Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Bible, by itself, is Crap

I'm really sick of people who cling to the Bible. Why do people like the Bible? It sucks. I know, I've read it. Cover to cover. That's just in English. I've read many parts of it in another language too. And I've studied enough Greek and Hebrew to know that we have no business extrapolating on English words to derive nonexistent meanings from the book. Bottom line, if the Bible is your exclusive guide then you are lost.

Asking a typical Christian about the Bible is almost universally pointless. It usually goes something like this: "Why do you believe in the Bible? Because it's the word of God. How do you know it's the word of God? Because the Bible says so." The conversation usually ends about there. How could it go on?

The most frustrating type of people are those that claim to live by the Bible, have never read more than disjoint stories in it, have never studied historical contexts for the stories, and exclusively look for justification for their already-made opinions within the Bible. Then they stop searching. They stop thinking. I mean the Bible agrees with me so I'm right, right? What?

People don't know or care about the history, formation, or specific authorship of the book. Interesting since these same people claim its infallible and universally applicable. How can you possibly know that and not know a wretched thing about the book? Who wrote it? Who compiled it? Why did they put this in and leave this out? What was on the original manuscripts? What language nuances were lost through the three or four translations to get to this thing I'm holding in my hand? What are we to learn about the love of God from the story of Lot's daughters raping Lot? Or Judah having a kid with his daughter-in-law whom he thought was merely a whore? The whole book is screwed up and makes no sense out of context. The parts that seem to make sense really mean something else in their proper context. So once again, the Bible is messed up and no good by itself.

If you can't tell, people who try to use the Bible as their foundation for authoritative assertions are my pet peeve. I think they're blind, ignorant and lazy. They're certainly not eternalists. I would never say that eternalists do not believe in revelation or inspiration because we certainly do. The God we have been discussing would certainly love for us to know about him and about everything that is true. But those who refuse to seek cannot find and those who refuse to see, won't. If you believe that God has ever wanted to speak to man then he must now want to speak to man. Any other God would be inconsistent and therefore not God. Stop believing in your Easter bunny God.

If it's possible for God's words to have been received and recorded before, then it must have been possible for other people who sought God's words and must still be possible. In short, if the Bible was originally inspired by God then there must be other scripture in existence that supports and explains it. If the Bible was about God's dealings with ancient people then let's search for a record of God's dealings with his people now in our global culture.

Do not attempt to limit God with your stupidity. See things for what they are. Look for what is missing. Always ask questions. Do not perpetuate irrational and willful ignorance that masquerades so universally as 'faith.' Faith is always rational, always logical and always leads to greater knowledge, power and happiness. Do not be scared of heresy, blasphemy, or any sort of thought-crime. The fear is blasphemous.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Face without Guilt or Fear or Shame

It's a commonly perpetuated idea that politics corrupts even good people. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and such. For some reason the downfall of especially good people are their imperfections, their mistakes that are common to all men. To be precise, the fear of other people knowing about these mistakes compels them to things they would not otherwise do.

The only way that man can truly have full causal efficacy on his surroundings is by having complete confidence in himself. Confidence is faith and faith is confidence. The man with vision has no need to fear. The man who knows who he is and who he is becoming has no need to feel shame. The man who acts for his own happiness by systematically striving to be more upstanding and have more integrity has no need for guilt. The man who knows and likes who he is and who he is becoming is the only truly confident man, a man with full faith in himself. This man need never feel guilt or fear or shame but only move forward to be more the man he wants to be.

The inherent danger of guilt, fear and shame is the power it grants others over you. No person can afford to give such power to anyone else. All make mistakes; if you allow yourself to feel ashamed for a mistake that you have already learned from your personal progress is stalled while you leave yourself open for external extortion or internal self-deprecation which will destroy your vision of who you are and where you were going. It can take a long time to recover from guilt or fear or shame. Your recovery will be painful and it will mean lost time. Lost time to learn new things, lost time to further develop your character and lost time to be a force of positive influence, a force for truth in your environment.

