It's all but official. Your standard point-n-shoot camera, the little Canon's, Kodak's, and Sony's of the world, has it's days numbered. And its a low number indeed. I once derided the notion of camera's in cell phones. The sensor too small, not enough megapixels, the lens too simple, all of these were reasons to shrug off the cell phone camera as too primitive to be useful.
Well not any more. The camera in the iPhone4S is downright magnificent. It's easy to use, it lets you upload straight to Facebook, or Twitter, or Flickr, or (gasp!) even e-mail! Your Canon PowerShot can't do that! Even if it could, it can't perceptibility beat the iPhone4S in image quality. Sure its only 8MP, and why would you need more than that to upload to Facebook? Hell, even to print to a 4x6 or 8x10, even 5MP is enough. About the only thing the iPhone lacks is a good zoom and better high-speed flash. But when you are downtown at the club and drunk-dancing with your bff, will you really care? Will it really matter to most people if the scene isn't fully and properly lit? Of course not. If it did, we'd all be toting SLR cameras.
But we are not. Sure the SLR will be the mainstay of any serious pro or amateur photographer, to achieve that nice depth-of-field, High Dynamic Range, and telephoto effect. But why would would anyone bother carrying a second device with them now when their phone already does the job.
Yes, my little friend, your days are numbered. I'll miss you.
I'm having an existential crisis. I've recently been reading about free will, morality, entropy, and astronomy. At first glance, not all these topics should be in the same sentence, or even blog post. Yet, here they are.
I'll start with free will. Evidently, we don't really have it. I find it difficult to accept this, seeing as I am here seemingly free to debate whether or not there really is free will! Is it possible to have a debate about free will if we don't have free will? Can a being even describe the concept of free will it doesn't exist? How did the universe manage to progress to a point to evolve beings that could postulate the illusion of free will if the universe is deterministic? The paradox of this question blows my brain. Its like the chicken and egg on steroids.
So if we don't have free will, are we morally responsible for our actions? I know one thing I do refuse to accept is that people do not know right from wrong. Everyone knows that it is wrong to murder, rape, steal, cheat, torture, etc. Frankly, I don't think that there are any circumstances when any of these crimes are justifiable. If everyone played by the rules, No one would feel compelled to steal, or to murder, or to cheat.
So if our actions are deterministic, shouldn't the knowledge of the laws and punishments for committing crimes be enough to warrant giving punishment? My brain receives information. That information causes me to act in a certain way. A decision is made (evidently before I am even conscience of it), and I act. As long as the information my received is correct, the brain should make the right decision! (Overly simplistic I know, a book could be written.) So yes, you are morally responsible, even if free will is an illusion.
Now with astronomy and entropy, I've learned a very sad fate to the universe. It will likely never end, all matter in the entire universe will end up in black holes, until the black holes themselves radiate away their entire mass, protons themselves will either decay or all energy and matter will reach maximum entropy and there will be no light, no matter, no motion, no energy. Just blandness. Indeed, this will not happen for many trillions of years. Even still, to think that there will be a time with there will be no shape at all to the universe, that there will not be any life to look and marvel at the wonders of existence, to peer into the past and examine its own beginnings, a sad fate indeed.
Which brings me to my crisis. What is the nature of existence? Why is there a universe? What caused it? Is that even a valid question? How absurd is it to think it is that the universe doesn't have a cause?!
OK, gotta stop now. Back to worrying about my retirement fund...
* This blog entry contains pictures of graphic destruction.
So this is the result of a full on collision with a moose. I was the driver and walked away with a couple of scratches. I think I'm pretty lucky to be alive. Nevermind how lucky I am to be uninjured (which I consider more astonishing). My dad of course thinks "someone" must be looking out for me.
What I would like to share is that when you are driving at night, unless you have the virtue of driving with high beams on at all times, moose are nearly impossible to spot. This moose was standing in the middle of the road, and I didn't see it until it was only 15 metres in front of me. I was driving about 85KPH, I may have managed to get my foot on the brake before impact, but I doubt it. I do remember hearing the tire screech. I don't know how long it took me to decide to get out of the car.
