Day: October 2, 2014

Desperate Lengths

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Apologetics is an interesting field, as it relates to religion. For those who are not familiar with the term, it is not the idea of saying “Sorry,” but comes from the Greek apologia (meaning to speak in defense of). It is merely a word to describe the defense of ideas, through information. It is most often employed by those in Religion (you’d have to do some deeper research as to why religious people enjoy the use of this word so much), as those I speak with outside of religion more often call it “defending your ideas,” or simply “debate.” That is not the point of this post, though.

This video is the point of this post:

http://creationtoday.org/did-god-design-parasites-s03e15/

In this video, they have a Zoologist speak about what animals did “before the Fall.” For those not intimately familiar with Young Earth Creation timelines and theory, I will elaborate somewhat. I will even *try* to keep my ridicule to a minimum, but this topic is so silly it will be difficult.

In the beginning, God etc, and it was Good. YEC Christians have interpreted that statement very, very literally; for something to be perfectly Good (and for God to have called it *Good*, it would have to be perfect), it must be without sin. Well, thou shalt not kill is fairly clear, killing is one of the 7 sins that ranked up there with the purely theistic infractions of the ten commandments. Here’s the thing, though; if *EVERYTHING* was Good, this must apply to animals.

What does that mean? It means there were no carnivores. It’s not that they didn’t exist, it is that they were vegetarians before the fall. And here’s where things get *fun* for people like me who are jerks and like to poke fun at things; when The Fall occurred, and sin entered the world, everything changed.

But how did it change? Animals started killing each other, for food. You must remember, of course, that this is a sin. So now, let’s light a hoop on fire and watch YECs jump through it. Bring some popcorn, and a lawn chair. It is so much fun!

First, they justify all the body parts of carnivores that are SPECIFICALLY for eating meat through a vegetarian telescope. In the linked video, for example, the Zoologist tells us that the proboscis (read: itch lance) of the female mosquito could have been used to surgically remove certain plant materials that are similar in function to hemoglobin.

For another fun image, imagine a lion using its sharp teeth to eat tree leaves; their justification of course is that dogs eat grass, so lions could have, too! Now, I’ve watched my dog eat grass, then locked him in a cage while I went about my day’s business. When I come back, there is grassy throw-up everywhere, and he looks sad like he knows he did wrong. It wasn’t wrong, but it is difficult to impress that upon him (like the time he *ate* his dog bed, and was pooping foam for three days). The point is this; the digestive system of the dog is not meant for fibrous plant material, and that is clear. Even if the lion *could* properly digest the grass, instead of pushing it through their digestive system like so much Liquid PumbR, how would they eat enough of it to LIVE?! I mean, watch a goat eat grass for a while. Not only is it calming, but you’ll notice that they can grab a mouthful of the stuff due to flat teeth spaced closely together. Looks at the teeth of a dog, or a cat if you’ve got one; sharp, but also spaced out. That’s why, when they eat grass, you’ll see them almost *fight* the grass to get it into their belly.

They talk about this for AGES, because it is (I guess?) very important to them to spread the idea that there was no sin and thus no death before Eve ate the apple (and also Adam, as an afterthought).

I am not so deeply familiar with this that I can tell you what viruses and bacteria did before The Fall, though I am sure that is like watching YECs jump through 12 flaming hoops over a shark tank on a motorcycle. I should look that up.

This gentleman speaking goes as far as to say that parasites did not exist before The Fall. Well, that was 10 times more boring than I had hoped, but now I have the idea in my head of The Fall, with Adam and Eve having had NO immune system, causing both humans to instantly spew fluids out of EVERY orifice shortly after bacteria and viruses found their soft, fleshy bodies (omnomnomnom).

So how does this relate to Apologetics? Well, the definition of apologetics SPECIFICALLY mentions “with information.” Well, the idea that everything was vegetarian before The Fall can only be considered information in the event that the following can be considered informational:

“Our specific interpretation of this specific passage written over 3000 years ago and translated into our native language COULD be taken to mean (possibly) that nothing died (maybe) before God got mad at humans for eating from the tree he knew they would eat from before he created them (because he can see the future), and this leads us to believe (probably) that nothing killed anything else before The Fall. Ummm… Q.E.D.? So yeah, no carnivores.”

