Thursday, June 26, 2008

9681: An interesting observation.

A while ago I was at a friends house, they had a dog and I was looking at the animals fur, I asked, "How do the skin cells know how to do that? Especially since it looks like someone took a paintbrush to it."

I've always been self-conscious over my huge eyebrows. While younger, some older friends convinced me to shave them and they grew out huge. So I was looking at them the other day, when I noticed that I was growing blond eyebrows, and they weren't just random, they were growing on each side symmetrical.

Now, to a biologist, they might not think that's a big deal. I just think it's very strange, especially since it happened after I said it.
I'm sorry, my camera kinda sucks

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

9680: might as well think big

If you were given the keys to the greatest machine on the planet, what would you do with it?

In the biological world, we are the super heroes. While the rest of the animals go about their daily lives, we have special abilities. As we discover more and more about the world around us and the power within, we continuously ask ourselves the same question.

What is our purpose?

What do we do with these super powers and who/what gave them to us?

I like to think about the possibilities.

One really big goal I can see humans accomplishing in our entire existence is spreading life to another planet.

To be able to take this miracle and keep it going, even after our star dies.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Thursday, June 19, 2008

9675: the puzzle



Putting the pieces together

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

9673: agnosticm



(slightly photo shopped to try and show the picture I was seeing, here is the original)

Monday, June 16, 2008

9672

9671: epiphanies

eureka moments.

I've been waking up in the middle of the night and having them. Last night, instead of thinking for hours, I told myself just go back to sleep, but I regret it because I can't remember what it was.

Reminds me of that Tool song. "I forgot my pen."

Here's a bizarre theory. Maybe we are destined to evolve in to our creator. Maybe we truly are God's children. Maybe what's seen as a grand mystical inter-dimensional entity is really future versions of ourselves. Maybe in the future when we're all smart and shit, we'll figure out how to send our DNA back in time. So, hypothetically, if we're destined to be the Gods that created us, we should strive to be the God that we imagine. Something Good.

Friday, June 13, 2008

9668: conceded, lol

How can you have a close personal relationship with something you can't even imagine?

These are the questions that keep me up at night. When hell is a concern for you, like staring death in the face, you have a tendency to work hard to find a solution.

Maybe I'm just a man in a cave, a child playing with toy planes and formulas, a headstrong dreamer diving in to things with no fear of making a few mistakes along the way.

But when you stop to think about my morales, and that I do have a solid foundation built by the upbringing that I fell in to, you'll see that I'm not trying to start a new religion, that I'm not going to do something stupid and irrational, that the mistakes I make, are small in the grand picture.

The sad thing is that I know I could make up a religion. Look at all the labels out there, all the stupid fucking religions that we make fun of. People are so keen to believe in stupid shit like scientology, they get so offended when you make fun of them for being so gullible.

How do you tell them otherwise? how do you deliver a message if you ever get the chance to speak to them. How do you break past their shell of faith and deliver logic and reason?

How do you convince the Atheists that they have the most narrow mind of them all?

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

How do I, without wracking my brain too much, convince and inspire my fellow man to quit ignoring these big problems, to take some time of their day to put their own daily nonsense aside, and question everything they think they know.

No, I'm not as intelligent as many, and don't have the solutions people so desperately need to the questions in life, but I know a flaw when I see one. To first find a solution, you need to find the flaws.

I know the things I can say probably sting like a bitch. I can see the snowball effect from the anger I've caused. Don't think that because it's my words causing your anger that I am the voice of evil. If you really believe that there is some sort of inter-dimensional evil entity telling me to say these things because God wants to test your faith, then you have really got to shift your paradigm.

I am not the voice of Satan trying to destroy your faith so the devil can have your soul.

Sure doesn't feel like Satan, feels like me using my brain. I look to God for guidance, and to always make sure my motives are pure and good. Just like any other good person on this planet. I believe that if you focus on good things then you will become that.

This is not an epic debate revolving around our souls, but a friendly spar.

I know you are all good people, and you know how to take a punch. If I had this debate with a fanatic in Saudi Arabia, I'd probably be dead.

So forgive me for treating your beliefs like a punching bag, but when you see it from my perspective, at least, try, you can see I'm not a bad person.

sigh...