A friend on Facebook commented that "I can only assume your grandma-like driving practices saved you this time." I agree. I'd hazard to guess that had my speed been much higher, the scratch on my head could have been much worse.
I am continually amazed at the speed of which people pass me at night. The news is full of reports of injury and death every WEEK. Newfoundland is averaging 2 moose-vehicle collisions PER DAY.
In the day, I drive 110KPH. At night, especially when I have to lower my lights, 80 is my new speed. Even lower if its foggy or raining. Anything else is putting yourself at unnecessary risk. And for what, a getting there a few minutes earlier?
FYI: The police came by and shot the moose. I broke its legs and it couldn't get up. Probably fine otherwise...
If you criticize religion, then every so often somebody will say to you quite disapprovingly, "You may not have faith in God, but you could show a bit more respect for those people who do." And you might find yourself thinking, "Well actually, maybe they're right, it wouldn't hurt to show a bit more respect, after all, nobody likes to be told point blank that their religion is a crock of delusional garbage and a force for delusional evil in the world. That what they call faith is merely fear dressed up as virtue, and that their puerile beliefs are a straightjacket on the whole of humanity." That's bound to put anybody's nose out of joint. So yes, maybe I could show a bit more respect.
The only fly in the ointment is, I don't actually feel any respect. I have tried, I really have, and I feel just terrible about it but, it just isn't there. I suppose I could lie to myself and pretend for the sake of people's feelings, because we all know how delicate and tender they can be these days. But, the bold truth is I don't actually care about their feelings at all, not even slightly. And of course I realize that should weigh heavily on my conscience, but luckily my conscience knows when its being bullied and manipulated, so it doesn't care either.
My conscience knows that there is no earthly reason for anybody on this planet to respect religion in any way. Indeed, purely on the evidence, religion itself provides in such regular abundance, there's every reason to actively disrespect it to the point of outright abuse. And quite frankly, the fact that religion gets so little abuse compared to what it really deserves, I could only attribute to the unbelievable tolerance, restraint and plain good manners of atheists and secularists everywhere.
So if you are a religious person and if you're thinking of demanding more respect for your beliefs, please try to bear in mind that you and your religion are already getting way more respect than you've ever deserved. Your faith, is a joke. Your god is a joke. He's so absurd, he's an embarrassment, even to people who don't believe in him, and he and you, still have it all to prove. So far, no proof has been forthcoming, nor is it likely to be, as we all well know. So respect, I'm afraid, is out of the question. The best you could hope for is amused incredulity, and that would be on a good day.
People say "Well, you can only truly understand faith when you have faith". Which I take to mean when you've suspended your critical faculties and hypnotized yourself into believing a load of fascist nonsense about your eternal soul then you'll understand faith. Well I can certainly believe that.
Faith peddlers like to put themselves beyond question by claiming that their faith transcends reason, the very thing that calls it to account, how convenient. Yes, faith transcends reason the way a criminal transcends the law. The word transcendent is very popular with religious hustlers because they never have to explain precisely what they mean by it other than some vague, superior state of understanding more profound than mere reason, which is crude and simplistic next to the subtleties and profundities of belief without evidence.
If you hear a senior clergyman, and you will, using the word transcendent, to explain the nonsense he claims to believe, then you know two things; One, he doesn't know what he's talking about, and two, he doesn't want you to know what he's talking about either. Faith doesn't transcend reason at all. Faith sidesteps reason. It runs away from reason because reason threatens it's cozy bubble of delusion, so faith disqualifies reason the way a Dutch criminal court disqualifies truth and witnesses, and for much the same reason.
If you're a believer, your faith allows you to adopt a set of beliefs that make absolutely no sense, knowing that you won't be measured by whether they make sense, but by the level of piety that you exhibit in believing them. In other words, your willingness to deny reality becomes a measure of your virtue. No wonder religion is so popular.
