Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Unintelligent Designs

It's unfortunate when one of my favorite hobby sites is hit with something like this:

Jon Power's "Happy Newtonmas!" List

However, this being the intarweb, I suppose it's unavoidable. On many other sites, it would be deleted for yet another intarweb phenomenon, trolling.

What I believe is irrelevant. That list is simply a nice study in human nature. You might want to say Geek Nature to be specific, but the existence of a higher power is a very human argument. It's also a pretty worthless argument, since no one ever convinces anyone of anything different from what they believed going into the argument.

Each individual is a summation of his personal reality. His belief system is colored by his experiences. Thus, his belief in a higher power, or lack thereof, can be traced to his unique human makeup - natural intellect, upbringing, education, media influence, the stuff he eats for breakfast, and what brand of soap he uses (if any).

I've been on both sides of the fence in my thirty-odd years, though never quite as extreme to either end (assuming you condsider the two sides as opposites in terms of belief, which many do, but I'm not convinced that they are). I think I've found a happy medium, couched in human nature as I understand it. Some people find comfort in knowing that there is a higher power, something to look forward to after death, someone to turn to when there is no hope left. Others draw strength from certainty that this existence is all that there is, and there is little (if anything) that cannot be understood and/or influenced by humans (ie, themselves).

Both ways are fine, because people need different things.

The truth, if there is one, is irrelevant.

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