Tag: atheism

  • Why Time Travel is Probably Not Possible

    The concept of time travel, in my opinion, is more a desire founded in the weakness of us because of our collective regret over missed opportunities rather than a practical and needed solution to any of mankind’s ills. We struggle to live in  the present, to be conscious, and to be grounded because of the constant distraction of what we have yet to do or achieve, which makes it quite ironical that one of those distractions is our pursuit of the ability to travel back in time so that we can right the wrongs we spawned when wondering about some other time or place.

    The more I contemplate the concept of time travel from a purely logical perspective, the less likely the possibility of achieving it appears to be. There are a number of theories that abound by respected scientists that suggest that it is physically possible, but they remain theories, and hence what prompted me to develop my own theories to disprove this misconception that serves as nothing more than a fairy tale.

    I find it difficult to believe that we’ll ever be able to travel faster than instantaneous. What I mean is, we may be able to break barrier of the speed of light, but in doing so, we will only ever get as close as is humanly possible to moving from one place to another in an instant, or moment, or split second, however you wish to measure it; but we’ll never get there before we’ve left our point of departure.

    The entire concept of the speed of light being the holy grail for time travel is mistaken. We assume that simply because the light reflected off an object has not reached us yet, it means that it exists in a different dimension. It doesn’t. The fact that the light is still en route does not change the fact that the object is still physically in the same location. Stated differently, if I were to accelerate faster than the speed of light, chances are that I will find myself in a place of darkness because the light that I left behind is still catching up with me. Imagine the disappointment on the face of the man that eventually breaks the speed of light only to find himself bumping into objects that he can’t see because the light reflected off them has not reached him yet?

    In fact, even in that scenario there are flaws. That would assume that the objects whose reflected light can no longer be seen are all located in close proximity to the origin of his travels. Think about it this way. If I were to travel faster than the speed of light in a horizontal direction, only light emanating from sources in a similar trajectory (so to speak) would be left behind. However, and light traveling vertically would still reach me because I would be crossing their paths and not traveling away from them. So in order for me to reach that point of darkness, I would need to be traveling away from every light source in every direction simultaneously, or else I’ll always be crashing into other light sources.

    That all sounds really complicated so perhaps here is an easier way to explain my point of view. Traveling faster than the speed of light will only make me outrun the light itself, and will not make me travel through time, since time itself is not even measured by the presence or quantity of light. Time is simply a constructed unit of measure that is independent of our definition of it. We could call it 50 other names and define 100 different units of measure to measure it as opposed to the standard seconds, minutes, hours, days, and so on, but it would not change the very essence of time itself.

    Whether or not the light of an object is visible does not stop the entropy experienced by the object. In other words, I won’t remain forever young if I simply lived in a dark room all my life. So the fact that the light that should otherwise be reflected from my body is not visible, does not make me absent. It simply makes me out of sight but still present. So this entire focus on the speed of light to make time travel possible is simply absurd. We measure changes by the elapsed time of the event. We improve our productivity by more meaningfully using the time we have available. And then we delude ourselves into believing that we’re getting better at time management, when in fact we’re getting better at managing our lethargy and procrastination.

    Time is not what we need to conquer, but rather ourselves, our arrogance, and our pride that suggests that we’re so powerful and infinitely resourceful that we have the wit, the intelligence, and the capability to conquer any physical construct we find in our path. Time is not physical. It is not a liquid, a gas, a solid, or any other variation of matter in between. In fact, it’s not even matter, and doesn’t matter either. It’s the actions we do in the moments that pass that determine how well those moments were spent. When we lose sight of that, we end up trying to find ways to escape the reality of death by believing that we are capable of cheating it, starting yet another cycle of lethargy and procrastination to do that which matters, while falsely assuming that we’re engaged in endeavours that will improve the quality of life of mankind.

  • Atheists and Me

    It’s disappointing, yet almost unsurprising to note that the very same behaviour atheists accuse theists of, they’re guilty of themselves. I was recently invited into a closed group on Facebook with the assurance that it was a mature environment in which constructive and objective debates are held to test the various views of either side in order to seek to understand each other better. Again, unsurprisingly, the kind of attacks and arrogance that I encountered on other blog sites prevailed there as well.

    There are few, and I mean few that actually do try to present a well considered view of various issues and despite how lengthy the debates can be at times, they stick to the point, and don’t turn it into a mud slinging match in their efforts to try to bully the theist into agreement or submission. It appears that the lack of maturity that atheists are quick to criticise in theists is just as common place amongst their own ranks. Their insistence on not subscribing to a formal structure or singular view of their atheistic philosophy is starting to appear as extremely convenient because it allows the perpetual graceful exit that suggests that they’re not organised religion, and they have no dogma.

    Engage with any number of atheists and the dogma disguised as science is quick to show through. The assumed arrogance and selective qualifications of their statements is forced as the only reasonable approach to the subject when issues like infinite regression and impossible-to-prove theories are highlighted. There’s a stubborn claim that science is all that matters, but a quick deflection when questioned about how science deals with spirituality, or the spiritual needs of their communities. Blatant assumptions are made about the ideology of the first man/woman that set foot on this earth despite there being no proof to confirm it either way. So claims that we are inherently atheistic are supposed to be believed and accepted without question by theists, although atheist have no way of proving this. We’re supposed to accept blindly that infinite regression questions based on their own theories of causality do not apply beyond the current time and universe constructs, even though there is no objective authoritative source to confirm this, which makes it just another theory.

