Buddhism and Tasteless Jokes

Restraint with the eye is good, good is restraint with the ear. Restraint with the nose is good, good is restraint with the tongue. Restraint with the body is good, good is restraint with speech. Restraint with the heart is good, good is restraint everywhere. A monk everywhere restrained is released from all suffering stress.

-Dhammapada, 25, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.


A couple of years ago, I made a joke that really offended my family. My mother (apparently) spent a week crying over how she could have ever possibly raised such a horrible, awful son. I didn't even find out that so many people were offended until the next year. Wow.

I made a huge deal out of it; I was offended at the response--that people would talk about it behind my back for months--that no one would say anything to me--that they were even bothered by the joke to begin with.

Before I go much further, you probably want to know what I said. This was after Thanksgiving dinner at home in North Carolina. As usual, the "adults" were still sitting and chatting about local folklore at the dinner table, and the "kids" had migrated to the far side of the room. My sister (the only of the four kids that still subscribes to Christianity) had brought her boyfriend from New York, and we were meeting him for the first time. They both worked at a Christian camp whose sole purpose is to convert heathen high school kids to Christianity. We had always joked that as the brothers, it was our job to run off the boyfriends. Somewhere along the line, I joked that "he's only in it for the sex." Get it? Funny? Well, not in the context that you know that absolutely everyone in the room was offended, and everyone wound up apologizing to the new boyfriend for my horrific behavior... all without me knowing (that part isn't particularly surprising).


This week, my mother sent me the quote at the top of the blog, asking what I thought about it. My response? "That's kind of the point of Buddhism." She asked me to elaborate. Before I got a chance to write down my thoughts, she effectively admitted that she was trying to bait me into contradicting myself--trying to get me to blame my actions on my ex, which I could get away with now that I'm single.

Well, this got me a little bit irate all over again, but I did stop and think about it. I realized yesterday why I never subscribed to Buddhism, despite liking much of what it has to say. Buddhism is based around the idea that desire leads to suffering. In order to end suffering, you must end desire. This is a valiant but impossible goal. You cannot end desire. The desire to end suffering counts as a desire. The desire to be a good Buddhist counts as a desire.

To me, this just seems like a religious case of learned helplessness. It's a coping method for dealing with oppression, for dealing with impossible situations. If you are apathetic about the situation, it no longer causes you to suffer (you aren't lost if you don't care where you are). Of course, this is also a fabulous method of pissing off your captors, but that's a different twist on the whole thing.

While desire may be the source of suffering, it is also the source of pleasure, of happiness, of everything that makes life worth living.


What do I think of restraint? I whole-heartedly believe in the freedom of speech. I believe in the right to express ideas, emotions, thoughts, opinions... You don't have to like what I say. If I offend you, you don't have to keep reading; you don't have to invite me to your next party. You don't have to stand here and listen to the end of my thought. I have a right to say it, even if no one wants to hear it. If I want to keep friends, it's my own responsibility to not tell someone in the middle of a large group of people that an outfit makes them look fat.

I believe that the moment any kind of censorship is applied, you begin to stifle the freedom of expression. I no longer feel safe with my family, as I'm worried what *else* I might be able to say that could offend people as much as that simple joke. I can't talk about atheism, as I'm afraid I might offend by admitting I am an atheist, as that pretty clearly states that I think they believe a lie. Who might I offend if I *did* actually get into this discussion? I can never again speak freely around my family without fear of repercussions, and that hurts. Restraint may help keep friends, but it shouldn't be required to keep family.


"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will fight to death your right to say it." Voltaire

You've been married twice? What's wrong with you??

Short Answer: I fall in love too easily, and I'm virtually incapable of making a logical decision about someone I love (e.g. the decision to break up, call off the wedding, and go our separate ways).

Long Answer: I have a tendency to want to rescue women, and I wind up falling in love in the process. Unfortunately, this has so far only happened with people with whom I happen to be incompatible.

The first time, one of my best friends dumped a girl (with whom I had developed a friendship) when he found out that she was not a virgin. I was rather irritated with his pretentious attempt at religious holier-than-thou-ness, so I sacrificed the relationship with one of my best friends in order to protect another friendship. I felt that Eddie was wrong to do that, so I took Kendra's side, and it really meant a lot to her.

