On a side note, I need to work on editing my personal statement, ahhh!

A prideful pre-disclaimer: If you’re reading this, you’re as bored as I was before I began typing this. The significance of this post is relatively as significant as living life itself. Also, keep in mind I probably type 4 times faster than you,

I also wrote this post in chunks at a time and put it all together, so it may not flow coherently. Oh well.

Introduction

After discussion with a person who is Catholic, I was referred to Pascal’s Wager in the argument.

Then after wikipedia’ing for a few seconds, I jumped to the conclusion and response of:

Pascal’s Wager – if you believe in God, you have ‘everything to gain’ and ‘nothing to lose’;
e.g. If you believe in God, you have a shot of going to Heaven, yet if you don’t believe in him, you’re 100% going to Hell.

The actual wager:
- Gains: Sure, you have a shot of going to a place that is nice as Heaven as described by many people, a place that you have everything you want…
- Losses: Your ability to think outside of the box… to vary your interpretations of all issues… it causes you to be very close minded… too prideful of changing your beliefs because society shuns against people who adapt. You watch too many Disney movies and live your life as such… realize it’s a cartoon. They often make the protaganist say things such as “I am going to win because I believe!” yet never point out that the antagonist thinks the same thing but doesn’t say it dramatically. In the end, the antagonist changes his beliefs and/or pays the consequences for it. So the matter of whether or not you change your beliefs should be neutral… being adaptable isn’t so bad, right?

Sticking to your beliefs vs. being adaptable, these are just terms with relative interpretations.
It’s like calling someone slutty vs. picky; either term can be applied to everybody in different situations; they are negative connotations of opposing meanings.

Now with that out of the way, what sparked this?

A friend asked me: “so are you on the side of creationism or evolution?” (which was probably attributed to the post I had posted up previously – 40% of Americans believe in Creationism, the others believe in evolution or guided evolution)

I told him evolution. He agreed, but asked why I believed such.

There are many factors that contributed to my belief of evolution over creationism. First off, Pascal’s wager is great… for kids. I’m a Man. I believe things through facts rather than invisible logic. [Ad hominem ]

Factors contributing to this belief:

Specific organisms in specific habitats.
- Creationism: An animal is created blind. He digs his way underground and lives there. (or swims to the bottom of the ocean and begans life there). (What causes him to want to dig his way underground to live there? How can he even see his way? Was he created blind and under the ground at the same time?)
- Evolutionism: An organism mutated with a characteristic that favored the mutation over the original (through obstacles/events), causing the original to become extinct. e.g. a mole rat is blind because it never needed eyesight to live, and eyesight was taxing on the energy supply; or an animal that was previously blind gained eyesight and allowed it to live favorably in areas with light.
-Guided evolution: These people believe in evolution, but are too prideful to give up creationism.

Taxonomy.
If you look at the entire taxonomy of organisms, plants or animals, you can see a nice little tree branching out. This little tree is a perfect representation of divergance. Sure, perhaps organisms were created perfectly in their present state by God and we only started naming things according to similar characteristics. Or, these similar characteristics have causal value behind them. Sure, bats and birds both fly. However, bats are classified differently (mammals) because of more causal characteristics rather than correlated ones.

Mammalian fetus.
I’m not sure how much background knowledge the readers of this post have in biology, but in utero, the fetus is identical throughout many vertebrates. Only then through cells began to differentiate (from stem cells) and diverge to have more characteristically distinct features. In our DNA, there are many stagnant strands of genes that reveal ancestral characteristics that are no longer expressed in modern humans. This is an exact genetic representation of how evolution could have occurred through mutation — because sometimes evolution doesn’t erase its tracks. What’s the purpose of creating these stagnant genes? (Though if you ask that to a creationist, I’m sure a response along the lines of “God works in his own mysterious ways, we humans cannot understand him…” will be retorted accordingly.)

Souls.
We often believe that we each have souls. Why do we believe that? A factor could be that we all look very different and are very unique. When we say soul, I interpret that as an implication of an afterlife. The afterlife is connected to another topic discussed later. Some people acknowledge each other’s differences, but believe animals lack souls — probably because they think animals of the same species look the same. If this is the case, when do you believe we receive our souls? The aforementioned fetus, which looks all the same like any other animal, as it slowly differentiates… when does the gene for having a soul get expressed?

Happiness via denial of death.
It is a fact that normal people are afraid of death. Evolution supports this as those who aren’t afraid of death, are probably dead or are supported to live through other methods. Look at any kid, he/she is immediately afraid of death. It is inherent within all of us. Only do we began to think and operant condition ourselves to be fearless, do we become less traumatized by death. When we start watching movies or other people whom are rewarded for selfless acts, do we become more selfless. In essence, we’re all selfish and try to avoid death. Through this fear of death comes the tangent of denying death. We deny death by creating an afterlife. It assists us in coping with such tragic thoughts. On the death bed, you can’t imagine death because you’re really afraid. It helps us to believe that there is something more. Say for instance, your terminally ill mother is on her death bed. What do you say? You don’t link her to this facebook note… you explain how everything will be better. It makes her happier. Happiness, which was once defined by anything that was used to avoid death, is now considered instinct; with the new definition of happiness being a tangent of it.

