that remembers fondly what it was like to eat glue?

A Perspective On Glenn Beck

If Glenn Beck wasn't famous and you ran across him in a rubber room saying the same things he's saying now, I doubt anyone would think it out of place to find him there.

Real v. Fantasy Should Have A Clear Winner

When people try and dispute real history (and in connection, science) with the Bible, I get the same feeling I suspect would arise if they used "A Tale of Two Cities" or "The Three Musketeers."--surreal, WTF moment that makes me fear for the future of humanity.

Information Always Improves With Time

It still slays me that the assertion of error-free truth in any religious "revealed" text can't simply be rebutted with the counter-assertion, "We have better information now." Unless you hold a position that knowledge doesn't improve with time, this should be a simple and logical statement that's easy to understand and accept.