In the long run, of course, things didn't work out. We wound up competing with each other, and she couldn't accept that I was better at higher level math than she was. No matter how hard I tried to explain to her that she was doing her homework wrong, she insisted she was right and that I was in fact wrong. Keep in mind that I was much more of an arrogant SOB back then than I am now, so this didn't go over particularly well. This competitive nature is why I wound up no longer writing poetry (because she insisted her poetry was better than mine), why I stopped drawing (because she insisted I wasn't any good), why I stopped writing music or playing the piano (because she insisted I was too loud), why I stopped hanging out with my friends (because she insisted they were a bad influence on me), and why I stopped interacting with my family (because she hated them all and got mad whenever I would talk with my mother). In addition, I never fit in with her friends. They would always put me down because they didn't think I was particularly funny.

Eventually, I got fed up and left. I left everything, not even knowing where I would sleep that night. I wound up staying for the next few months in a spare bedroom that one of my coworkers' ex-boyfriends had. I think the best way I can put this is that I was a computer science major, and I went nearly three months without a computer.

As with everything, there is more to the story than I'm letting on. It was worse. I can leave out the details here of *why* everyone believed she was a lesbian, and *why* I believe them in hindsight.

This relationship was a disaster before we even got married. I was too young and stupid to see the signs AND stick to my position about breaking up. I tried once, but she wouldn't let me. Weird, eh?



I learned the hard way that I need to be extra picky about the girls I date. By this time, I had done a lot of research into Jungian personality types--the MBTI in specific. Everything I had read made a lot of sense, and it all seemed to be backed up by a lot of evidence. This has helped me learn a lot about myself. It's helped me understand my strengths and weaknesses as well as where I'm flexible and where I'm not. I understand what I need out of a relationship as well as what I have to give--and what I am incapable of giving.


The second time around, I met a totally amazing girl that seemed to be almost everything that my first wife was not. Unfortunately, she had much bigger family issues than Kendra. We both did our best to help the other work through our own life issues. I also enabled her to believe that she was no less of a human being just because she was female--completely against what she had learned from her father. In time, this gradually freed her to be herself. As it turns out, she and Kendra aren't really all that different after all. The key difference is that she wasn't controlling like Kendra, but they wound up with nearly the same interests and many very similar personality traits. Many of the traits that made my first marriage a disaster wound up also applying to second marriage. I knew the issues were there, and I knew there was no fix, but I accepted things the way they were, as I was okay with it, and I could accept the differences.

Unfortunately, she wound up talking with an old ex of hers online, and he was having serious issues with his girlfriend. She realized that this guy could give her everything that I could not. After several months of talking with this guy, she decides that it's over between the two of us (April of this year). I was rather dumbfounded, as this seemed to be the very first time she had ever hinted that the stuff about me that annoyed her could even possibly be a deal-breaker. I tried to change her mind, but failed miserably. In June of this year, she moved out.


As a result, I've grown very cynical of the whole idea of love. I've painfully come to accept that I'm probably going to be single for a very long time to come, as I'm just so bitter at this point that I wind up assuming that any given girl is not my type before I even give her a chance. I find myself nitpicking the tiniest details in order to scratch girls off my list as easily as possible. It's easier to make a snap judgment than it is to invest time in a relationship only to figure out a few months down the road that something really is a deal-breaker, but by then you're way too emotionally invested to get out easily (which causes you to attempt to convince yourself that something really isn't a deal-breaker).


Now, we get to my current situation. I've met a woman (at a quarter of a century, we aren't boys and girls any more). As explained by the previous paragraph, I've already determined she's not my type. Since there is the slim possibility that she might at some point stumble across this, I'm going to refrain from saying why. .. So far, she seems really interesting, so I'm trying to be a friend, as I rarely get any kind of deep, intelligent conversation anymore; I'm trying my freaking hardest to make new friends that won't just nod in agreement every time I mention something "hard," like relativity, QED, or Fourier Series (a discussion of Mensa may come in a later blog entry).

