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...

I am willfully ignorant of the process involved with kidnapping children, murdering people, etc., because I have no interest in those activities. More like anti-interest. That is different than wanting to hear your perspective on say abortion rights because abortion is wrong 100% of the time, end of story, my fingers are in my ears, la-la-la-la I can't hear you, you're wrong. In the latter, the person wants the other opinion to be wrong and so treats it with disdain in order to keep it in the "wrong" box. I would argue that is both willfully ignorant and stupid.

"100% of all climate change models have been wrong" Yes, in the same way that 100% of the directions of every airplane is wrong and does not lead exactly toward the proper destination. Flight is a constant adjustment and readjustment to a perfect, hypothetical flight plan from origin to destination which is to say that the actual flight plan is, by definition, a model . The actual flight plan based on that model is always wrong - due to wind, wind speed, weather patterns, the rotation of the earth, etc - which is why constant adjustment is required to reach the destination. Clearly, the general direction of the model is correct, evidenced by the fact that airplanes operated by professional pilots almost never mistakenly land at an improper destination. Likewise, no climate change model is going to be 100% accurate in its predictions, but clearly as every chart of any meaningful data shows, global atmospheric and oceanic temperatures are rising, the rise is caused by an unn...

This explains the current political wars of ideology. The non-engaged majority is simply being drowned out by the engaged minority with a bigger megaphone. This is a sign of the virus adapting to the evolutionary pressures of the modern consciousness environment. Yell louder. Dig your heels in firmer. Utilize fear over rationality. Because fear is what the virus is. That is the adapter that the phage engages to pass its code into a cell, just like fear of the unknown is the key to opening the door that unlocks consciousness to accepting the virus into its set of rules that are the basis for judging reality. This fear is the cause for the adherence to the ideologies of "going back to the safer times and ways of the past" and reluctance to adapt to change going forward. That reluctance to accept reality is what leads to rejection of reason and science, rejection of alternative genders, rejection of women having consent of their own bodies, and to embracing the illogical of the ...

Begin again. These might be the two most important words in my life, in the history of my life. Each moment of life is a new beginning, a chance to act, to be, to live. Realizing that moment is an experience of beauty for me, and my meditation practice helps me stay there in that present moment. Through my practice, I have come to a deeper understanding of why I hold that phrase and that concept so dearly. I hate myself. On some deep, fundamental, lizard-brain level, my brain, for whatever reason, is simply wired to make the most perfectly irrational conclusion it is possible to make as a sentient being: hatred of the self. I don't know why, I don't particularly care why. It just is. This self-hatred has played out in so many ways in my life: from not caring about school work to starting smoking to my devout religious days to suicidal thoughts. It spoke to tell me that I couldn't handle the schoolwork if I tried which made me not even start and then criticised me afte...

The things we fret over - our desires and aversions of the past, present and future - in our minds are not real. This is the simplest and most profound truth. But it is the depth to which they are not real that resonates with me the most. In all of the mind-numbingly vastness of space and reality, through everything we understand of the fabric of space-time and everything material and theoretical that exists within it, where physically is the future? If we could draw a map of the entire universe, could you point to a place on that map to locate the past? No. Why not? Because it doesn't exist. Time is nothing more than the measure of change in reality, and "when" is reality? Now. And now, and now. It is never "then". Nothing in the observable universe - no galaxies, no stars, no black holes, no physical entity that we have ever discovered - ever reflects anything more than what it is at the time of observation. Even the oddity of the double-slit experiment which ...

I certainly don't mean to suggest that I am enlightened in any way. I honestly don't think I know or have experienced enough to be qualified to determine if I am enlightened or not or to what degree I may be down the path, and given that fact, any consideration that I may be enlightened seems much closer to arrogance than to acknowledgment of truth. But the truth is I don't particularly care, and I think that is also kind of the point. To seek enlightenment is a desire itself. Enlightenment is not the goal; presence is the goal. Enlightenment is just the label we have applied to the experience of nothingness, no different than "rising"-"falling", "in"-"out", "lifting"-"placing"-"stepping". What I do know is that I am fundamentally different than I was six months ago, even three months ago, and different in an irreversible way. Living behind the waterfall is an appropriate analogy, but I resonate more wit...

The concept of nothingness and emptiness is also something I view as particularly aligned with the scientific method, and my dedication to (and even affection for) the scientific method provided me what seems to me to be an easier springboard for truly understanding - grokking - the concept and embracing it on a deep level. It is a misconception that we discover the truth in science. The reality is actually the exact opposite: we use the scientific method to discover what is  not  true, and then we move forward with those disproven claims and beliefs excluded from our concept of reality. I use the analogy of a pie. If we are given an apple pie and told there is a single cherry somewhere within it, how do we find the cherry? Do we point to some random area and declare Here it is!? No, we cut a slice out of the pie and investigate it, and when we find it does not contain the cherry, we repeat the process; we discover where the cherry, the truth, is not and exclude that slic...

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 ...

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...