The person without guilt or shame or fear is one that is steadfast and immovable. He is an anchor to those around him. He chooses to make himself invulnerable to external forces other than what he chooses to allow to affect him. He only allows positive influence to affect him, influences that enrich his own life and increase his personal happiness. By being this steadfast anchor he grants an example for others trying to gain a vision of who they can be. He stands as a light to those trying to recover from guilt, fear or shame. He chooses to be a positive force to act, create and produce; to form his environment according to his ever-increasing vision. Only the man without guilt or fear or shame can be happy without reservation.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Merit and Chivalry

Enough of the framework of eternalism has been laid out so that we can begin to build the philosophy in any direction. A philosophy is only as good as it can be practically applied to one's life for the increase of his own individual happiness. This was the basis for the assumptions made about the primacy of reality. The philosophy of truth/reality expounds on a rational process for evaluating our methods for understanding and dealing with our environment, detecting inconsistency, identifying the necessary correction and executing it.

All cultures are in constant flux. Most of what some call "general opinion" does not make sense and is incredibly inconsistent. An example fresh on my mind is Mother Teresa. Many people mentally equate Mother Teresa with the personification of goodness. Yet these same people cannot name one specific thing she has done, do not know anything about her personal life or beliefs, and do not know why they think she was such a good person. It's a groundless belief. "The masses think it and so I think it" is never satisfactory for an eternalist.

During our cultural flux in America we have two incompatible ideas that are simultaneously extolled by the 'cultured': feminism and chivalry. Let's examine them both and see what the ideas are that are consistent with truth and individual happiness.

Feminism originally was, and still in its true form is, a recognition of the equality of the potential of the minds of men and women. This is consistent with the eternalist idea of Merit. A man or woman is only what they make of themselves. If a person wants to be a great scientist then they do those things that will make them a great scientist. Same for a great athlete, engineer, doctor, judge or anything else. If a person wants to be respected then he must act respectably. The self has primacy over circumstances. The self will be a controller of his circumstances. We will not accept any idea or image that our environment attempts to project on to us.

A man is only worth what he makes himself worth. I greatly value the lives of my family and friends because they have chosen to do those things that make them of great value to me. The life of any of my sisters is of astronomically greater value to me than some drunkard bum on the street or even a stranger. If I had power to control a situation in such a way that my options were limited to choosing to allow my sister to die or a bum, the bum would die. Between my sister and 5000 strangers, I choose my sister to live. Between myself and my sister, I choose my sister to live. These are the only choices that would be in harmony with a happy life after the choice. Death is not the ultimate evil; unhappiness is.

Chivalry, as practiced by many, is wholly incompatible with any self-respecting life philosophy. I will hold this door open for you precisely and only because I have male genitalia and you have female. This is insulting to both parties. You are what you have made yourself. I will hold the door open for you because you are a respectable human being. I would hope that you would esteem me enough to treat me likewise; but if not I'm content to be who I am and will not allow an unfounded opinion of me to influence what I think of myself. For so many people chivalry is very ostentatiously displayed by young men to young women, as a wild peacock trying to attract a mate with his brilliantly colored feathers. Then after a man and woman marry there is no need for such display again. This seems opposite of rational behavior. As I get to know and respect a person more and more, I treat them better and better because they have merited that respect and courteous behavior. Following through with this philosophy, a married man and woman would treat each other best of all other men and women. They have come to the point where they know each other best and respect and admire each other more than any other. They have each merited the best feelings and emotional responses from each other.

Man is a mover and a doer; a creator and a producer. If you want to be happy then merit what you want and become who you want to be.

Friday, April 10, 2009

What The Hell Are You Doing and Why?

