Morality

A while back I saw a video on youtube by Brett Keen about morality. The topic was: "Can atheists be moral?" In his video he explained how atheists could be moral people. Going back to the definition of atheism, it's only an individual who lacks the believe in a deity.

What the question should be is: "can an atheist have a belief system?". Religion is just that, a belief system with some sort of "god/s" at the center. So, if atheism is only the lack of belief for a certain belief system, why can't they have some different belief system?

Addressing the original question that Brett Keane discussed in his video, Atheists can be moral people. The moral "code" that they follow is in accordance with their belief system. What must be understood though is that people who follow a certain moral code do in fact have a belief system, whether they call it a religion or not.

So what about me? I consider myself an atheist, as well as an agnostic. What sets me apart from most is that I do not have a belief system. The words: right/wrong, good/evil mean nothing to me because they resulted from a religion and/or some other sort of belief system. I may coincidentally follow a moral lifestyle, but it is just that, a coincidence.

To further illustrate what I mean I'll give some examples. Let's seee....here's a simple one. To a religious person, it may be "wrong" or "immoral" to steal and so therefore they will not steal because of their belief system. I'll be truthful, I used to steal all the time. When I was in high school I stole a magazine from the local cvs every week or so. The only reason I stopped was because I was caught once. I became scared that I would be arrested, so I stopped stealing. Now I don't steal because I'm afraid I will go to jail, not because I believe it's immoral or wrong.

To society, I appear to be a moral person, but I'm actually not. I am not moral, but most of my actions are, according to the viewer with the belief system.

You may be thinking, "shut up with indication of the belief system". It's actually very important that I specify this. I'm probably just confusing you, so I won't explain why.

I think I'll end there. Comments are appreciated.

P.S. If you would like to view Brett Keane's videos you can find him on youtube or just by clicking here

Another blog about religion and such that I've been reading you can find here

Miscommunication

Today, I came to the realization of the applications of miscommunication; how very often they occur and how catastrophic the results can be.

A small example is a button my mother gave me. It says "God doesn't believe in me either. Things even out." I first interpreted this as someone else also not believing in "me", because of the word "either". What I thought it meant was that since god and whoever looked at the button don't "believe" in the person who owns the button, things evened out in the sense that both views don't matter. As you might see, that doesn't make much sense. Later, I reworded it so that it made sense to me: "I don't believe in God. God doesn't believe in me. Things even out." That makes more sense than the original, but again doesn't make any sense at all because how is it possible to know if God doesn't believe in me? Also, if I don't believe in God, how the hell is he supposed to believe in anything if he doesn't exist in my mind?

Anyway, I concluded that it was just meant to be a funny atheist pin, which is appropriate for me. But I still believe that having the word "either" included makes the message quite confusing. My above explanation probably makes no sense either, which leads to another theory: if you try to explain a miscommunication and you are part of that miscommunication, it will become ever more complicated.

This miscommunication, no matter how small, may lead to something as extreme as a war between two countries or something as trivial as a high school breakup. They exist everywhere and happen everyday and most go unnoticed. Which makes you think: how much do we really understand about each other?

Me, Myself, & I

Hello folks! I'm going to make an effort to make a note here every day. They say you learn something new every day. That is exactly what I will post. So here I go.

Today I noticed......what did I notice again......hmmmmm... oh yeah....I noticed that....actually I'm not even sure what I noticed. More of the everyday observations that I make every day....without really learning anything. But there has to be something right? "Thinking of something extremely trivial"......hey! I noticed I can type much more efficiently with my nails cut short and filed. Yes, that's all.

Actually no, that's not all. There's something bigger that I did want to bring up, but I'm not exactly sure how to express it. Um ok...I don't generally like being involved with social activities. I'm just not the type. I guess I could have been the type. I suppose it all depends on your upbringing and atmosphere. I'm sure it's all very complicated how we all come to be. My sister and I for example are only two and half years apart in age and were brought up in the same house....for the most part and our personalities are completely different.

Anyway, I will stop that rant short; for there are an infinite number of reasons why we turn out the way we do. So what the hell am I trying to say? I'm eccentric. I'm sure I'm not the only own of my kind...I'm sure there are different variations and degrees of similarities, but I feel that I'm on of the furthest away what is considered "normal". Of course I don't know this for sure, I'm just basing it what I have observed thus far in my life.

