I am an agnostic because, first and foremost, I cannot categorically deny that a god of some kind exists, somewhere out there. As anyone who is familiar with the Measurement Problem will know, for something to exist, it must be observed - and yet when I am not observing things, they do not go away in the space of time that I am not observing them. I do not leave the room only to come back a few moments later and discover that it has been replaced by blank, empty space - the room will still be there (in all probability). These things being true, I can only assume that (a) the room continued to exist even when I wasn't observing it or (b) it was packed away in some storage area until its recall was required by my return to the area, kinda like when you visit an area in a videogame (only with no loading times).

Therefore, who am I, a being who is clearly not omniscient, to say that there is not some godlike being somewhere in the vastness that is everything? I think it was Bertrand Russell who came up with the idea of a china teapot revolving around the moon - if said teapot is too small to be detected by any measuring equipment we humans possess, who can then say that the teapot does not exist? It's the problem I have outlined before in my 'blog: namely, it is impossible to prove that something, which does not exist, does not exist. It's astoundingly easy to prove the positive existence of something which does exist: just observe it. However, observation of nothing is incredibly difficult, for obvious reasons - one might say impossible. To clarify further: it is the difference between nothing and 'not-being' (i.e.: nothing never existed anyway, but not-being is the negative existence of something which is meant to exist).

So, for the reasons outlined above, I cannot say with any certainty that a god does not exist. However, what I can say, with absolute certainty, is that a god could not possibly exist in the way in which several well-known and popular religions claim it to.

You probably already know the three virtues that this god is supposed to have: omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence. That's all well and good, until you realise that such things cannot possibly exist.

For a start: omnipotence. This would allow a god to create a rock, yes? Would the god be able to create a rock so heavy that he/she/it could not lift it?

And that's pretty much where it all falls down. Would the god be able to create knowledge so incredibly difficult to comprehend that the god itself could not know it? Would the god be able to create for itself a trial of its own goodness so trying that it would not be able to pass it?

Obviously, something is wrong with this classical idea of god. It can't be all-powerful, for the very simple reason that reality (at least, the one logical people live in) does not like absolutes. In the same way that one cannot fill any given space entirely with matter (a plenum), there is no way in which one can take all the matter out of a space (fact: perfect vacuums do not exist, no matter what your Physics teacher might have told you). Possibly the only absolute that is at all true is the following: no absolute is true in real space - and I'm even going out on a limb with that one.

So, no, I am not an atheist - rather an agnostic. But, for those of you wishing me to take that one step closer to actually taking a side on the issue, I am starting to think of myself as antireligious. As I have said before, I have no problem with the idea of a deity. It's the crazy acts that strangely alogical people in ridiculously powerful organisations perpetrate in the name of said deity that get me riled.

I sometimes like to think of the god that all theists believe in as an individual who's just trying to do their best with the insane amount of power they have, scared to death of making mistakes that could kill millions of people and constantly annoyed and depressed by the many stupid misinterpretations of its will that must be made everyday. There are all these commandments and rules and edicts and so on - but what if this god just wants us all to get along?

I know the Internet is a very big and scary place and that you can't be expected to keep tabs on all the many phenomena (or 'memes', as the technical term is) that crop up in it on a daily basis - even the viral ones that spread through it like wildfire and every son of a mother has heard of - which is what I'm here for. However, no simple little meme is worth my attention. Not for long enough to write an entire 'blog entry about, anyways. I might look at it once or twice and think either 'Oh, that's funny/clever/interesting. I'll remember that so I can guffaw stupidly about it with other people when I find out that they know it too.' or 'Someone has WAY too much time on their hands.'

However, one particular meme that has captured my attention for a sufficient amount of 'blog-writing time is that of a video that has been spread throughout much of the Internet; as you have already guessed, it is the one mentioned in the title. I will say nothing for now and let you form your own opinion of it. Because I am so wonderfully considerate, I have provided the pertinent link for you. You're welcome.

This should keep us all thinking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTOUbgbWAzA

What? Oh, you're back. Alright then. *stands up, dusts crisp crumbs off self* Now that you've seen the extract in full, what do you think of it? You probably have quite a strong opinion of it, no doubt, as the video seems to anticipate by giving you those two choices (although technically speaking it can only suggest two opinions: mere words surely could not modulate reality unto the point where only two courses of action were actually possible... or could they?) I ask myself why nat21paris (whomsoever that may be) chose to proliferate this story through the medium of video rather than pure text, but meh. That is irrelevant.

