Macabre – adj. 1. Suggesting the horror of death and decay; gruesome: macabre tales of war and plague in the Middle Ages. See Synonyms at ghastly.
2. Constituting or including a representation of death.
They say you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If this is true, and I believe it to be so, then the contents of this essay will likely leave me with very few flies indeed. But quite frankly flies arenāt something I particularly desire.
My policy has generally been not to publicly breach the topic of religion unless it is first breached by another. Throughout my daily life religion has been a very present undertone. Therefore my mind is clear of any guilt from discussing the subject. So now Iām writing this.
I, as some might know, am an atheist, and a proud one at that. Iāve been an atheist since fourth grade. Growing up in an America that not only didnāt share my views but actively sought to change them as if they were some disease that needed to be remedied was challenging. I do not say this to evoke sympathy, but rather to help those, who might be inclined to get upset, understand where Iām coming from.
I have, since my earliest recollection, had some notion of a god. However, the idea of a god was not some inherent idea that I had held deep inside of me since my birth. It was an idea that society had introduced to me, for I held equal stock in the idea that I could control wind with my mind or cast spells. But then around fourth grade I realized I couldnāt cast spells or control the elements through my mental ability. So, I began questioning things including the existence of god. āDo you believe in god?ā I asked my mother, who, with her encyclopedic knowledge of the world, I was sure would be able to answer me as she had always done. But to my surprise she responded āI donāt know.ā
So, I figured that there was no more reason to believe in god than in witchcraft and decided to become an atheist or at least not to care about seeking answers that couldnāt be, or havenāt yet been, scientifically found. Whenever one of me classmates would talk about church, or something of the nature, and ask me in his or her youthful ignorance what type of Christian I was, I would respond, āNone actually. I donāt believe in god.ā They would react in shocked outrage berating my beliefs. āWhat?! How do you think all this was created?ā and so on. So, to those who share their outrage and questions, I would have you allow me to briefly explain in a logical manner why it is I have come to the conclusions I have.
The question I most often get when people discover that my views are not in congruency with theirs and the one I first asked myself is: How do you think everything was created? I donāt know. I couldnāt really say. Iāve got some ideas but none of them are definitive. But I find the idea of a ācreatorā, some omnipotent all powerful being, a trifle irrational-in fact inherently illogical. Now, bare with me here: If a creator created all of existence, who created the creator? Some may say āJust accept that there was a creator who created himself or that the creator has always been there.ā If we can accept that, why then can we not accept that existence created itself or that existence has always been there? Why is necessary to have āgodā as a middle man? Are we so attached to the idea that a humanlike being is responsible for existence? I simply reject the idea that some sentient, humanlike being begat all that there is.
The more concerning question I intend to address is this: How can there be a clear good and evil if not for god? One of the reasons people find it necessary to conceive of some godlike being, is that we like the idea that there is some sort of ultimate justice-that the good will be rewarded with eternal goodness and the bad with eternal badness-that god ordains what is good and evil. I donāt believe that good and evil are absolute things. For instance I donāt think working on Sundays or that gays practicing sodomy are evil things. I think historically the lines of good and evil have been forever shifting, and have been determined only in a general sense by the society of the time on how we as humans can best coexist. How can I best serve my own interests while respecting others? Thatās how I try to live and feel that I have good values.
I donāt say these things just to ruffle feathers, though I do enjoy the occasional feather ruffling. I think itās good to be religious-spiritual I should say. Peopleās spiritualities have been responsible for fantastically wonderful things. I just find the presumption that someone who doesnāt believe in god cannot have good values insulting and irrational. So donāt write a brother off, huh?
Retromingent
— adj. Organized so as to discharge the urine backward.
— n. An animal that discharges its urine backward.
Here’s an interesting article critiquing Intelligent Design (it’s definately not creationism!). Anyways, it provides some evidence that is more easily explained by evolution than intelligent design. I mean, it could be that the designer was a moron, but that sort of invalidates the intelligent part of ID.
I’ve just got an idea, I will create a new theory called the Natural Algorithmic Design theory, or NAD for short. Basically instead of an intelligent designer, we can use an algorithm common in computer science that searches for a solution in a given space by the evaluating the fitness of a possible solution.
The solutions in this case could be the organisms and the space could be their environment, the Earth. The possible solutions are generated by combining random aspects of multiple previous candidates, and by pruning solutions that have low fitness scores. The idea behind this is that over time the parts of the solution that cause high fitness scores will be preserved, while harmful parts will be tossed.
One interesting outcome of the algorithm is that with a complex enough solution space, there may be many radically different solutions that emerge and they all can receive high fitness scores. The more complex the solution space, the more complex the solutions that emerge. This seems like it might make sense, as the Earth is very complex and the creatures on it are very complex. In fact, because of the interactive nature of the solution space, as the solutions become more complex, the space itself becomes more complex. Crazy!
Hmm, well then what will be the operator that will execute this algorithm? Genes found on DNA (and possibly RNA) are thought to control the development of organism. Perhaps that’s the most likely candidate. Until proven otherwise, I will assume that these are indeed the operators. And so I will call my final theory the Genetic Operator, Natural Algorithm Design theory, or the GONAD theory.
PS. The algorithm described is called a genetic algorithm, a subset of evolutionary algorithms
Minge – v. t.
To mingle; to mix.
Minge – n.
A small biting fly; a midge.
Minge – n.
vulgar term for a woman’s pubic hair or genitals
