I heard somewhere that theres a time and a place for everything... Its called college. Back in my early 20s I had come home from work on a Friday, smoked a little funny cigarette, grilled a steak, baked a potato, made some green beans, popped open a cold beer, turned on some Jimi Hendrix, and sat down to enjoy a most pleasant dinner... when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find two guys with a Bible in hand (this kind of thing happens in Kentucky quite a bit)... They asked me if I could spare a moment of time. Now, as far as I was concerned, I was In Church when they rang the door bell...however, I opened the door wide so they could see my dinner and cold beer sitting on my coffee table, and they could hear my Hendrix playing...then I looked at them and said, Sure, if you dont mind allowing me a moment of your time in return. They happily agreed. They started telling me the usual stuff and I listened to them for a few minutes, but eventually I had to interrupt them... I started by explaining that we all come from 46 chromosomes (23 from mom, and 23 from dad)... and that these chromosomes produce only 5 senses... not 10.... not 20.... just 5. That is a LIMIT to our capabilities. Those chromosomes produce a brain that weighs approximately 3 pounds... not 5... not 10... This is another limit... I then went on to explain why it is we actually see things. I said, See that car over there? They said, Yes. I asked them if they knew why they saw it... and they looked puzzled. I said, That car is being hit by photons (light), most of which come from our sun. Some of the photons (blue wavelength ones, in this case) bounce off the car and fly into your eyeball. Now, when they hit the back of your eyeball, there is some chemistry that takes place as certain receptors fire up and send a message to other receptors... and then they communicate with other receptors... this happens several times before reaching the visual cortex in your brain (and I demonstrated where that region is). Then your brain fires up and tries to make sense of the information it just received... eventually your brain forms an opinion about this information and you conclude Blue Car. There are a few problems with this whole scenario... For starters, it takes a certain amount of time for the photons to travel the distance from the car to your eye. Sure, its a very short amount of time, but its not instant... so, this means we are not seeing the car AS IT IS... instead, we are seeing the car AS IT WAS a short time ago. Furthermore, when the photon hits the back of the eye and there is a chemical reaction, energy is lost (in the form of heat). Energy is lost with EVERY reaction along the way to the brain... AND it takes even more time... so, the information the brain receives is not only out of date, but its not complete. Energy is lost even more as the brain itself tries to understand the information... So... to sum it up: We have a limited number of senses with which to gather information. We have a limited sized brain with which to make sense of the limited information. We do not see the car as it is... we see it as it was... and the opinion our brain forms about it is based upon incomplete information due to losses along the way... the BEST we can ever have is a FUZZY kind of comprehension. We can not know anything with absolute certainty. At this point they looked a little put out and wished theyd never stopped at my door, but I wasnt going to let them leave just yet. I said, This reality doesnt apply to vision only. It applies to all of our senses. We can never accurately discern any smell, or flavor, or sound, or feeling. So, if we cant accurately discern the blue car across the street, Im fairly certain that the will of god or the nature of god can not be accurately discerned, either. To their credit, they didnt give up as I thought they would. Instead, one of them brought up something about morality coming from god... I said, Look, thats a load of crap. Let me explain. Entropy is a great constant... the tendency for things to go from an organized state to a disorganized state. Its very easy to destroy things (contribute to entropy), but its very hard to build and maintain things (resist entropy). For example: If you dont like that building over there, go set it on fire and itll be gone quickly [Im not endorsing arson... I was just using this as an example to illustrate a point, obviously]. However, if you do like that building, I challenge you to keep and maintain it. The more time goes by, the harder and more expensive it becomes to maintain. The same can be said about our lives. I said, I enjoy being alive. I love it! And Im going to resist entropy as best I can in an effort to keep living. This means Ill take care of myself, of course... but it also means Ill take care of those around me. If I want to shorten my life, I could do that easily... I could go around lying, cheating, stealing, and killing... If I did those things, I could be pretty sure that other people would stop me, maybe even kill me... but, short of that, I suspect Id create a rather miserable existence for myself, and that seems pointless to a person who enjoys being alive and looks forward to waking up every day. So, it just makes sense to me that I shouldnt lie, cheat, steal, or kill... and I dont need some big invisible guy-in-the-sky-by-and-by to tell me this... It just makes sense in the first place. So I disagree with you. I dont think morals and morality come from god... I think they come from an innate sense of wanting to live a long and happy life. They were ready to go at this point and thanked me for my time... and I thanked them for theirs... But I added one parting shot before they left. At the time, I was a Mathematics major and was doing fairly well at it... I said, Guys, I know where your church is and if I have any questions for you, Ill go there and ask you, so you dont really need to stop by here any more. But you should know that Im pretty good at Calculus. I wont be going to your church to teach people calculus, however, if you have any Calculus questions, you know where I live and youre welcome to stop by any time... Ill help you if Im able. I went over to my CD player and re-started the Hendrix album, then returned to my cold dinner and warm beer. Strangely enough, it was a very satisfying meal as I recall.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 23:45:52 +0000
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