Why is creationism even a thought?
It’s much easier to understand creationism than evolution. As a kid, I had always favored creationism. Because creationism is much easier to understand, it is only a temporary fix and guide to help live our lives. The primitive belief of creationism has assisted civilizations flourish throughout the past, for that, I am thankful for. Because without creationism, our savage caveman instincts would have took the better of us. Back then when we only needed a campfire and a couple of arrows to live, we would see a pig. I would have probably thought, hey, if I had killed you, I would get twice as much pork rather than sharing it with you. So, as you were aiming for the pig, I was aiming for you. It was hard to understand that if I hunted the pigs, I would get better at it and be more efficient. You could be washing the clothes or taking care of the kids and be better, and thus more efficient at it.Through the combined sum of our mutually beneficial actions would have a better outcome and more time to develop our technology and create things like TV’s and laptops. Through the mutual benefits civilization has gave us, you are able to read this facebook post and not worry about starving or being dehydrated. Look around you, do you really think working 8 hours a day could have mounted up to what you have now? You see, it was very hard for us to understand this. Even as kids, we hated to share. Even as adults, we often still hate to share. That is why creationism and religion was great, it helps unite people who can’t see past immediate causal outcomes.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are a plethora of reasons for me to favor evolution over creationism. The facts are there. In fact, it disheartens me to believe that there are many that believe in creationism. I wish to share what I consider as fact in hopes to enlighten others, just the same way as the pastor believes he is enlightening others. It is both through the genuine love we have for our fellow comrades that we attempt to teach our ways…. except I’m right.

Hopefully your pride will kick in and you’ll be saying something along the lines of “Well, I’ll believe what I want, so please respect that by never conversing with me over such topics because I am mentally incapable of comprehending topics that I must adapt to.” or something like “Ohh, u juz tryna sound smart” (more Ad hominem)

Post-disclaimer: Everything in this post is a figment of thought, or imagination if you will. Perhaps it is just a tangent of my actual beliefs.

P.S. – Hopefully I’ll have the balls to tag people in this as they post their biblical quotes as their status shoving BS down my throat… also that I won’t be too ballsy and tag people in this who rely on God to live their life correctly (and after reading this, but skipping the civilization part, will go on about shooting and raping everybody). I’ll also be tagging significant people that I’ve discussed with regarding this matter. Comments/replies I expect are those that are in favor of, or if those that are against the thought with reasons for such as to contribute to mutual enlightenment; any other questions about thoughts or parts people thought were humorous. I also expect to be losing some Christian “facebook-friends”

Other questions:

Am I religious?
I do take part from Buddhist believes regarding the cessation of suffering. I still partake in the community and go to my temple, and I’ll also still abide by the social norms. With Buddhism, I can still practice the spiritual belief and express my thoughts. However, Christianity and its sisters are more binary (1 or 0… you either believe or you don’t). Buddhism is much more flexible, allowing me to question beliefs and still room to think about. They also don’t really give a crap whether or not you were created nor evolved. Sure, they do have souls and believe in reincarnation, to me though, that is more attempting to cope with the suffering endured by the thought of death. However, I do not necessarily advocate Buddhism.

Hmm.. $825 compared to buying one a lot worse in performance

Anyhow, they were discussing how they disliked (most likely out of jealousy) how this one girl that walked by was so skinny and she was probably anorexic, and how another girl probably had implants, etc. Isn’t it interesting how society works?

What is the difference between getting a boob job and getting braces? Why is the former so shunned upon while the latter is neglected? The purpose of the boob job, the braces, the make up, the exercising is all for the ultimate goal of survival of the fittest. By making yourself more appealing to the opposite sex, it increases your chance to have progeny. However, by girls grouping up like a pack of hyenas and making things like “boob jobs” and skinny legs shameful they attempt to change society’s demands so that they, themselves are more acceptable.

Another incidence is how body builders that use supplements and other dietary modifications. They often call the people who use steroids “unnatural” so that they themselves can express how much dedication, funds and effort it took to make them that ‘big’. It’s like a cheater calling another cheater, more of a cheater…y’know? What about those guys that take nothing but their normal diet and exercise the old fashioned way? Their response is that the normal diet does not supply enough nutrients to properly bulk up while exercising. It’s like defending the people on roids saying “The supplements don’t supply enough hormones to stimulate growth by redirecting proteins to where it’s needed”

It’s all bullshit. People are all hypocrites. This is how natural selection works through social discrimination.
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On a side note, today was an interesting day. I won UNT’s “Hot shots from Hot spots” photography contest for a whopping $50

E-mail: “

Dear David Van,

Thank you for your submission to this year’s Hot Shots competition!  I am pleased to tell you that your photo, entitled “High Altitudes of Costa Rica” won 1st Place in the category of Landscapes from Afar.

Winning photos will be displayed & the winners announced at our gallery opening, Tuesday, November 17 at 11:30am in the University Union Courtyard (inside).   I hope you will able to attend & accept your prize of $50.

After the gallery opening, your photo will be displayed on the wall outside our office in the Information Science Building, Ste. 204.”

Not too shabby.

The photo that won it is

It’s not a great picture I admit, but it did the job.

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To-Do List:

- Apply for winter-break study abroad at Chile via GLE

- Call co-workers to see if anybody could take over shifts over the break

- Study for Comparative Animal Physiology Test (Test on Monday)

- Study for other miscellaneous classes

Random thought(s):

- I love the BFU (Big fucking umbrella) Adrian gave me.

- I am sore as hell.

- I need to quit procrastinating and study