Unfortunately, she has her own issues. She pretty clearly suffers from serious depression and very low self-esteem. There are also several seemingly large parts of her life that appear to me to be a coping method--a way of putting on a mask in an attempt to devalue how she really feels. My heart is just screaming out in agony watching this: "my god, woman, I want to help you!" I fear the worst--that she has been crying out for help, and the fact that she's not receiving help is pushing her in a downward spiral. She's a very difficult woman to reach on any kind of personal level, and I wonder if there is even any remote possibility that there's anything that I can do to help.


So here I am, thinking about the damsel in distress. Apparently, this is my type. Don't do it again Hank... she's not your type... you can be friends, but nothing more. Don't get your hopes up, because one way or another, you are bound to be let down, forever and always.

Why I don't like Christmas

I went to Sam's Club today to pick up my monthly prescription, and I was rather shocked, amazed, and offended at the length of the checkout lines. The part that offended me so much was that it was abundantly obvious that the Christmas season is just about rampant consumerism. It's about money--lots of money. People spend far more than they can afford on other people just because that's what they think everyone expects. I've seen people get yearly loans in order to buy presents that they can't afford, just to turn around and do it all over again.

Growing up for me, Christmas was all about presents--and vacation from school, but that's not the topic here. Christmas wasn't about spending time with family, or giving to other people, or about helping people out, or Jesus' birth, or celebrating anything. Christmas was about presents. I grew up in a Christian household, so celebrating Jesus' birth was what it was supposed to be about, but the only thing on my mind was what I was going to get for Christmas.

One year, everything changed. There was no abundance of presents under the Christmas tree. Nothing odd financially had occurred--we kids had just grown up. It cames a major shock and disappointment to me, as I felt like I had gotten next to nothing, and the magic of getting presents on Christmas was gone. I knew I was being selfish in being disappointed, but this idea of Christmas was so ingrained in my psyche that it was impossible to ignore.

Since my mother had gotten married and there were now two step-siblings included in the "family," the decision was made that instead of everyone getting presents for everyone else, names would be drawn out of a hat. Each person would get two names, and two people would get their name. The extra difficulty for me with this was that I had also gotten married and moved away from home. My two younger siblings were still in high school, my older brother was off in Seattle, or France, or wherever he was at the time, and I knew next to nothing about the new additions to the family. It's extremely stressful to be the primary gift-giver for someone that you know next to nothing about. As a result, I wound up relying on my mother most of the time to basically tell me what to buy for people, since I didn't even have the chance to sit down with the person and figure out for myself what they might actually enjoy. Christmas, therefore, wasn't even about getting to know my stepsisters or my new stepfather. Even though it was financially easier on everyone, it was still about receiving gifts, and it was unfair. It was obvious that if our grandmother got your name, then you would be getting something nice--something you couldn't afford on your own. However, if I got someone's name, it wouldn't be--it would be a Big Dog fleece jacket, or a calendar with pictures of North Carolina in it.

Last year, I boycotted the thing. Bonnie had a great idea to help out a friend of hers who had opened a new business, and we sent either brownies or cookies to everyone. That was great, because we were able to include people we otherwise wouldn't have been able to include.

However, it was still about spending money and sending stuff to people. Even though I had the week off from work, I didn't even get to see my family. I haven't seen my older brother or sister since September of last year. I've seen my dad three times since then, and my mother once. I even spent my birthday alone. (Here I am pulling an Annika, bawling as I write this.) For the first time ever, Christmas this year is about spending time with my family.

When I walked into Sam's Club today and I saw how long the lines were, I was deeply offended. Sam's Club was trying their absolute hardest to make sure that people spent their money at Sam's, and not somewhere else. For the first time ever at this store, there were enough registers open to handle the demand. The lines were short, and it appeared people were getting through. This offended me because it was clear that Sam's Club was not doing this in order to reduce the stress of shopping or to give people jobs. They were doing this to make more money. Any other time of the year, when I walk into this store on a Saturday afternoon, the lines are so horrifically long that you have to take a detour around the front of the store in order to get to the opposite side. This time, there were probably 50% more cars in the parking lot than I usually see, and the lines were not frightening. Sam's Club was doing their best to take advantage of the rampant consumerism that defines Christmas in our country. If they cared about their customers or offering jobs, this is what the place would look like year round... not just when they higher-ups *think* people have money to spend.

What's to like about that?