Now then: if the video's only purpose was indeed to keep us all thinking, then I think I can safely say that it has done its job. At least, in my case. There may be people out there who felt so strongly about the vid and story presented therein that their reaction completely bypassed any and all thought, but then I can't speak for them. The person I can speak for is myself, and personally I found it... interesting. I find a lot of things interesting, as my 'blog can attest.

It could be argued that the video is in fact designed to inhibit thought. The 'You have 2 choices' section of it doesn't seem to me to be all that conducive to the creation of thought, since it tells you what to do rather than simply presenting the story and leaving you to it (the task of thinking, that is. Must I tell you people everything?!).

I'm not going to argue about whether or not God exists, as seems to be the trend with most of those who view the video (and pretty much half of the rest of all the videos posted on YouTube, even those only tangentially to do with religion or divinity) - that was handled in the 'blog immediately previous to this one. Not definitively, perhaps, and definitely not conclusively, but that was as much as I felt I could handle the issue at that time (and indeed, at the time of this writing). What I am here to write about today is the presentation of this story - and indeed, the story itself.

The doubters claim that the story's veracity is suspect. This is irrelevant. No story is true. True stories are only ever true insofar as they are truly stories. To represent reality in stories is to do exactly that: REpresent them. It's impossible to tell somebody exactly what happened anywhere, especially since you are a being that operates entirely subjectively and therefore cannot possibly give a completely true account of any happenstance. As the philosophy professor in the story would have been able to tell you (were he not a complete idiot), the concept of 'truth' is extremely shaky as it is, and our perception thereof even more so. If the story could have happened (i.e. there weren't jellybabies riding giant green unicorns across the ceiling), we must assume that it is true, for it is impossible to positively and categorically prove the nonexistence of something, as aforementioned in the previous 'blog entry.

So, assuming that the story is true, what are we to take from it? Well, let's start off by analysing the text. First off - the philosophy professor, since he forms pretty much half of the story. We are told quite soon after the beginning that he is 'a deeply committed atheist'. In fact, he is so deeply committed that he holds classes just so he can purposely prove that God does not exist. He insults the intellect of any student who opposes his deeply-held beliefs (and they ARE only beliefs, even if they are atheistic ones) - indeed, intimidates them to the point that they feel unable to speak out. He uses his logic skills as a professor to outargue students.

Now then class, what kind of picture would you say this representation paints of the character? Anyone...? Because the way I see it, he is a paragon of virtue: as brilliant a professor as anyone could ever hope to meet. He can fight off entire swathes of opposing arguments without even trying. He knows the truth of God's nonexistence. In short, he is a god in his own right. I would shake this man by the hand, only I'm afraid that the sheer power present in his godly handshake might kill me. He is second only to Chuck Norris, and ANYONE who says I'm wrong is a FOOL!!!

...See what it's like? Being shouted at by a guy who can use entirely capitalised words and three exclamation marks at once is no small thing.

I don't know about you, but personally I hold that it's not the professor's belief in the nonexistence of God that is his problem, which is what the story seems to suggest by having him defeated by one of the faithful. Rather it is his inflexibility: his rigidity and unwilligness to bend or accept the fact that other people might have ideas which, although different from his, may be just as valid. I mean, look at the man. He is a professor who is proud (one assumes) of the fact that he can out-argue his students. How pathetic is that? It would be like God getting all high-and-mighty about the fact that he managed to throw Lucifer out of Heaven. But I digress.