    Authoritative source is dismissed when asked to present one, since such a thing does not exist. The absence of this resulting in personal biases and theories being the order of the day appear to be accepted as factually accurate amongst their ranks, although there are very few that are willing to acknowledge that this glaring gap in their rationale does suggest that there must be a cause that set the creation of this universe in motion. What that cause is, or what form it takes, is entirely open to conjecture for obvious reasons.

    So the sum total of my experiences to date is that the very same extremism, rigidity, blind faith and dogma that atheists claim plagues religion is very much rampant in their own circles. Trying to find a middle ground, at this point, appears to be a pointless endeavour. But I am the anal optimist, so I will persevere for a while longer before I decide if throwing in the towel is as inconsequential as persevering in my efforts to understand the rationale of the atheistic mind set. In fact, I don’t think it’s an attempt to understand the rationale, because I’m already quite convinced that that is as flawed as any argument a theist can present to prove the existence of God. If it was possible to prove the existence of God, we would not need faith to believe in God because the proof would render faith irrelevant. Unfortunately this is a point that many theists and atheists alike fail to understand.

    The fact remains that atheists cannot, with hard evidence, disprove the existence of God, and theists cannot prove it either. But until they get past this blatantly obvious fact, and set aside the arrogance that accompanies such a debate, not much progress will be made in finding mutual understanding, respect or common ground between the two.

  • Imam Al-Ghazzali on Feeble-Mindedness

    …the parable of the feeble-minded person who thinks that the light of the sun is the result of its rising, is like the parable of an ant which as it happened upon the surface of a sheet of paper, was endowed with reason and thereupon watched the movement in the process of writing, only to think that it was the work of the pen, but would not go beyond that to see the fingers, and behind the fingers the hand, and behind the hand the will which moves it, and behind the will a deliberate and an able scribe, and behind all, the Creator of the hand, and the ability, and the will. Most people do not look beyond the nearby and earthly causes and never arrive at the Cause of all causes.

    Imam Al-Ghazzali (The Book of Knowledge)

  • Another tiring post

    cynicallyjaded:

    The day that science creates something out of nothing is the day that I will seriously reconsider my position about atheism. As long as man is manipulating what is already in existence, and as long as we always find more questions with every mystery that we solve, I’ll always marvel at the intelligence, form, function and ‘interconnectedness’ of this universe. We’re tiny and almost entirely insignificant specks of life that exist in this massive space, and we have barely scratched the surface of the true wonders of just the human body, yet we’re arrogant enough to believe that our theories about what might have occurred billions of years ago substantiated by assumed interpretations of our current state is authority enough to declare that we’re here because of a fluke of ‘stuff’ interacting and evolving over billions of years to eventually result in intelligent life that has reason and logic, and choice and emotions, and wisdom and beauty and so much more…

    The entire subject is the biggest brain fuck you could ever get. We assumed that the speed of light was unbreakable for decades…and then, quite by accident, we break it, but yet we continue in our arrogance to assume that we understand well enough to make absolute statements about what is and what isn’t true about life, death, this universe, and everything that exists within it, and in the process proclaim that there could not possibly be intelligence behind it all…it’s simply astounding the lengths we would go to just to obtain a level of peace so that we don’t have to accept our impotence and insignificance when faced with the grand design.

    After reading an article last week about atheists presenting questions specifically to Christians about scientific facts that the writer believed to be at odds with religion, I was prompted to search for this post that I wrote late last year. Given the use of language, it was obviously something that was proving to be an annoyance at the time, given how many posts I wrote about atheism and theism at the time.

    The one thing that struck me about this article that I read was that in almost every single debate brought on by atheists, they assume that the only view they need to challenge is that of Christianity, when in fact Islam is just as strongly positioned against atheism as any other religion. But more often than not, and this is played out in the mainstream media on a daily basis, the general awareness of the true aspects of Islam escapes most non-Muslims which is why there is this general misconception that Christianity is probably the only monotheistic religion other than Judaism. This although Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world with a large portion of its growth from reversions rather than procreation.

  • tick-tock-turnip:

  • Fate and Free Will

    I often see posts of people questioning why the Almighty does not answer their prayers. Then there are atheists that believe that if God existed, we would not have so much evil and cruelty in this world because a benevolent god would never allow that to happen. All that this proves is that we have a power of choice and reason that we are able to apply in our lives to inform our choices, because it is this same power of choice and reason informed by our intellect that confirms that we are free thinking beings. By extension, this confirms the indisputable fact that we have a limited free will. Limited because anyone that has lived a single day of conscious being knows that we cannot control everything around us, hence our need to determine the difference between that which we can change, and that which we can’t. So we pursue the acquisition of wisdom that would help us identify the difference. At least that’s what we should be doing if we’re self-aware.