Five Things that Make Me an Asshole

1) Some people are inclined to think that I am god's gift to humanity (my mother), and some people think that having been raised in this environment has made me somewhat of an arrogant asshole (my ex). Who is right? Well, I am--of course.

2) "You know, if it were a Mac, it would work." An alternate form of this line: "You wouldn't have that problem on a Mac." "I think it's an ID-ten-T error."

3) Speed limits just make an interesting obstacle course.

4) I think we should do a population adjustment, such that an IQ of 140 is average, instead of 100.

5) I'm full of shit.


Okay, so I have to come back and add a little bit to this post. Some people believe I actually *do* believe that I am always right. The reason that I sometimes come across this way is because I always assume everyone else is wrong. I never assume that I'm right, though it could seem this way with as fervently as I tend to argue my case. My brain works in such a way that I see numerous different possibilities whenever I consider a situation. I see potential strengths and flaws in any given discussion, and I try to make sense of the big picture. As a result, I ask questions that poke holes in an attempt to understand the topic, though it sometimes appears as if I'm trying to prove the other person is wrong and I know better. In reality, I'm full of shit and know next to nothing. :D Despite this, I still can come across looking like an arrogant, know-it-all, asshole. Being an atheist of the skeptic persuasion often exacerbates the situation when I'm surrounded by people that don't realize that astrology isn't real.

I made a mistake four years ago

Be warned... this blog posting is not for the faint of heart. More specifically, if you weren't good in linear algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and all that really fun stuff, then this blog posting may not make a bit of sense to you.



Now that I live alone (well, I have since July), there is actually the potential for silence in my apartment. My thoughts are no longer determined by the endless chatter of an extravert that thinks out loud--nonstop (stamp out repetition and redundancy... unless repetition of the point emphasizes the idea, hence making the redundancy simply an emphasis). Yes, I finally get to think for myself. Wait, that didn't come out right. It was the other one that actually dictated what I could think... this time, my options were to listen intently, always thinking about what she was talking about, or ignoring her. Remember that I am now single.

Anyway, back to the point... so thanks to the silence, I got to thinking about something that I was working on four years ago: my senior project. This was the last time that me ignoring her didn't piss her off. I realized that one of my algorithms was sub-optimal, as I came up with a better algorithm.

For reference: http://homepage.mac.com/whschultz/modeler/Senior_Project_Writeup.pdf

Once your brain doesn't hurt anymore... page 14, second paragraph. The method I described of finding the distance relies heavily on your camera having been calibrated, which I had not implemented. The key detail that is required is a field-of-view angle, as this will allow us to calculate the angle mentioned in the paragraph. I thought of a better method that would actually yield the FOV angle instead of requiring it:

As long as the in-image lengths of the axes are different, we can search along the discovered direction and find a position where the *ratios* match. The reason is simply because the size of an object varies based on the inverse of the distance. This is not a linear relationship, so the ratios between the viewed sizes will vary as you approach the object in question, as long as the distance from the camera is not the same.

Due to the asymptotic nature of this attribute, this search algorithm may only work when the camera is relatively near the positioning object. We do not need many of these photos, however, as we will be able to get a good idea of the camera's actual FOV for a given magnification. If we actually know the FOV, we can revert to the original algorithm, as listed (and implemented) in my original senior project.



I've also been thinking about the issue of camera calibration. I've always thought that a photograph of a grid would be used to calibrate the camera, adjusting for whatever distortions may be caused by the lens itself. Since I never got around to implementing a user interface, I also never got around to designing and implementing an algorithm, though I came to realize recently that the multi-dimensional Lagrange Interpolation algorithm could easily be used to map points from where they are to where they should have been. The distortion is likely to vary depending on the magnification settings, so this would require a camera that stores current settings into the image itself.

This would be better in the long run, as a camera that stores exposure time for each photo will allow for better calculation of how much light was actually present when the photo was taken. Unfortunately, the whole concept of image-based modeling depends on multiple photos of a static object or multiple simultaneous photos, so we are generally assuming the light levels are not going to change.