I was planning on trying to tie off this debate. To end it, because I know I've caused suffering in the hearts and minds of the people I care about.

I've done a horrible job... ugh....

How do you step down but still stand tall?

Maybe your thinking the same thing. How do we cross the line in the sand to shake your brothers hand, when neither side wants to take a step.

Maybe it's time to just walk away. But before I go, know that I have never found a more deep profound respect for Jesus until this moment.

Listen to 10,000 days by Tool, and see that you don't have to be under the Christian label to send a positive message.

It is just a label, to which we each define it's characteristics, we all draw our own lines in the sand, some based on what we've been told by our fellow man, others seek guidance from a higher form of intelligence. Tell me, if you've spoken to the pilot of this crazy world plane, if you can comprehend for a second what it would be like to really talk to God, and what he would really say, tell me, what is our mission?

Because Christians only seem to ask for personal guidance, for their own personal gain. Get out of your tiny perspective, and try to look at it from God's. Maybe when you do, you can get a better idea on what he would say, therefore allowing you to truly talk to him.

just a theory.

9668: concede

[quote="Beretta"]Caleb, I hope you have been making [i]logical[/i] use of your time lately.[/quote]

bad form brother.

If you can not attack the argument, attack the arguer.

Maybe I'm not much more then a man in a cave, seeking a message to pass on to the people.

And maybe I have found one, but before you write me off as just another nut-job, have faith that I have a level head and I focus on the good that I've been taught through Christianity.

If, for whatever reason, God threw you a bone, and for a brief moment in time, the world gave you their attention. What would you say?

They're a skeptical bunch, they're not going to buy any "he said, she said stories of magic."

Think about this long and hard, that is my message, "find your message."

It could be very important, because one day, unexpectedly, the spotlight might shine on you.

Don't be afraid to put your beliefs on the table for all to see. Find a message that you can say loud and proud so they'll listen.

If you ask yourself "what would Jesus do"?

and you believe that Jesus is God, then you are quantifying God.

You are not competing by thinking this, you are only trying to "be like dad". Or a dog pretending to be human. Don't be ignorant and not even try.



I could go on and on.... this was supposed to be me stepping down graciously, after all, I predicted my own downfall.

But logically... since my head is pounding, and I've lost sleep debating these philosophical questions that have raged through time, to try and find fixes for the flaws in humanity, this is just way too much for one man.

So, let me take a literary back door. If the definition of Christ is someone that stands for these things:

* love
* joy
* peace
* patience
* kindness
* goodness
* faithfulness
* gentleness
* self-control

Then there are a great deal of people who call themselves Christians who aren't Christians and there are a great deal of people from other religions who may not label themselves so, but are really Christians in God's eye.

I was told that Jesus said something like, "As long as you try to be like God, you will be fine."

I don't think God cares about what kind of label you give yourself as long as you try your best to understand what God is, and try to be that.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

9667: a work in progress

[quote="Devil Slayer"]Caleb you are seriously contradicting yourself.

First you state that you have to do your research and figure out which religion makes the most sense. (as stated by your parachute analogy)

Then you say "Imagine this, imagine that". Are you actually trying to find justifiable qualities about established religions here? Or are you trying to invent your own based on limited knowledge and an extensive imagination?
[/quote]

We're all growing here. Don't pretend everyone involved in this debate hasn't learned along the way. If we're going with the spar analogy, every punch is like a thought punch, pondering things that you never stop to think about. We've all contradicted ourselves as we've taken different stances. It's all part of the fight, finding our mistakes, and correcting them.

[quote]
If you want embrace Pluralism, hey I won't judge you
[/quote]

I haven't embraced Pluralism since you brought it up. I sort of played with the idea but dropped it, as previously mentioned. Just running thought experiments, because you can't find out the right till you try the thousand wrongs, right?

Analogies are beautiful things, I realized this the other day, watching science shows. It's the best way to create comprehension and understanding. At least, in our limited language. It's a way to send a message.