There are so many stupid questions with flawed premises and therefore stupid conclusions masquerading around as 'deep' nowadays. One is especially poignant in my mind today. I was in a class this morning that was discussing Dante's Purgatorio and it is said, "O human race! If you knew everything, no need for Mary to have borne a son." Hmmm.... It might be a natural human inclination to react immediately and emotionally to any theologically charged statement. So you can imagine the kind of discussion that would have ensued. It should seem obvious that before reacting to this kind of statement we need to ask what the premises of this statement are. So... why did Mary have to bear a son? Only after an answer is proferred for such a question we can analyze the validity of the statement.

All right so that aside, here's the related stupid question: Are you saved? It's so ridiculous that there's no way to respond. It's like walking up to a stranger on the street and asking "Is he guilty as charged?" Who? What are we talking about? And most importantly, why should I give a damn?

It seems as though many people try to separate religion from all else in their mind, beliefs, behavior, and so on thereby creating two personalities and constant cognitive disonnance. Someone may say consciously or unconsciously, "I believe in the scientific method Monday through Saturday but on Sunday I believe I'm drinking the blood of a 2000 year old god who is now everywhere and nowhere." Ever wonder why you feel weighed down and stressed? You suffer from the burden of inconsistency. You have made two mutually incompatible assumptions about reality and your mind can't resolve it: it is your mind verses reality and reality is winning. Reality always wins.

Stop fighting yourself. There is no truth that is inconsistent with any other truth. Truth is real. Anything that is real, must be real. By definition. There is nothing more real than what you can experientially know for yourself to be real. Do not ever assume that any hearsay is more real than your experiences. If saved means happy then yes I want to be happy. If saved means strumming a harp and doing nothing forever with your jackass of a God who does that then no, I surely do not ever under any circumstances want to be saved. What you call hell I venture to guess will be a more happy place. I know it'll be more interesting. Check your premises.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Power of Choice

Within the framework we have established there is a fundamental governing principle: causality. By controlling our actions we control the effects that will be brought about. The effects of some actions are individual happiness. The effects of other actions are individual misery. A basic tenet of eternalism is that of consequence. By our actions we fully merit and deserve the associated consequences. The eternalist believes in the freedom of and accountability for individual choice.

By saying that the doer of an action fully merits the consequences of that action we imply that the doer has full freedom to choose his action. This is true. The eternalist is a doer, an active participant and controller of the events around him. The eternalist is an optimizer, ever working to optimize his circumstances by his choices to adhere to the laws of well-being and provident living. All of these principles are completely contrary to victimhood. The eternalist is never a victim of any kind. Unfortunate or tragic things will befall him but he is not a victim because of how he chooses to respond to such opposition. The eternalist values his power of choice more than any other. Eternalists may even thrive best in states of constant opposition because such an environment is most conducive to the constant re-evaluation of beliefs and behaviors that the eternalist craves. The environment of opposition continually reinforces the truthfulness of the principles valued by the eternalist. He will always be right and happy because when he discovers himself to be wrong or unhappy he immediately busies himself with discovering the cause and needed change and expeditiously executes the required change of belief and behavior.

Choice is the source of all power for all rational beings. Because rational beings have the freedom to choose and moreover the freedom to learn and make continually better or more informed choices, the rational being naturally merits what he gets, happiness or misery. The justice of the optimizer living at peace with himself and the perpetual misery of the victim is a natural law of reality predicated on the power and accountability of choice of the individual. A rational being will increase in knowledge and power as he chooses to do so. The same rational being will forfeit power and freedom as he chooses to do that. The state of any rational being is a result of the use of that being's power of choice. Choice is the great governing power of intelligence. Intelligence is intelligence because it possesses the power of choice.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Redefining Faith

Too many false religions, false beliefs, and inconsistent philosophies owe their existence to a ridiculous and incorrect concept of faith. Irrational faith, unsupported faith, hysterical faith, screaming faith, and fanatical faith has caused the suffering and unhappiness of billions. Faith requiring unshakable, unswerving, unquestioned, and complete dedication to unfounded, unreasonable, un-evidenced, and mystic falsehoods has given us the crusades, the jihad, the holocaust, not to mention years of self inflicted suffering and unhappiness in slavery to imposters of the truth. What's worse, the very fact that a belief is unsubstantiated often is used as evidence of faith's supposed greatness. This is absolute idiocy.