Anyway, now I'm just spewing out ideas. The algorithm that spawned this entire blog posting has not been drawn up yet with pen and paper (no, I don't use a pencil), and as a result, I could be completely wrong about whether or not this algorithm is even plausible. Since the algorithm described in my senior project writeup was my fourth attempt (the three previous did not work at all), I will not be upset if this one doesn't work. It's just an idea.



Lastly, an off-topic rant... I've known people that have gotten really pissed off at me for thinking that I am smarter than most everyone else and that it makes me the least bit different from anyone else. The truth is that I am and it does. I am well aware that it does not make me better than anyone else, but this is one thing that validates my rant about online dating (I'm not sorry if that offended you). If you can't understand how this stuff works, you are not my equal. In my entire life, I have known four peers that I've sat down with and that have been able to keep up with me (one of those four well exceeded me). It is not unreasonable to desire to be understood. Everyone desires to be understood. I desire to be able to have conversations about my ideas. If you find that arrogant or offensive, then I don't particularly care. No, I do care. I care because you are selfishly expecting me to be something I am not, hence the rant.

Online Dating Sites are for Normal People

Online dating sites are for normal people, and therefore they suck. Between my personality type and intelligence, I really am one of those 1-in-a-million guys. I did the math. Well, I lied. It's really 2.5 in a million.

Between being a rare breed of male and having a few sub-optimal relationship experiences, I've become a bit cynical and (as a result) very picky. I'm tired of women that think that my personality traits are flaws that need to be fixed, so I'm looking for someone a lot more like me. Unfortunately, women like me are only about twice as common as men like me, so the number of women would really be more like five in a million.

Yahoo Personals has a pretty large group of people, so after trying (and hating) a half dozen other sites, I've stumbled across Yahoo Personals. Anyway, so I updated my search criteria last night, after taking a few more of their tests to see what they think I'm really looking for in a woman. As a result, my search results include five women. Yes, five. Not fifteen... not fifty... not five hundred... five. A 25 mile radius from me effectively covers all of Los Angeles within an hour driving time, so there are five women in Los Angeles that meet my basic criteria.

For me, the basics include:

1) A personality type somewhat like me. In yahoo's terms, this includes "Explorer, Idealist, Rebel, and Observer." At least, I think it does. That's what I checked off.

2) The two love styles yahoo recommends: "Romantic, Passionate." Well, I'll take their word for this. I know from experience that this stuff is important, and I don't feel like writing up an essay on what I do know, so I'm just going to leave it at that.

3) I don't care about height, but the freak that I am, she has to be smaller than me.

4) Hair: she has to have hair. If it's graying, she's probably way too old for me. Setting my limit at 35 is almost too high.

5) She can't have kids, but there has to be room for the possibility.

6) She has to have a college degree.

7) She can't smoke.

8) She can't still live with her parents. I moved out when I was eighteen. This is a maturity thing for me.

9) She can't be religious. My atheism/militant agnosticism would either wind up pissing her off or driving a wedge between us.

10) She can't be a freaking republican. I don't want to date anyone that likes Bush (as in George W... I can work with bi).


Yes, I got five results. If I had put in my preferences for hair and eye color, I would have gotten all of zero results. Wow. I'm a freak. Well, this is what *really* makes me a freak:

To the beautiful Swedish woman that is one of those five (that may potentially be bothering to read this lame post): you can't blame the run-on sentences and sentence fragments in your Yahoo! profile on MySpace's Tom.


If Yahoo! Personals was made for people like me, then it would have the following features:

1) I would be able to edit all of the grammar and spelling errors in the profiles I read. These corrections would be sent to the original writer. The person that doesn't get pissed off and that doesn't think that I'm some stuck-up snob would be rated higher on my scale.

2) Yahoo wud fltr out peeps that think their to cool too uze reel wurds. u rock. ur da bom. wazzup!

3) An IQ test that is capable of accurately scoring above 115 would be required.

4) People would not be allowed to ignore you. At the very least, they have to click a nice button saying they've rejected you. Have a nice day.

5) There would be a question about the person's OS of choice (e.g. Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD...)

6) There would be another question asking which of the following is/are real operating systems:

a - lie nux
b - mac oss ex
c - winblows
d - net bdsm
e - windows experience
f - lisa
g - darwin
h - eliza
i - yellow dog
j - Windows 3.1

7) What's a grit?