I've never respected Jesus more then I do now. What would you do if you lived a lifetime where you had the chance to grab the whole worlds attention, just for a moment in time. When the world looked, he could have said any number of things, he could have spun the crowd for his own selfish deeds, or could have just ignored the spotlight because he didn't want to go against the crowd, but instead he spoke a message of peace and forgiveness. In the middle of a stupid religious war, he looked to the people and said, there has got to be another way, "I know such and such killed such and such, and he thinks his God is the real deal, but you have to let that shit go.". It's a shame he was restricted by our foolish tools of language. I've read "the message" and it's obvious that some of the story had to have been changed, lost in translation, so it's a shame that I couldn't have seen him for myself. To build a house together and just chat. I believe in probability, if you have a story told from the 3rd person, repeated over and over from one ear to the next, somewhere along the line, the story gets exaggerated or edited to suit the needs of whoever is in the power to change it at the time.

"what was the real message?"

So when theories of evolution, and carbon dating create problems in your equation, you try to balance it out by saying, well, maybe the scientists are wrong, you create a new idea, like maybe God created creatures to evolve.

But your backing your logic on murky waters, you can't see whats really there when you've already created restrictions.

It's the same kind of murky waters that a suicide bomber parks on when he thinks that killing himself brings him to heaven.

-----

What would Jesus do? If history has had it's toll like it has on everything else, then it is a mystery. You have to speculate a lot, wondering which writer you can trust, and what were the motives behind the people that wrote it.

Accept that you have no idea what it was like for a day in the life of Jesus and you can see my perspective.

Like a detective shaking the puzzle pieces apart and trying to see what fits.

We know he loved analogies, and when I hate to get all analogical like I'm on a pedestal, but heres one I keep playing with.

Everything that I know is but a drop in the ocean of knowledge.

we are all playing around in our boats, like God's children. In this silly discussion, we've sailed in to different areas of speculation and assumption, but only small amounts truly add to our drop, if anything, it only leads to more questions. (At least for me it is.)

With no real direction, I've been trusting my gut and believing that as long as my motives are everything that I imagine is good, that it's worth it to poke fun at other peoples boats. To search for flaws, because if we don't, we can never strive for perfection.

Yes, we've entered a debate thats been waging for thousands upon thousands of years, way more then 2000.

I know we're all following paths of many ships before us, but at least we're moving forward.

From my side of the fence, I'm attacking everything that our very society is built on. Our calender, our government, and education were all built off of Christianity.

2 billion people, what would Jesus say if he could see the stupid crap they were doing. Mormons, and Catholics, every self-righteous individual that invokes feelings of shame and hatred. The majority running countries where trillions are spent to hurt? To feed wars? George Bush is a Christian?

To try and imagine what Jesus/God/Allah/jahweh, hey zeus, etc. would say, you have to imagine something unimaginable. You have to admit that is impossible then, hypothetically speaking, imagine if he was just a really brave dude that took on the world to spread a new way of thinking, a new peaceful way of thinking, what would he say?

If you can imagine it from the perspective of Jesus or God, think about what that message might be long and hard. One day, the spotlight may come on you. Let me know, because I want to be prepared just in case that spotlight hits me. I'm only one mind, and while it may look like I'm a little kid with his arms wide pretending he's trying to build his very own f-22 of Christianity, while all 2 billion of you are laughing, saying, "he thinks he's can make another plane, lol, listen to this idealistic nutjob. He's thinks he's going to tell me that my plane doesn't fly, we'll show him."

You see, I imagine Jesus saying, none of them really fly, we're all in this plane together.

Hypothetically, of coarse... Everyone has their own definition of perfection.

-----

[quote]
You can't try to Quantify God. You can't picture things from his shoes. In any religion the gods do things that from our perspective are inhumane. Don't even try to compete with the omnipotent.
[/quote]

Sure you can, the bible does all the time. Like a "father" to a child. "created in God's image". Those are just one theory, what if it was like a dog to a master, ant to a human, cell to an organism, perhaps like a quiet tree, watching us... what would it think? Some sort of inter-dimensional entity, maybe how we hope it is, but maybe not. We can't fathom it, but we can explore around it, use analogies to help understand, break the mold of what everyone has said before you and have faith that God will not punish you for using the tools of thinking that he gave to you. Use what you "know" as a base line, but don't ever lie to yourself and say you know something. Taking that step is the only way a Muslim will change his way of thinking. We try to understand God all the time, the only time we actually get any truth is when you try to understand the unimaginable. You can't fathom Hell, you can't fathom Heaven, you can't fathom the other infinite possibilities between the best and the worst. Who's to say that the next life isn't going to be more of a struggle then this one? What if this is just a proving ground?