The picture that is painted of this professor is one of a desperately bitter, immature and, above all, unprofessional man. How did he become like this? One can only guess. Perhaps his parents were rabid Christians who were so incredibly stringent in the enforcement of holy doctrine that he swore to lead a one-man crusade against God, embracing so-called 'logic' over the meaningless dogma his tyrannical forebears had attempted to drill into him? Either way, he doesn't seem to operate on logic to me. I mean, how many arguments do we hear from him? One. And what does this argument consist of? 'God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. I am going to challenge Him to stop this chalk from breaking. If He does not, then He does not exist.' Now, am I the only one who thinks that this professor is sordidly lacking in logical skill? Never mind the fact that God is meant to be an entity with the choice to do or not do something, unlike natural forces like gravity which are not self-aware and cannot decline to operate. No, never mind that. If He doesn't do as I say, He doesn't exist. Frankly, I'm surprised that none of the students were able to outargue such an obviously stupid man - either that or the philosophy students of the University of Southern California are uncommonly mentally deficient, which I very much hope is not the case.

So if this story is not an illustration of the triumph of faith over logic, what is it? To me it seems much more credible that this story is of the triumph of courage over obstinate prejudice. In fact, if the religious aspect were to be surgically removed from this story, that is in fact what people would say it was about, I'd wager. Yes, you could argue that the young man's faith gave him the courage to stand up to the repressive force represented by the teacher, which demonstrates the awesome motivating power of faith, and you'd be right. Faith is an awesome tool of motivation - but only because it completely bypasses knowledge, reason or rationality. You cannot know God to exist or not: you can only believe that He does - or does not. Fideism is an odd thing: to conclusively prove something is to preclude the possibility of believing it.

Besides, it is a fundamental tenet of mine that humans have an intrinsic need to believe in things. Just take a look at how people act: they're much less likely to say 'I'm just gonna go there and see what it's like' than they are to say 'I'm gonna go there and see if it's like what I thought'. We make up our minds about what we want to see and then we find reasons for it. This is scientific fact: the rational part of the brain does not active until after the deed is done. Since we live in such a vast world, a world in which we can never know everything (or indeed anything, some philosophers might argue), we will always have the need to believe in things, for all that we fool ourselves into thinking that we are logical beings. However, neither should we abandon logic as useless - goodness knows the unbridled spirit of humanity can prove incredibly lethal if left unchecked (the infamous terrorist attacks can show just what extreme faith can do). Just because logic and faith are both equally flawed in their own inimitable ways, it does not mean we should abandon all hope: in the end, it is a matter for one's own conscience... as is everything else, I suppose. We are shaped creatures indeed, whether by a God, several gods or just our environment - we have very little control over anything we are or do, however much we might like to believe the contrary.

Well then. I hoped that helped shed some light on the subject. It might even have got you thinking. Who knows?

As you know, the First Eternal Question is the Meaning of Life (to which the Eternal Answer is, of course, 42). However, I hold that there is now a Second Eternal Question (mostly because I say so): is there a God? This is embodied in the Creationism/evolution argument. I shall now launch into my obligatory preamble as to why exactly I am boring you with this topic today.

I had just arrived home from a road-trip with some fellows of mine (yes, I am finally getting out of the house!), and imagine what I should see stuffed through my door but a leaflet to some seminar on Creationism. Because I wish to be entirely accurate, I shall now have to retrieve the leaflet from the rubbish bin.

Ah. It would appear that my mother has changed the bin-liner. No matter: it is not essential to this discussion. I shall continue on the basis of what I know and have spent an hour or so today researching.

Now then: since I am not a proponent of Creationism, I am afraid that I do not know the arguments for it - or against it, for that matter (for we must remember that the best method of combatting the weapons of one's opposition is to own them yourself). I am, it must be said, an advocate of the theory of evolution - but not a particularly staunch one, for reasons that shall be divulged once you have pulled that bar to the right of the webpage in a downward direction.

For those who do not know the mechanics of the theory of evolution, here I shall give a swift crash-course.

Charles Darwin, often named as the one who defined evolutionary theory with his work The Origin of Species, noticed in his journeys to the Galapagos Islands that the tortoises he encountered there were different in small - but significant - ways. On islands where there was plenty of vegetation and verdure growing near the ground, the tortoises had flat-edged shells, as we typically think them to have. However, on islands where greenery was sparse and often only on trees, the tortoises had notches on the front of their shells and extra-long necks with which they could reach up and chomp on whatever delicious foodstuffs may have been growing from the branches. (Well I don't know it they really were delicious, do I? I'm not a tortoise.) Also, he noticed that there were different varieties of finches, the differing characteristic between them being their beaks and the way said beaks corresponded well with the type of food they ate and the functions they had to perform to survive. This set Darwin thinking - why were these creatures so well-suited to their respective environments?