I have one good thing to say about Yahoo! Personals: I haven't gotten any spam yet.

Match.com is full of spammers. I'm not sure if they are automated programs or if there are actual people typing this crap, but some profile with a picture of a pretty girl will contact you, pretending to be interested. After about a half dozen e-mails consisting of absolutely no useful content, the "girl" will ask you to check her out on her webcam. Of course, this is an attempt to get you addicted, thinking the webcam girl is actually interested in YOU. Don't bother. You can say crap like "suck my fat hairy monkey balls," and you still get responses along the lines of "great! I'll see you there!"

Believe it or not, True.com is even worse. True.com will send out winks to other people on your behalf without notifying you that it sent them. As a result, you get random rejections from people that aren't interested in you. Likewise, you get random winks and e-mails from people that also aren't interested in you. Of course, this makes it freaking impossible to tell whether any of the people are actually real or if it's just True.com being horrible for you. All of this is before you even give them any money! I didn't even bother to sign up for the free trial, since I was already being spammed like crazy just for creating a profile.


Anyway... what this all boils down to is that there are a lot of normal people on these things... you know, people that have an IQ of a little over 100 that are all just like everyone else: down-to-earth, outdoorsy, loves reality TV shows, organized... all the crap that drives me nuts.

Maybe I'm just better off flirting with the pretty girls that work at restaurants. What does it mean when I've started to pick restaurants based on the girl rather than the food? What, you think I should ask these girls out? The odds are so slim that she'll meet my minimum criteria, that I would rather live in blissful ignorance, letting her smile at me as she brings me my food.

I will never again explain the difference between a modem and a computer.

Feminism

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people too. Am I a feminist? Absolutely. Are you a feminist? Probably.

Feminism originally came about as an ideology to promote women's rights. Yes, that's what it still is. However, with third wave feminism, it's more than just that. First wave feminists wanted women to have the right to vote. Second wave feminists were the bra-burning, in-your-face types that seemed bent on world domination. Third wave feminism is somewhere in the middle--it's more based on the notion from the US Declaration of Independence: That everyone is created equal. We all deserve the same rights. Women don't deserve more rights than men; men don't deserve more rights than women. This notion can be taken much further than just sex. It applies to gender, race, nationality, and anything you can think of. (It shares a lot of common ground with humanism.)

You aren't better than me because you noticed that I oversimplified the definitions of the feminist waves. My high IQ doesn't make me better than you. You thinking I'm an arrogant snob for mentioning it doesn't make you better than me. :P My current struggle with depression and loneliness doesn't make me any less than anyone else. My salary doesn't make me better (or worse, for that matter) than anyone else. Your posessions or level of enlightenment don't make you more special. Your job doesn't make you better. Your struggle doesn't make you better. Your gender, height, appearance, skill, intelligence, creativity, accomplishments... none of this makes you any better than anyone else.

Your skills, experience, personality, and the likes may make you more valuable for a given job. We live in a capitalist society. There's no way around that. But why should your salary be dependent on how vocally you request a raise? Doesn't that mean that the person that doesn't demand a higher salary *doesn't* get the raise? Isn't there a problem here?

Am I a feminist? Absolutely. Have I always been a feminist? Well, not exactly. Having been raised in the church, being the son of a preacher, I had some deep, hidden beliefs that I didn't realize were there. I was "converted" in high school by a woman who later became my first wife.

What have I done since then? Well, I taught a rather self-deprecating frightened girl to see that she wasn't any less of a human being because she was female. This idea had been drilled into her head by her father throughout her entire life. It took her a long time, but she's finally blossoming as an independent individual. She's since moved on to a navy boy, and she's working on him too.

Birthdays

I have a birthday coming up in two weeks. I expect this to be the worst birthday ever. In fact, if I *don't* eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner alone, I will be amazed.

Okay, so I'm an introvert. I don't mind being alone. I don't mind eating alone. I'm perfectly happy with having one great friend. In fact, that's about all I've ever really been capable of doing. In April of last year, my best friend and I moved out to Los Angeles--a city 3000 miles from anyone either of us knew. I was fine with this. I had my one friend. In fact, I thought it was absolutely amazing being in a city full of strangers--just the two of us. We could be and become whomever we wanted.

