Rick's Blog

My atheism has nothing inherently to do with my answer. What my answer does reflect is the lack of an answer provided by the magic or miracles of religions. My first response to the question “before the Big Bang?” is what does one mean by “before”? There was no before. Everything that we relate to as “time” began at the Big Bang. The “fourth dimension” of time may certainly be independent of our understanding of it (and likely is), but time as the means by which we detect changes of reality, i.e. the cause and effect phenomena, started with the Big Bang. So, in a manner that applies to everything other than theoretical math/physics, there is no “before” the Big Bang, and thus the question is nonsensical. That said, I think the actual question asked is What caused the Big Bang? My two meaningful positions on that question are as follows. First, while much of the math works, there are substantial problems with standard Big Bang theory. Inflation in particular not only makes no rational s...

When will we as a society allow people the dignity of ending their own lives when they have a debilitating disease before the disease takes them over? Why not take the opportunity to celebrate someone's life before we send them off on their final journey? It should be a bigger party than even a wedding, because it is a celebration a person's entire life. Think of it: imagine having an "honor event" for someone where the soon-to-be departing is memorialized with speeches and thank-you's and people's meaningful expressions of how he/she/they brought value in their lives. Picture the Kennedy Honors followed by a bar mitveh-like or wedding-level party. And at the end, we fondly send off the departing as we commonly send off the newlyweds as they drive away. Farewell in this new chapter of life. Why should it matter that the chapter of life that stems from the "honor event" is the final chapter? That is the whole reason for the party: to send them off kn...

The only one definition of God that could possibly, in any remote way, allow for God to exist is God is "correct". If God, if Truth, is some objective entity that surpasses all the laws of nature, then it must be perfectly logical, because that is the one quality that God must have in order to have created the universe as we see and experience it. We've proven omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence are all illogical, proven so with the one true "characteristic": logic. God must be compliant with all laws of nature, all laws of morality, all laws of reason, etc., because by God definition is "correct": perfect objective and subjective Truth. And the core of truth IS that it is correct; we know Truth because it is observable, testable, verifiable, because it stands up against the battery of reason and science. I don't mean that Truth is a neo-Platonic entity in some dual reality along with the physical manifestations of numbers. Rather, what ...

One argument for the existence of God is that if his ultimate morality did not exist and we will not suffer judgment for our actions, then ethics don't matter and we'd all be running around killing each other and raping and pillaging. But if you take a step back and just consider the possibility that if God doesn't exist, then humans would have invented our own morality, and the outcome of that morality would be exactly what we would already be doing: it would be exactly what we already see in the real world. In a world with no God, then where we have progressed to in our morality over all these centuries really is the result of humans "just doing it." If there really is no ultimate morality, then yes, we really would be able to just do whatever we want. And "whatever we want" has turned into exactly all of the moral codes of every culture on the planet. Sharing with the needy, caring for the young and elderly and sick, always good. Clubbing and eating ...

When someone suggests to you that creationism should be taught alongside of the theory of evolution because evolution is "just a theory", educate them on what a theory actually is. Whether you build a theory from the bottom up, as science does, or from the top down, as a prosecuting attorney would in a court of law, a theory is the top layer of a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid are facts: irrefutable, observable truths of nature. The next layer up are laws: consistent and often calculable explanations of those facts. Built on those laws and facts are hypotheses: suggestive and predictive inferences which can be tested and verified or proven to be false. The sum of the verified hypotheses themselves IS the theory. It is precisely because evolution is a theory that creationism cannot be taught alongside it. Creationism provides no facts about reality, provides no laws to describe those facts, and therefore offers no suggestive or predictive hypotheses which can be tes...

It helps them. Science can provide some of the most inspirational religious experiences. Consider the imagery described by Carl Sagan: A still more glorious dawn awaits Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise A morning filled with 400 billion suns The rising of the milky way Imagine the majesty, the inspiration, the "evidence" for the glory of God shining down on us by a magnificent sunrise. Now multiply that by 400 billion. Now multiply that by 1 trillion (estimates place the approximate number of galaxies in the visible universe at 1.4 trillion). And that represents only the subset of the universe that we can see and only that which we can see with our most sophisticated instruments. God, if He exists, is greater than all that. Humans, in our weakness, can be brought to tears by the "majesty" of God evidenced by the dawning of a single star when in reality that vision represents an infinitesimally small portion of God's true glory. The degree to which we experi...

