(259) Snowy Spiderwebs

There's something very moving and majestic about witnessing a snow-covered spiderweb glistening in the morning sun like one giant snowflake and thinking to yourself: "If that spider's still alive somewhere he's having one hell of a shitty day."

(258) On the Watchmaker Analogy

It has been purported since at least the time of Cicero (before watches) that design implicates a designer and that if one were to find a watch somewhere one would conclude (with or without prior knowledge of the existence of watches) that it had been created by someone at some point. This is considered to be analogous to the idea that the existence of a complicated, functioning universe (which, itself, keeps time and is the basis of our idea of time - the Earth is actually a giant sundial) necessitates a designer.
What this argument is lacking is that if Man were to be theist and find a watch (or for that matter, a coke bottle, fire, etc.) and not have ever known what a watch was before, Man would conclude upon discovering its function that the watch was a sort of magic and wonderful gift from God. After the batteries/winder spring went out and the watch failed to continue keeping time, Man would conclude that the watch was some sort of demon trickery. After Man subsequently smashed the watch, he would discover that it had moving gears, sprockets, springs, and other parts inside and discover it to be a man-made, mechanical contraption. If Man were unable to repair or reverse-engineer the watch; he would shrug and say "the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away."
If this is the case, then this proves that the nature of the Universe does not constitute a creator, but the nature of Man constitutes the need to create the properties of a creator (or else the structure of fallible argument is flawed). Either way, the creation and destruction of the watch are falsely attributed to God. If this type of thing is falsely contributed to God, then it's wholly conceivable that any idea of God as a creator, moralizer, or even as existent based upon worldly truth is falsified; and this falsification is a part of human nature.

(257) Failure Begets Failure

I want to know how many tax dollars go into investigating the cause of the crash of NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter. I understand that it's an unmanned craft and that NASA had just wasted $300+ million and two years of research; but what exactly do they mean when they say that they are going to investigate the cause of the incident? Are they going to invest millions more in a conversion calculator? The development team and navigating team seem to be blaming each other; but what if artists nouveau devised a conspiratorial plot to create abstract art on the surface of Mars?

(256) Chicken vs. Egg

Big bang theorists: The whole Universe was in a dense, compacted state and then suddenly began expanding and is still expanding. Oh, and somewhere in there chickens and eggs appeared (although not necessarily in that order)
Evolutionists: Dinosaurs crawled out of primordial ooze and were turned into chickens with some sort of insofar indeterminable link between the two.
Hegel: Chickens and eggs only exist in actual reality if they exist both in the mind and in the world.
Hesiod: Both chickens and eggs emerged from primordial chaos.
Judeo/Christian/Islamic: God waved His magic wand and said "Let there be egg!" and then from the rib of the egg created the chicken.
Scientology: Aliens sent tortured spirits here; some of which became chickens.
Buddhist: It doesn't really matter because it's in the past and doesn't so much benefit the present state of the existence of chickens or eggs as to justify the research needed to speculate on it.
Vedic: One God or all of the gods made The Universe out of another god or the same One God and evolution may or may not have happened, resulting in a sacred cow. The rest is shrouded in mystery by our pathetic day-to-day lives.
Actuality: probably something wholly implausible which, if physically witnessed, would be explained in different fashions by each different religious train of thought.

(255) On Wisdom

I ask not to be granted wisdom, but only not to forever lose whatever wisdom I may amass in the wild, fallow thicket of human communication. Wisdom, in its nature, is not granted anyway, but carefully attained osmotically by the mind sieving practical sense from the barrage of canonical nonsense that systematically batters it - in much the same way that the mind makes sense of the physical senses. If all of this information was amassed in the mind, it would be necessary to our sanity for the proverbial dam to break or for our beliefs to possess a great degree of plasticity and our lives to contain very little stress. True wisdom is, then, found in the knowledge that how much one knows is not nearly as important as how one knows it, and found in knowing when to learn what is needed.

About This Blog

This blog is meant to be a continuation of the Tidbits of the Bohatnican Philosophy. The idea of creating pearls of wisdom on a blog (something other people have been attempting for twenty or so years) suddenly came to me today while trying to figure out how to work a Facebook app my friend, Drew made sometime before and simultaneously updating my profile's religious status. I gave up on the other two activities and immediately began searching for bloggers, which led me to THIS. I don't have a plan with any sort of updating frequency or anything, but after a year of writer's block I had something interesting to write about, so hopefully inspiration will set in some more.

(254) On Defining What I Believe

I'm thoroughly convinced that it's completely possible that every form of existence ever within possibility is simultaneously existent and at the same time nonexistent; and that our perception of space-time and representation of sameness between people is extremely flawed. This would mean that all beliefs, religious and otherwise would at the same time be both true and false. This form of thinking necessitates the existence of both a designer and chance in the purported laws of nature, and our perception of existence is a chaotic system which has failed as a result of both religion and the scientific process. Our need to know about our existence has impaired both our knowledge and our existence. I also think that it's wrong to define God by any sort of right-or-wrong standard because it hinders belief, possibility, and knowledge and skews morality. I think that this is where religion has failed. I also think that if God is perfectly flawless and the Creator of everything, he has created the world the way he wants it and to behave in a manner which we believe he wishes us to or to pray for things to be different than they are or will be is futile.
To illustrate this: I think the fact that The Universe revolves around the Earth in such a way as to make it appear that the Earth is spinning and rotating on a course around the sun is evidence of a very crafty designer. I think the fact that both Quakers and Scientologists coexist simultaneously is proof that if God exists, He either doesn't have a chosen group of followers or has a very sick sense of humor. I think that if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent, He has the ability to change himself and His own existence, and knows when and how it would be responsible to do so. Most religions consider Him to have the attributes of a bipolar tweenager. The frequency with which atheists point out the 'absurdity' of religious beliefs based on a 'lack of evidence' appears to be somewhat analogous to the amount of times religious people praise God for things they didn't think that they wanted. If there does exist a right and wrong interpretation of God, given the amount of different existing beliefs, the statistical likelihood that any one of our beliefs is correct is so incredibly low as to be practically negated.