Now, I think I can predict what a Creationist would say here: namely, that God designed the animal in this way because He knew under which conditions it would have to survive, and that was probably the way Darwin was inclined to think in those conservative times. Still, there was the question of whether or not they changed over time - without God's intervention, instead of themselves. After all, why are apes so similar in so many ways to humans? Why is the archaeopteryx a kind of proto-bird, with crude feathers that very much resemble reptilian scales? Surely this points to some kind of gradual change through the generations, through which apes became humans and reptiles became birds?

The mechanism by which this is thought to happen became known as 'natural selection', or more colloquially as 'the survival of the fittest': those organisms which were best-suited to their environment lived on while the less well-suited individuals perished, thus ensuring that the genes representing the characteristics which increased survivability were passed on to the next generation and therefore making it more likely for the race as a whole to continue surviving - and developing, needless to say.

The Creationists get past this theory with a rather clever argument, known as the 'watchmaker analogy'. Namely, if you were to happen across a watch and study it closely, you would naturally come to the conclusion that it had been designed by an intelligent being - surely such a complex device could not have come about by chance? Especially when taking into account that the watch has a definite end for which it was designed (the teleological argument). Now, when we transfer this argument to the rest of the world, specifically in this case to the natural world, surely the complexity of design present in animals is an obvious indicator of some kind of intelligent design?

The thing about this argument is that it is incredibly difficult to refute. After all, if we were to receive some kind of message from beyond the stars, we would instantly assume that it was sent by intelligent lifeforms - aliens, in other words (or that there was a prankster somewhere with a lot of money and time on their hands, but for the sake of the argument let's stick to the first supposition). How is the natural world any different? After all, DNA, the building-blocks of life and the basis of the entire evolutionary argument, is possibly one of the most complex codes around, and - despite its ability to function autonomously - it must have first been created to be able to act autonomously, implying that there may have been some Great Programmer who initially coded the incredibly complex alogrithm that is DNA (to put it in computer terms).

In the end, ironically, it all comes back to the beginning: that is, the beginning of everything. How did it all begin, were it not for some all-powerful being that created it all? The obvious reply to this is 'How did said being begin? Did someone create Him, and if so who created that being?' 'Tis a quandary. However, I feel I have an answer - or rather, I have adapted an answer. Upon asking whom it was that created God of one of my Muslim friends, I received the answer that He has no beginning and no end. Could we not then argue that our world is the same? After all, our world is chock-full of cycles, is it not? So what if all these tiny cycles amount to one BIIIG cycle that is all of existence? It sounds (to employ hip-hop terminology) whack, I know, but it makes sense to me.

Anyways - all of these arguments are pretty irrelevant anyways. Why is that? Because this argument is part of a cycle itself. It is the perpetual present: the battleground between a traditional past and a radical future, the conflict and the compromise betwixt the two. Neither of them is wrong because they are both equally correct. Ultimately 'tis a matter for one's own conscience - and it is a personal thing, believe me. Humans are incredibly irrational. We purport to operate on truth and facts, but we do not. First we decide what it is we want to find out, and then we warp the truth until it fits our desired view of the universe. That is why neither side of the debate can ever win - because they are both equally flawed by their human restrictions. It does not come down to truth: it comes down to how one was raised and the personal experiences one has.

And besides... does it really matter? For all we know, there may be a deity. There may not be. Unless this deity actually phones us all up tomorrow and orders us to pledge our eternal allegiance, what difference does it make? There could be a chocolate teapot orbiting the moon, but why should I make a big deal about it if it doesn't affect my life? Similarly, evolution may or may not exist - unless we see some kind of extreme evolution (or 'saltation', wherein evolution takes place over an impossibly few number of generations) then there's no real way of proving it. Plus, if God does not exist, then there's no way we can prove that He doesn't exist because... well, He doesn't exist. You can only measure existing quantities - there's no way to measure non-existence, and as the believers say: 'Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.' So the argument is never-ending and goes in cycles. See what I mean?

Well then, I hope that's cleared it up for you. Or made it more confusing - I don't know. However, as long as it has got you thinking - and more importantly, thinking for yourself - that's all I need to know.