I have often used this analogy when describing logical thought and how some people (usually religious) refuse to see the obvious shortcomings of how they look at things. Consider this familiar setting: Wile E. Coyote looks across the canyon and see the Roadrunner. So he gets a bunch of planks of wood and nails one to his end of the canyon. He walks to the end of that plank and nails another plank to the end. He walks to the end of that plank and repeats the process until he runs out of planks almost all the way to the Roadrunner. The Roadrunner points down and runs away. Wile E. Coyote looks down, waves to the camera and falls down the canyon. Wile E. Coyote extended his thought process without having the proper logical support for the thought he already had and extended himself all the way across the canyon with no support to stand on. Eventually, his entire system collapsed under its own weight, as it should have from the very first plank. And this is the problem w...

O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! To be indeed a God! ~ Walt Whitman, " A Song of Joys " I have come to know the joy of this inner strength of which Uncle Walt sings.  Didn't particularly like the path that brought me here, but as they say "no pain, no gain."  I struggled against those great odds, and they tore me down, but now I see they only succeeded because I allowed them to succeed.  I gave myself up to them.  Now the wool has been pulled back from my eyes, and I have reclaimed me for me.  I have remounted the scaffolding and rebuilt myself.  And now I know no fear.  I know no tyranny over my mind nor over my heart.  I meet my enemies undaunted, because they cannot make me cower before them.  I advance against them with perfect nonchalance, because their attacks cannot hurt me.  They are insects to my po...

I was thinking about why it is I think the way I think, like what exactly are my primary motivations for aspiring to live by my virtues. And I came up with this partial answer: Data. Lt. Commander Data, Science Officer of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701D. Hear me out. I live my life with as much emotion as possible. I allow myself to feel and feel deeply, because I believe that is embracing life, and living life fully, and experiencing, being "close" to God. Because I now flex that muscle, I am strong. Because I embrace my emotions and my desire to laugh and especially my desire to cry, my emotional muscle strength can keep me in control when emotions like anger and fear come up. Because I feel and because I laugh and cry, anger and fear no longer control me - I control them . I am now stronger than them. I now have the whip and chair. And my animal will no longer overpower my human reason and my ability to stay in control and analyze and find the best solution to any situation...

Being a huge Genesis fan, I am obviously a fan of Peter Gabriel. I'm not crazy about his music since he left Genesis, but he is hands down one of the greatest lyricists in the history of rock'n'roll. In fact, one of his Genesis songs "The Cinema Show" was included in a college-level text book on modern poetry as THE song representative of the entire rock'n'roll genre, but I digress... "Solsbury Hill" is sheer genius and has always been one of my favorite songs of his, but only recently have I understood the deeper meaning of the lyrics. I won't take up space with the lyrics, but you can follow along here . This is my interpretation of the song: First verse: in a moment of clarity, he is rescued from his own life. Second verse: he decides to turn within to rebuild himself, silently, lest anyone consider him a nutjob for thinking that he actually has the power to fix himself, because in the eyes of others, that would require Jesus-like ab...

I am of the belief that what problems we suffer through in life effect us only as much as we allow them to.  The Christians depicted demons for centuries as vicious carnivores filled with evil.  I don't believe in demons like that, but I believe that the fear the imagery inflicts on us is the result of something real.  The true demon is the tendency within ourselves to submit our own will to depressive and self-degrading thoughts, as if to cower before them like they were giant red creatures with horns and pitchforks.  The truth is because you are alive and sentient, you have the ability to do whatever you choose to do, and no demon has any power over you.  The day a person stands up to that fear inside of them that tells them they are unable to overcome Problem X (weight, job, relationship, etc) is the day that person claims their God-given ability to control their own destiny and to cast out that demon.  If you are unhappy with your appearan...

...but in order to be able to understand that, you need to know the background story. A lot of this is pretty Christian sounding, however I am no longer a Christian. But, since I was for most of my life, and because I minored in New Testament Literature in college, it is just easier for me to speak about God in Christian terminology. ----- Luke 18.16-17: "But Jesus called for them and said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.'" I take that passage very seriously. In fact, it is one of the tenets of my life. I believe what Jesus is referring to here is the present. The "kingdom of God" is not heaven, it is now. It is the relationship with God through Christ that humans have now. We no longer need to live in the broken relationship with God because of our sin, constantly burd...