I lost my fear of calling myself an atheist. I also lost my best friend.

She got a new friend. He wasn't really a new friend, actually. He was a guy that she had screwed over many years ago in order to wind up with me. He sent her flowers on her birthday, even after we got married.

In April of this year, she told me she was leaving me. A week later, my dad and stepmother came to spend a week with us here in Los Angeles. She pretended nothing was going on for their benefit. For much of May and June, I slept on our brand new sofa. The end of June, she moved out. She's now very happy with the new guy, and she believes she's finally found her soulmate. She's the happiest she has ever been in her entire life (her words). Last week, she went to North Carolina to see him. They are talking about getting married and starting a family by this time next year.

Last September, I was the happiest I had ever been in my life. It's amazing what can change in a year.


Today was her birthday. Well, happy birthday Bonnie. I hope you get everything you've ever dreamed of and more.






Okay... on a slightly more humorous note... I'm not going to have sex on my birthday. It'll be like my 18th birthday. Errr... well, maybe my 17th.

Skepticism. It's how the human race keeps learning things.

Skepticism has a bad reputation. We skeptics are often looked at as the evil naysayers that are unwilling to accept anything that isn't written in a science book.

A skeptic is someone who withholds judgement until all data is in. This doesn't just apply to aliens, Big Foot, and the Loch Ness Monster. This applies to everything. We're the people that also want proof for things like cold fusion and string theory. This isn't a bad thing. This is a good thing. It's this questioning nature that allows us to expand our vast pool of knowledge.

Did you know that the circumference of the earth was measured in about 240BC? By the 1st century AD, it was well accepted that the earth is round. What about the notion that people of Columbus' time were afraid that he would fall off the edge of the Earth? This was an idea create by Washington Irving in 1828. Don't take my word for it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth

Isaac Newton gave us equations to measure gravity. He was wrong. What about Albert Einstein? Well, he was wrong too. According to his equations, the galaxies require significantly more mass to behave as they do. As a result, we have theories of dark matter and dark energy. They are called "dark" because we can't see them. Until we have a definitive reason for replacing general relativity, this is the best we can do: assume there is stuff out there we can't see. While we may very well be fascinated with the notion, a skeptic doesn't particularly like this method of assuming something is out there just because the numbers say so (Einstein also theorized white holes in addition to black holes). Until reason is given to believe otherwise, "Dark Matter" goes in the crazy theory list--right along with String Theory.

Okay, so relativity is an approximation, though significantly more accurate than Newtonian gravity. What about string theory? It's a theoretical mathematical model of the universe that is so far out there that it makes no predictions and therefore can't really be disproved. This is like the idea of trying to prove that yesterday really happened--that we weren't all created fifteen minutes ago with memories of yesterday and a world around us that looks like it was here yesterday. Okay. I can't prove yesterday really happened. The best I can do is assume it did and assume that I'm going to be held responsible for what I remember doing yesterday. The theory of yesterday is a plausible theory, but it's completely useless. It makes no predictions. It doesn't enlighten us to any new knowledge we didn't already have. The theory doesn't help us with what to do tomorrow.

So what do we actually know? Well, technically nothing. But that's more of a philosophical debate than a discussion of skepticism. ;)

Quantum Electrodynamics (i.e. QED): Quantum theory as we know it hasn't changed a bit since 1932. Every time we create better testing equipment, we see that we were right in 1932. Okay, this is a little misleading. We've learned a lot since 1932. However, we have yet to find one shred of evidence to imply that the fundamental method of calculating probabilities is incorrect.


There is another theory that also has such an abundance of evidence. Despite its unpopularity in some circles, it's the foundation of a very large and important division of science. In fact, it's the reason people get flu shots every year. It's the reason you are supposed to take ALL of the antibiotics prescribed to you. It's the reason incredibly strong antibiotics don't work any more. It's the reason there are so many breeds of dogs. This theory has been around longer than QED, and yet no one has found any sound evidence to disprove it. Like all scientific theories, it only takes one piece of evidence.

A T-Rex with a human in its mouth would be enough to disprove evolution.


But don't take my word for it.