    Bearing the above in mind, why then would it be reasonable to expect the Almighty’s intervention in every unsavoury experience of our lives where we may lack the courage or resources to set aright that which is wrong? Are not the bad choices of some the test of character of others? Or do we believe that everyone should be good and wholesome and no one should slight anyone else, because then we’ll finally have peace on earth and all will be right with the world? But then, again, I ask you, what would be the purpose of our existence? 

    If not to exercise our power of reason and choice towards acquiring good in our lives, then what? If there was no bad, what would we need to strive for? Something that I’ve been more aware of recently is that anything bad requires no restraint at all. If you want to damage, destroy or eliminate something, it’s not restraint that is needed, but in fact a healthy dose of indulgence. But anything good that we wish to achieve or acquire requires restraint in ways that we rarely imagine when committing to a noble goal. 

    So it seems that sitting back and feeling like a victim waiting for the world to treat you right is a fool’s endeavour that will never come to pass. We need to be conscious in our efforts to oppress the oppressors. If not, if we cower in the face of a challenge and believe that we’re not worthy, we lose any right to claim fulfilment in a life fraught with suffering and challenges. Evil is not an incarnation of its own. It simply manifests itself in the absence of good. Therefore, it’s not evil that exists, but rather good that ceases to. And given that effort is required to uphold good, there can be no overcoming of evil unless we apply ourselves to a course that is destined to realise that which we seek in our own lives. 

  • Is there an argument against God?

    My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

    C.S. Lewis

  • The Purpose of Life?

    In my efforts to discover the true meaning of life, I keep thinking about the differences between the principles of atheists and theists. The former professes that there is nothing beyond this and therefore whatever we do we either get punished or rewarded for it in this life but entirely within our control with no consequences beyond death. The latter professes that of everything we do in this life, we’ll reap the rewards or punishment in full in the after-life, whilst also benefiting, or being required to persevere in this life, which ultimately adds to the rewards in the after-life.

    If we are to assume that the atheists are right, I can’t help but wonder how that would play out because there’s so many more questions that arise as to the purpose of life. If we only had this lifetime to worry about, then why restrain ourselves at all? I mean, if I go off the deep end and abuse, molest and destroy anyone and everything at whim, why should I bother about the repercussions if I believe that there is no accountability for a life poorly lived except whatever physical pain, suffering or discomfort is imposed by my fellow man in this lifetime? Why should I entertain the idea of wanting to improve the quality of life of others if any efforts of mine cease to benefit me the moment I die? Why should I care if others live a better life as a result of my efforts? Shouldn’t my efforts then be solely focused on my own gratification since I will only reap the rewards during this lifetime? And since this lifetime will occur only once without any second chances, isn’t it even more critical that I not waste any time in benefiting others unless there’s an inherent benefit for me? This potentially starts a vicious cycle of licentiousness since instant gratification is all we should live for given that we could die at any moment, and given that there would be no account after death.

    Now let’s assume that the theists are right.

    Suddenly my moral compass would be guided by the dangling carrot of a reward that far outstrips my efforts, and makes my sacrifices seem noble. Because now, I can focus on improving the lives of others, treating them with kindness and all those other wholesome ideals, while living in perpetual hope of attaining a state of bliss that will cause me to instantly regret why I didn’t sacrifice more or apply myself in even greater measures during my lifetime. Suddenly, I need to make the most of this lifetime because it is a precursor to a much greater experience. It’s almost as if I’m earning my credentials to lay claim to a specific level of comfort or pleasure in the next life. So I need to follow specific rules and live within specific guidelines that ultimately work towards determining my quality of life in eternity.

    But here’s the real clincher for me. Assuming that the atheists are right, theists would live an equally inconsequential life within the context of the individual, but would inherently be driven to strive more for their fellow man than atheists. To me, the logic dictates that atheism depends on the benevolence of the individual, whereas theism depends on the benevolence of the Creator. Given the state of this world, it’s safe to assume that benevolence in man is a rare commodity, and I call it a commodity because we live in a time when everything has a price. Look at the disparity between the spend and effort to resolve first world problems versus third world problems, and immediately the void of benevolence in man is blatantly obvious. 

    So how does it end? We already protect profit margins more than we protect life, that’s why we pay trillions in bail outs to help those nations that refuse to live within their means, and count every penny and attach inhumane conditions to the contributions we make to feed a starving child, or provide drinking water to the thirsty. The attribute of humanity itself, except by individual choice, is not a prerequisite to live a life as an atheist, whereas it is a precondition to achieve anything meaningful as a theist. So what’s the point? I guess, for me, the point is that if my life were to cease to have meaning beyond my current existence, I would have lived a more fulfilling life as a theist than an atheist, although it can be argued that the selfless efforts of an atheist are potentially more sincere than those of a theist.

    However, judging the intentions of man is impossible, even by the one reflecting on their own intentions, and therefore the measure of sincerity cannot weigh in on this argument. Self-preservation drives most of our motives, and therefore, in the absence of accountability to a greater power, or at least the belief in such, what else would there be to keep us honest and true?