So what is faith, if not the belief in the unbelievable? Faith is an action of the rational and logical mind. Faith is anticipating an increase in truth from a source of already received truth. When we have faith, it is true we believe something we do not yet know, but there must be a consistent reason for that belief. Faith is not blind, it is not given freely, and it should never be unquestioned. Faith is an evolving, seeking, reaching thing by which we intuitively search for truths.

Furthermore, once we hold faith in a particular idea, that is not enough. Faith is not the goal, it is a tool. We attain faith and then must continue to strive for complete knowledge. Finding knowledge will be a sequential, step by step process of having faith in an apparently reasonable idea, testing and applying the idea, reevaluating our faith to adjust, reject, or confirm it and always moving forward in the search for knowledge. When we view faith as the ever-changing tool to true knowledge. Faith is useful, thought evoking, and most importantly, will contribute to our personal happiness. Finally, faith is too often associated only with religion. The principle of faith should be applied in all fields. Obviously this is only possible if faith is a consistent and useful principle, not the cow dung found in popular religion. Faith to the Eternalist is simply a continuously examined belief in logical conclusions based upon established truths. What else would be reasonable?

God the Optimizer

The God that most people believe in nowadays is a total douchebag. A complete bastard. God is supposedly the jackass that smiles at all the emaciated orphans, the Holocaust, new plagues every few years and so on. Apparently he's just doing this for his own amusement and to make you afraid. He craves your fear. He keeps you in the dark. He grants you no vision. He condemns you to be stoned for picking your nose on the ninth day of the third month; starves your family with famine because he can. It earns your fear. God paving the road of hell with skulls of unbaptized children. God condemning all people born before an apparently temporally significant saving event occurs. If this is your God then your God is a jackass whose worship will make you miserable. Have fun.

Place your definitions in proper order. Choose to make your focus your happiness. We have thus far discussed how all our frameworks for understanding and dealing with our environment must come from our fundamental assumptions about reality itself. We have explored and presented definitions for a consistent God of Happiness. The characteristics and attributes of God are contingent upon the nature of reality. These attributes have begun to be explored. The God of Happiness is a master of reality. He has all knowledge of all natural laws and uses that knowledge to live in complete harmony with what is. Complete knowledge of reality has given him power to live fully in harmony with reality (yielding a fullness of happiness) and the ability to control effects by controlling causes. This is the nature of his power. This is consistent.

All rational beings are capable of choosing to progress toward greater knowledge of and commitment to live in harmony with reality. Thus all rational beings are capable of choosing to make these attributes of God attributes of themselves. In an infinite unfolding of time these beings, through consistent choice, will be gain a fullness of joy themselves and therefore be Gods themselves (as we have defined God).

The Consistent God, the God of Happiness is God the Optimizer. Optimization in any context is the process of reevaluating methods and algorithms to accomplish specified goals faster (time optimization) or with fewer resources (resource optimization). Gods and Beings of Happiness (rational beings in the process of choosing to gain knowledge and committing to live in greater harmony with reality) thus continually optimize the process for gaining joy. A God can increase his dominion. God the Optimizer can optimize the increase of his dominion by placing rational beings (who may choose to progress) in the optimal circumstances for their progress. This is progress on an infinite timeline. Death is irrelevant. Only happiness of the individual matters. Within this context happiness naturally becomes a choice independent of externally imposed circumstance. The Being of Happiness is never a victim of any kind. The Being of Happiness will choose to act, to do those things which will bring happiness. Work, learn, understand. Above all, worship truth. The Being of Happiness chooses to be an optimizer.

Optimizers cannot be victims and victims cannot be optimizers. The optimzer will take whatever he has and through the course of living by the natural laws of hard work and rational choice will reap the natural rewards. The optimizer will always come out on top. To choose to be an optimizer is to choose to be successful. To be successful is to be in a state of happiness without reservation.