Divorce

As always, there are [at least] two sides to every story. With divorce, there is generally the person that leaves and the person that gets left behind. According to REM ("Leaving New York"), it's easier to leave than to be left behind. This is most definitely true.

While ending my first marriage was difficult, it was the most liberating thing I have ever done. It was difficult for a multitude of reasons, including that I knew I was hurting someone I loved. On top of that, I didn't move back in with my family. This was a huge financial strain (one that I'm still feeling today, nearly six years later), but the freedom and independence was well worth it, and I knew it at the time. I gave up nearly everything for my freedom.

In April of this year, my second wife told me she was leaving. This has been a remarkably different experience. I've been on anti-anxiety medication since shortly before moving out here, and that has made a world of difference. If it weren't for this, I would probably be suicidal again (that discussion belongs in a different blog).

In order to avoid allowing this post to devolve into a whine-fest (which I don't think anyone really wants to read), I'm going to sum up this paragraph by saying that my life is a bit depressing at the moment, and I'd love to hear from you people!

Anyway, my ex is already talking about getting married again, but I'm now petrified of commitment. I'm afraid I'm going to wind up with someone else that pretends to be everything I've dreamed of. I'm turning 27 in two weeks, and most of the women my age are ready to settle down and start a family.

I don't think I can go through this again.



What do you think? Is the bliss and emotional stability that comes with love worth the risk of emotional obliteration? Do you see things differently?

Freedom and Choice

According to Christian philosophy, god created us in his image, but capable of making our own decisions. Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. At this point, "sin" was impressed upon our existence.



Why did god allow the possibility of sin? Why did god give us the ability to choose between right and wrong? If god is without sin, then he is not truly all powerful. After all, this restriction means that *I* can do things that the Christian god cannot. I can move a five pound object from one location to another that god, in all his might, cannot. Why can he not move this five pound object? It's in a museum and it isn't for sale. For god to move this object, he would have to commit a sin: stealing. Yes, god should theoretically be able to create a duplicate of that object, but under absolutely no circumstances would god be able to actually *take* that object, as this would contradict the definition of god being perfect. If I can do something simple that he is not capable of doing, why should I strive to be like him?



Clearly, we have a capability that god does not: choice. Free will. By extension, we have something that he does not and cannot. We have something that many people have fought, killed, and died to keep. We have something that we treasure so highly that we believe everyone else should have it as well: freedom. God does not have freedom. There is no sin in heaven. Therefore, there is no freedom in heaven.



I like being capable of driving 66 mph in a 65 zone. I like being able to cross the street when there are no cars nearby, despite the fact that I'm not at a crosswalk or intersection. I like being able to expect women to be able to think for themselves (instead of being required to be silent at church and being required to ask their husbands what was meant). I like being able to overindulge myself on chocolate.



Why strive to give up the one thing that makes us more powerful than god? God cannot choose between the lesser of two evils, as both would constitute a sin.



To top it off, god *knew* eve would eat from the tree of good and evil, unleashing sin, suffering, and death upon us, and he still allowed it. In our legal system, this would make him a willing accomplice... guilty by proxy.

What is an Atheist?

I am an atheist. What does this mean?

There are many different and conflicting definitions, even among those of us that consider ourselves atheists. I believe there are two different sects of atheists. I describe the sects as active and passive atheists. A passive atheist does not believe in god, while an active atheist believes there is no god.

It's a subtle difference, but it's one that insites disputes among the atheists. Passive atheists do not believe there is a god, and they also insist that there is no way of knowing. By traditional definitions, this makes them agnostic, though many who hold these beliefs consider themselves atheists. This is the more open-minded approach, as this is the approach that skeptics tend to hold (skeptics reserve judgement until data is conclusive). Someone who believes the existence of god can't be known has arguably passed judgement on the possible evidence.

An active atheist specifically believes there is no god. Those that hold this belief tend to consider atheism as their religion. In the same sense that there can be open-minded religious people, these atheists also tend to still be open-minded, though they have come to a conclusion on the existence of a god.

Neither view is necessarily closed-minded. Most atheists have come to this conclusion based on the evidence at hand, including the various religions that are available.

Over the past decade, I've transitioned from considering myself a devout Christian to being an atheist. I believe there is no god. I believe there is no evidence to support the existence of a god or gods... including The Bible.