I guess I should be more descriptive. I like being alone. I am more at ease when I'm by myself. I don't have to worry about anything....my looks, making a good impression, or entertaining anyone. I don't really care about that stuff anyway, but I like when it's absent altogether.

Besides that, I feel as if my view of the world is vastly different from everyone else's. I know that everyone perspective is different, which is why I included the word vast. I'm also aware that my perspective is the only one I have ever experienced. I say that mine is vastly different from everyone else's because of the comparisons I make between other people's actions and my own.

I can't really list all my evidence right now. I will leave this for later entries.

That's all for now.

Ramble

So instead of having a point to a post, I'm just going to ramble tonight. Remember in your early high school english classes when you had to write in that little blue book for the first ten minutes of class? How many of your teachers actually told you to write "I do not know what to write" if you didn't know what to write about? So yes, this is one of those posts. I do not specifically know what to write about. I am back from spring break after a week straight of procrastination. My roommate asked me if I got any work done over break; this was of course a rhetorical question.

I am mainly writing because I am not tired, which is too bad considering my first class starts in let's see....six hours. My schedule gets pretty messed up when I don't have to be anywhere. This is because I only go to sleep when I am tired. I hate trying to force myself to sleep when I'm wide awake. I much prefer falling asleep within a few minutes, as apposed to hours. I suppose this is because I never mastered the art of putting myself to sleep, but I'm pretty sure it's something else.

I am rarely bored. I always find something to do with myself, something distracting. When trying to force myself to sleep, I become bored, and I start thinking. Then I drift into a melancholic river of memories. By distracting myself up until the point of passing out, I can avoid this feeling of sadness.

Whenever I have a silent moment, this sadness creeps back; I can't go a day without it slipping into my thoughts. It is at its worse when I must force myself to sleep.

I haven't had a ramble like this in a while.

Rambles are fun.

I like rambles.

I should do this more often.

Goodnight!

Living on the Edge

In response to my last entry, which was an eternity ago, I came across a quote from the movie James Bond Die Another Day. I couldn't remember the exact wording, so I altered it a bit: By living on the edge, we know who we truly are.

I am still not living on the edge. Actually, I'm still still in the same boat. I have yet to take that leap. On top of that, I'm currently sampling a band called The Shins, which puts me in somewhat of a carefree mood.

I recently filled out a survey one of my sisters posted, and one of the questions asked : "what is one thing you want to happen in 2007?". My answer was the word "passion". As it may appear, I did not have a relationship in mind. I was thinking about my studies. One day I glanced down at my floor and noticed my textbooks haphazardly shoved underneath by bed. I pondered to myself, "If I am person of science, logic, and philosophy, why am I not treating these books as my bible?". I realized that I am not passionate about anything other than perhaps compulsive downloading.

I understand what needs to happen, yet I just sit back and apathetically bob my head to the sound of The Shins everyday.

What better song to hear now, Sleeping Lessons....at 3:00 a.m....while watching the snowflakes fall passed my window....so blissfully....wondering what tomorrow will bring....

Fear of Failure

I generally don't fear anything. This is what I have lead myself to believe, until recently. There has been an underlying fear that I have chosen to ignore. I have come to realize that in order for me to succeed, I must overcome it.

To be more specific, I only fear failure if I have truly given it my all. I suppose it's a fear of testing my potential. I couldn't imagine how I would feel if all of my efforts yielded meager results. My excuse so far has been the fact that I don't apply myself. I fear what might happen if I actually do. I've been avoiding it so far.

No matter what my limits may be, I need to test them, examine them, experiment with them, and finally embrace them.

Motivation + Inspiration

So here I am sitting on a huge pile of work at two o'clock in the morning carrying out my usual activities of procrastination. I eventually resort to a seemingly endless gaze of my desktop, head in hand, waiting for some inspirational hand to pop out of my notebook screen to smack me in the face. No such luck. Despite my purposeful placement of the drawing I find most inspirational, I remain unmotivated. It seems as though motivation and inspiration are separate entities. If something I admire to the highest degree doesn't motivate me, what will?

Something has to change. I don't know what, but I hope it happens soon.