But what a price you pay for this virtue. You've been persuaded that believing in the impossible is your only hope. How did that happen? And that your purpose is to worship something beyond your understanding, defined by, and only accessible through self-appointed intermediaries. Your thoughts, your words, and your identity are no longer solely yours to decide, but are subject to the approval of those who have assumed authority over you through your faith. The people who have told you that you were born with something wrong with you, come on, in a state of sin, no less. A condition that can only be cured by complete submission and obedience to them, surprise surprise, from the moment you're born, to the moment you die.
And if all this doesn't exactly flatter your ego, and why should it, don't worry, we can give it a special name to make you feel better, and persuade you that you've still got some dignity. Let's call it faith, and let's deem it to be the highest and most noble and profound of all virtues. And let's pretend that it comes from within, when we all know, that nothing about your religion is allowed to come from within, because that would give you strength and freedom, the two things your religion wants as far away from you as possible.
Faith is the grip that clergy have over you. It's the invisible rope around your neck that pulls you along the road they want you to travel for their benefit, not yours. It's a dead-end word. It's a word of bondage. It's a word that lets you believe what you've been told to believe, without feeling that you've been told what to believe, but you have, and you can stop pretending anytime you like. It's not a virtue, that's the last thing it is. It's an abdication from reality. It's a dumb act of self hypnosis. It's a cowardly cop-out. It's gullibility with a halo, and hiding behind it is like pretending to be an invalid.
So I don't really understand exactly what it is that I'm supposed to respect. It seems to me, I'd need to be some kind of moral contortionist to respect something that noxious, something that depends for its existence on a closed mind, and it is clearly dragging humanity in the wrong direction, giving us false ideas about ourselves, and about the nature of reality. I feel if I respected that, I'd be needlessly contributing to the stupidity and ignorance of the human race. And that is one thing that I don't what on my conscience, no offense. Peace.
Fuck it. I can't keep it in any longer. I don't believe in God. Add to that, I think the Bible is the most heinous, morally reprehensible, sadistic, hateful, and perverse document ever written. I can barely stomach it when I see people pray to the God of the Bible. I work in the wedding industry and I have to attend the church service of of about a dozen weddings a year. I get ill just listening to the preachings of the Bible.
When Jesus says that adultery is committed by the simple act of thinking about sex with a woman that isn't your wife, when you are forced to leave town for a whole day for ejaculating accidentally, to say that women should never be teachers or hold any position of authority over men because women are easily deceived, manipulative and deceitful themselves, that a woman must always obey her husband and submit to him fully in every way, that a woman's promises can never be trusted, .... do I have to keep going or do I have you with me yet?
Never will I accept that the Bible is holy and deserves any respect. The only reason people believe it is because they have been indoctrinated since childhood and they have been shielded from truth. They say love is blind. It seems love of God and the Bible makes you deaf, dumb, and blind to anything that is against it.
(For those who want to look up where it says those nasty things I mention, here are the references to the actual Bible verses. I expect closed minded Christians to not bother) 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Timothy 2:11-14, Ephesians 5:22-24, Ecclesiastes 7:26, Numbers 30:12, Matthew 5:28-32, Leviticus 15:16-17, Deuteronomy 23:10-11, 1 Corinthians 11:8-9, Colossians 3:18)
BTW: This is just scratching the surface of the depravity of the Bible. I could go on, but my paying job calls me...
Just a few that I think should have been answered. Like I mentioned before, since the show fell into the supernatural/fantasy genre, we are allowed to propose any answer we like and it doesn't have to make any sense. Still, it would be nice to know the truth sometimes.
1. Were all appearances of Christian Sheppard influenced/actually the Man in Black?
--- If so, are you aware of the HUGE plot hole of him appearing off island TWICE?
2. Who the hell did we see in Jacob's cabin when Ben and John went to visit? MiB again?
3. What motivated the MiB throughout the show? Why does he seemingly randomly kill some and not others? Is it really all part of manipulating the remaining islanders?
4. How did 'the others' get their orders from Jacob if Ben, as their leader, never met him?
5. How did 'the others' survive the MiB before the sonic fence was built?
Anyways, I hear that the Season 6 DVD set will have additional scenes that *MAY* answer some more questions. I'm sure the rabid fans will buy it in droves. I won't be one of them!