I don't know, this is x to me. It is unknown.

The only thing I have faith in anymore is science, but that doesn't mean you have to take the lazy way out and be atheist.

As far as I'm concerned science is just another language to describe things. You believe that praying to God will coax me to label myself Christianity. (Old language)

I see it as you believe that your somehow telekinetically communicating with an alternate dimension, higher intelligence, all powerful creator of love and everything as we know it, even the logic I present to you, and your asking him to change my way of thinking.

That is a [i]crazy[/i] theory, but so is the theory of relativity, but Einstein proved that.

Don't be afraid to test it. If you believe that God has put out specific rules that prohibit testing his might, then you have just stuck yourself with one theory. If God really didn't show himself once in a while, it destroys any "divine experience" stories out the window.

Prove to me that telekinesis works.

Do we emanate mind energy? Speak to me in a scientific language so I can take you seriously, so the world can.

For example: I'm going to go in a sci-fi direction for shits and giggles, so bear with me here, I don't believe it like any of my other "throw-away" theories. What if billions of years ago, we expanded through the galaxy, and around 200,000 years ago set up a colony on Earth, maybe it was like paradise compared to where the Humans grew up.

The humans all spoke to each other telekinetically. Maybe the humans just lost their ability to speak with the mind. Maybe something happened, they lost connection, etc. Maybe prayer is like an echo, we're trying to get that ability back.

Maybe mankind has to find the language of angels again so we don't have to stumble through this stupid English one. (Damn you firefox, telekinetic's is so a word) Maybe then I could get my point across to you. You can see my perspective, I can see yours, we create a new one that fits better. Maybe then you could work out why you think good Muslim people must suffer.

Maybe this debate is just practice for that moment. How can you deliver logic that doesn't snowball in to hatred. Watch what you say. Pick your words more carefully then me, really try to imagine what would Jesus do.

Instead, I have tried to be the better man and seek my own truth, not try to find a label for myself and follow along with a crowd. I may find a label later, because everyone likes to come up with a new idea and label themselves. Some do it for followers and the feeling of power, for creating a theory that people can believe in, can strive to be good for. I don't want that, are you kidding me? I can't make a plane, I only have a natural ability to see flaws. To have the wisdom to know when

I will feel free to explore other philosophies.... nay, I crave it. Give me yours. Tell me what you really think about abortion, evolution, and creation.

Let's go to fucking town, as long as no one gets too emotional, I'm down for creating new threads for every topic anyone want to engage in.


The way I see it you have a couple of options. You can be a Christian, You can be a Pluralist, you can't be both. There is no theological backing for it. Period.

If you want embrace Pluralism, hey I won't judge you. All i ask is that you actually take the time to look into the thousands upon thousands of years philosophy research, and written documents. Its not exactly a new theory.

If you want to take the lazy way out, and become an atheist, hey I won't judge you on that either.

[quote] "Why? Why should this woman suffer for all eternity?"[/quote]

Actually there is no evidence in the bible that hell is for eternity. There is a perfectly viable theory when it comes to theology called annihilationism that states that hell is more of a limbo that souls stay in until the day of judgment when everything in it will cease to exist.

The only reason you get the fire and brimstone comparison is because of how unbearable it would be to not have God around. The darkness without light etc.

[quote]In fact, by your analogy, that would be like our own judicial system sending any non-Christian to death.

What kind of backlash do you think that kind of thinking can cause?! [/quote]

Probably something like this:

[url]http://www.castlepyros.com/pyrosforums/viewtopic.php?t=1202[/url]

Except that Christianity is all about second chances, and we don't judge people people for their beliefs. Thats Gods job.[/quote]

is anyone reading my blog?

I've been putting this together all day, so maybe I should think about it before I respond. It's all scattered, and I've been writing for a long time. I suppose perfection isn't attainable, but I should at least let these thoughts cook before I present them.

Let me know if your reading this.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

9665: dead freq

Have you prayed for me?

Have you heard mine?

Let's meet in the idea hall

and let's dine

I'll present you with my theories

have a meeting of minds

present me with yours

and maybe then we'll find

a formula that works

In this new time.