Well, when you base your science on such solid foundations, how could anyone ever find your ministry of Apologetics dissatisfying?!

I am the Most Selfish Person You Know (Don’t read this please)

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I am not going to advertise this post. Actually, if no one reads it, that is fine (I’d even go as far as to say ‘for the best’). This is another post where I just want to put my thoughts down somewhere concrete where I can read them when I need to focus. This is the kind of thing I would write in a journal, if I cared to keep a journal. (I used to keep a journal, from my earliest struggles with depression, but even when I was depressed and rereading it, I was like “Ugh, listen to this angsty teenager. No wonder he feels that way.” Then I stopped doing that, as it was, at best, not constructive, and at worst, actively harmful to my own mental well-being.)

On the bright side, anyone who does care to read this will know (again) more about me than they knew before.

It is odd, too — I was thinking about writing this early this morning, before I had even read the news that a Dota 2 personality had committed suicide last night (http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2i2nb2/exdota_2_caster_commits_suicide/). Be careful going to that link, it actually contains a referring link to the person’s publicly posted suicide note. The suicide note itself has a stream of comments of people trying desperately to save her, calling every available service, trying to get her address, and then… at the end, just, flatly “She’s gone.”

As someone who suffers depression, and as someone who knows (rationally) that it is my brain being a jerk to me, it is still easy for me to feel weak. Things that other people are able to get through leave me a wreck of mental anguish. Something silly, like a project that didn’t quite go perfectly, and I am thinking about everything that went wrong simultaneously, and then I am a drain to the happiness of everyone around me.

I tend to have a very rational mind, and I pride myself on it; that may just be my ego, but my mind has proven itself time and again as able to solve problems that others have thrown at it as difficult or impossible. This is a reminder for myself more than it is bragging; I am able to solve problems, and it is a skill I am very good at. I have to remind myself of this in my darker times, mind, when I think I am good at nothing; if nothing else, I will accept that I am able to solve almost any problem thrown my way.

So why can’t I solve depression? I don’t know.

Now comes the part where I blow your mind with how awful my brain is when it comes to applying numbers to things that have no basis in math. Suicide, as a mathematical construct. There’s something you won’t hear often, surely. I have realized, in trying to write the full calculation down, that there are so many variables that I cannot eloquently write the equation (I’m not a math major).

I had written another full thousand words breaking down my equation, the variables, the values, and giving examples. It then occurred to me that without several thousand more words, I’d still have only the most basic elements of my equation. Suffice it to say, if a decision or the completion of an action results in a net positive increase in my overall happiness, I generally try to make that decision or achieve that action. There are (obviously) variables out of my control, so even if I take the time to try to make a certain decision or action occur, it is certainly not guaranteed the decision or action will occur.

The afterlife, whether it exists or not, plays a large part in any equations that deal with my own death. If the afterlife does exist, I will be in a position to see the outcomes of my action or decisions that lead to my death, and therefore the suffering of others will become very apparent to me. If it does not, the fallout of my actions is effectively zeroed for all future calculations. That is another of the many reasons I harp so frequently on religion; I am not confident either way, and I hate not knowing. I know I will not know until after my death, so it almost seems a fruitless endeavour, but I am trying to seek some sort of comfort.

Now to the part where I comfort you, the reader, rather than trying to comfort myself; no matter how I run the numbers, contemplating suicide ALWAYS has a negative or zero outcome as it applies to potential future happiness, and being as I would have to put effort into achieving even that zero, it is something that is never to me a realistic option. I can guarantee you I will never kill myself unless something happens that DRASTICALLY changes the numbers. That’s right, math is keeping me alive. How weird is that?

This was rambling, there is no intro, and no conclusion. Just things I wrote down. I’ll try to come up with something else funny to write so that I push this post down and no one even notices that it was ever here.