Arguments For/Against God part 1

I am not going to talk on the existence of God at this point, and I believe accepting anybody's beliefs, but I do not believe that people should be so ignorant as to be taken in by idiotic arguments as those I will list below.

According to St. Anselm of Canterbury in 1078:

It is possible to concieve of a being than which nothing greater can be concieved.

Even an atheist can concieve of such a being, although he would deny its existence.

But, goes Anselm's argument, a being that doesn't exist is, by the very fact, less perfect.

Therefore, we have a contradiction, and Presto, God exists.

It is false to simply believe that because we can dream something, then it will be so. If this were true, we would have unicorns and martians running around all over. We can't simply say that because we can concieve a God, then he exists.

The Argument From Degree:

We notice that things in the world differ.

There are varying degrees of goodness or perfection.

We judge those degrees only by comparison against a maximum.

Humans can be both good and bad, so maximum goodness cannot rest within us.

Therefore there must be some other maximum to set the standard for perfection.

We call this maximum God.

Is this an arguent?? We may as well make this same reference with any degree of comparison. We may as well say that the pre-eminently stinky being is God, as he is the maximum degree of smell, that all other smells are measured against. This same argument can be used in hundreds of thousands of cases, and recieve equally false concusions.

More on this subject later.

Entropy...

So, we were sitting in Chemistry today, talking about Entropy. For those of you who don't know, entropy is the tendency of a system toward disorder. The more orderly a system is, the more stress is put upon it. Everything in the natural world attempts to remove stress whenever possible, so everything, our Earth, the Universe, my bedroom, literally everything tends toward disorder.

Not to hear my parents tell it, though. "I just cleaned that, can't you pick up after yourself?" "Why isn't your room clean?" These inquiries plague me constantly (btw, I am not a neat person, in fact, I'm extremely messy). Considering that one of my parents was a science teacher, you'd think they would understand.

Anyway, everything tends toward disorder when not acted on by outside forces, and I believe that is the problem with our economy. Without the outside forces of government regulation, our economy's entropy has increased to a critical level (thank you Republicans). Now, we need a greater input of force to decrease that entropy again.

"Everything falls apart.

Entropy increases.

People make memories, die, and pass into memory.

Even memory fades and passes into shadow,

And so ends what once was."

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

I finally read the Watchmen graphic novel, and I have to say, the movie was very, very close to the script of the book. Word for word in some places, in fact. The only real difference I noticed was in the scene where Roarschach kills the kidnapper, and the method in which that is carried out. This just made all the happier with the movie. Still, the graphic novel is amazing and anyone who has seen the movie or wants to see the movie should read the book.

"I go now willingly into the dark, having lived my life without compromise." -- Roarschach

And Now, To Call Even More Attention To Those Who Don't Need It...

We, as a nation, have a problem getting our priorities straight. It seems like all you can find on TV is the latest news out of hollywood...the get-togethers, the breakups, happy stories of success, heartbreaking stories of the price of that success, and so on. I don't know about you, but to me this seems to be a huge waste of time. I mean, come on. Do I really need to know every minute detail of the Stars' sex lives??

I believe that we could better spend our time hearing of something that actually matters. Maybe part of the mess we are in now can be attributed to laziness on the part of the people of the United States. Maybe, if we got away from the pointless television we are so fond of, got off our lazy asses and actually did something for our community, country, or planet, we could actually make a difference.

You probably think I'm crazy right about now, and I know you all love your tv shows, but think of it this way: If every person in America turned off the tv for one hour and used that hour to benefit someone besides themselves, we would have donated about 304 million hours of labor. If each donated hour was figured to be worth at least minimum wage ($7.25/hour), we would donate over 2.2 billion dollars of work. Think of the improvement this could have on our communities. And what would we have lost? Possibly the knowledge of which stars have breast implants. Wait, you can see that again tomorrow night, so...NOTHING!

I believe that The United States became the great nation it is because of its people. Specifically, their ability to overcome in the face of hardship, the way they worked, and their willingness to help one another. I think we are currently lacking as a nation in those traits, and that is why we got into our current crisis. It is my belief that if we can come back to these core values, the United States will again become the leader it has been in the past. The first step is learning to care more about our neighbors than about the lives of the stars.

Who Watches the Watchers?

I went to see Watchmen last night. It was a good movie, if you like blood/gore and sex scenes. If not, I'd avoid this movie, but I thought it was good. It was another movie about the ambiguity of good and evil, covering aspects of vigilante justice gone wrong and heroics in the face of total annihilation (Nuclear War). Watchmen did a very good job of covering these bases, and was a good (non)superhero movie. I'd give it four out of five stars.
Oh, and Roarschach was awesome.

Stupidity Without Moderation

Ok everyone, I can understand it and bear it patiently when a person truly has no idea what is going on, and when they have a good reason for it. In such a case it is the duty of those of us who do have the lacked knowledge to educate the unfortunate person who does not. This is understandable. We all have times when we are lacking crucial knowledge and because of this lack, we may end up looking stupid or foolish. This does not bother me, as long as the person lacking knowledge makes and honest attempt to gain that knowledge.

The people who really make me mad are the people who have the capacity to be somewhat intelligent, and yet act completely and utterly stupid because they think it will make them more popular or some b.s. like that. These peole do not deserve the attention they are trying to get, they do not deserve our pity. They deserve a swift kick in the butt to get them back on track. They deserve to have someone tell them to grow up. These are the people who can understand, and should understand, but choose not to.

Lately I notice more and more of them wherever I look. Where do they come from?? Why can't they stay there until they figure out that we don't appreciate the faked, forced stupidity?

First Post - About Me

Hello Everyone.
Just a little information about my self for my first post:
I am a high school senior in a small town in Minnesota. I can't wait for graduation day. Life is kind of crazy right now, so I may not post consistently. I am involved in so many activities that I basically have no life. Just to name a few: Robotics, Knowledge Bowl, Band, Choir, Student Government, Mentoring, Golf...The list goes on.

Warning: Some of my material may be nerdy...it's the way I am. I am in Robotics after all. My friends and I attempt to invent things in our spare time. Today's topic was an underwater DPV, an aid for Divers. See what I mean???

Anyway, I will often rant about my highschool, as it is very easy to find fault with the people who attend it. There are some good things about attending a small highschool, but some crazy stuff happens as well.

I also have an understanding of math and science, and I enjoy debating political issues, so this could get very interesting. I dislike organized religion, for reasons I will go into eventually.

Well, that's about all for now.

Oh... by the way, The Office is the best show ever. Watch it. Thursday nights @ 8:00 on NBC