Spare me the stories

and analogies

if the message is the fruit

I'll take what's inside please

Can you not see the irony?

Are you keeping up with me?



So are we all just singing the same song?

Can you hear it? can you sing along?



Just between God, you, and me

I am a Christian

but it depends

on the definition

If Christ stands for peace, love, and against all things evil

then I will stand with him

2000 years have passed

and I can still hear it loud

but maybe we can help repeat it

for the rest of the crowd

But in this new age

everyone is a skeptic

they wont believe in tricks

and tales of magic


Help me write this song

or at least sing along



I am not the greatest writer

and I am limited

by these tools

of language

I am not the greatest of minds

Let's put two and two together

and maybe we'll find

a new message for all of mankind


Spare me your

fear and hysteria

your reasons for panic

are x's in the formula


Nobody's knows now

nobody knows

Sunday, June 8, 2008

9663: 5 years

celebrated our 5th yesterday. It was a good day :)

Overall, the days in the 5 years with her have been better then without. That's all that matters.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

9660: lesson of appreciation

Remember to appreciate the complexities of ourselves. This helps to love others around you, to appreciate everything that makes them who they are.

9660: another post

I couldn't bring myself to post this in the pyros forum. If anyone reads this from there, I just didn't want it to be read in the context of that debate:

"Thinking about it, pluralism doesn't appeal to me that much because each religion only brings about more questions. It's like watching Lost, as intriguing as it may be, the answers as to what's beyond our collective knowledge... is exactly that.

There's this deep and profound line that I keep coming back to, I think it was Einstein who said, "Everything I know is but a drop in the ocean of knowledge."

This is my addition:

Then everything that every human knows is a sea. The size of the ocean is the size of everything that we will know in our entire existence. These are the facts of the universe, things like, the Earth is round. Religion speculates on things that may not even be in the ocean at all. We may end up killing our entire human race before we, in this living universe, will know what happens when we die.

The ocean may be small (if we all died soon), it could be a billion times larger then it is now, it could even be infinite.

All we can do is pray that we have more time, don't kill ourselves and push it farther. We may have to tread through waters that have already been tread many times, and relearn things, those are the facts of life. You have to find the edge before you can push it farther.

If knowledge is a gift from God, then we have to thrive on it."

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

this was handy

http://www.paulsadowski.com/birthday.asp

I must of subtracted leap years twice or something, I'm 9658 today. Wrote a little in my book today, I should finish that before I'm 10,000

9658: excerpt from castle pyros convo

This conversation has occupied a lot of my mental time as of late.

I don't think I can make a more intellectually sound statement then Kevin has, but I did want to say a quick couple things. I'm not going to explain things very much, so try to keep up with me.

Evolution of religion. That's a line in that Einstein quote I posted earlier, when I read that, I started thinking about this and imagined a long line of religions building up to the point where it is now. I started thinking about where the future could be and imagine a meeting of minds, where people come together and say, "we believed some crazy shit, you believed some crazy shit, let's come to some conclusions together."

Josh and Jay, I've never denied the existence of God. I have felt the same anxiety release experience that you felt Jay, and I have theories.

Ideas along the lines that if God is not all powerful, then maybe he saves his energy for when people are in dire need.

I do not deny the existence of some internal force that we can tap. I don't know what it is, or how it works, but it's helped many people at the worst times. I would disagree that this only happens to Christians, I would have to meet more people from different religions to know.

Maybe speaking to God is you speaking to your subconscious which is telling you what you "think" God would say, or maybe our conscience was programmed in us from the start to keep us on track.

I ask questions like, if this is true, then where is this track headed?

Are we a pet designed for entertainment? If so, then let's have fun, let's enjoy ourselves, let's be entertaining. Is this a trial arena where we must prove ourselves? Then we should strive to be better people. Perhaps our purpose is to spread life to other planets, to spread Gods gift so that when our planet dies, the creation lives on. Then we should strive to advance humanity. After all, exploring the universe, perhaps discovering other life could offer many clues to what's really going on in this vast complex masterpiece.

But when I quit daydreaming and think about things realistically. I ask myself, how can you tell someone that your not sure what happens when you die and how everything came to be but to still be a good person.