Honest Ratio

Aligning ideas and principles in the correct proportion and ration is very important when dealing with a philosophical analysis of life and action. The misappropriation of ideas is one of man's highest errors. For instance, say that B is a direct result of A. Then, say that C can never be a product of A. Now, if a man states that he is dealing with C because of A, he is insane and mis-rationalizing, or mis-apportioning A to C, which is a logical fallacy. Any further action that results from this will be twisted and irksome in its nature and fruits. The problem comes when the reason why A to C is a logical fallacy is unclear on the surface.

For instance let us examine a men stepped in addiction to drugs. This man may justify his habits by saying his substance abuse is just for fun, a good time with friends, and doesn't really hurt anyone. As a result, he rationalizes, he may continue in his behavior without a worry, and the behavior itself is in fact all right. The problem with this is that first, he is flawed when he explains his addiction by saying it is just for a fun good time and harmless. He is mis equating it with nominally innocuous descriptions which treated superficially seem valid. The truth is that he is addicted for some deep psychological reason, perhaps insecurity or confusion or as a reaction to violence he was forced to endure or as a reaction to uncertainty and lack of control over his own life. All of these result in addiction which is an escape from the world and reality as the man knows it, and originated because it is sensually gratifying and erased the actuality of the life he was living. When he incorrectly equates his addiction with an otherwise virtuous or harmless ideal, and then twists that ideal to justify his behavior, he is committing an abhorrent crime. This crime is compelled by ignorance of the truth and an evil pragmatic wit that has one thing in mind: self vindication no matter what the cost. An inner argument like this will breed a defensive attitude and an quarrelsome or shameful demeanor when it comes to the subject of the addiction.

Just as with the man described above many people take nobel ideals such as love or truth or justice, and in the name of these ideals justify odious actions, because on the surface it appears to be logically sound. The concept is very similar to the idea of 'fair is foul and foul is fair' as seen in Macbeth. As a result of this antimetabole, Macbeth, through the wit of the Three Witches, was able to justify killing King Duncan for his own selfish gain. In the same way a man might put up with selfish desire for a woman, which in itself if misplaced and not reciprocated appropriately is an addiction on its own, as a means of escape from the world, and defend his doing so by saying that he loves her. Love is not self-seeking and as a result cannot be used to vindicate his hideous addiction, however, love also connotes absolute goodness, and therefore by saying 'my actions are because I love her' one is misplacing the name of love and using it as a tool of justification. In this case one's argument is benefited by the fact the love does indeed connote goodness, and is in fact good, therefore as an isolated statement 'my actions are because I love her' is valid. However, this man is mis-appropriating the name of love because his actions are not because he loves her, but because he loves himself. This is truly a Heart of Darkness of the world. The simple act of misappropriating ideals is bad enough on its own, but the act of twisting virtue to absolve wickedness is truly execrable.

Presence

Men expend their lives trapped in wishful thinking. Every man is always bending his mind toward something not yet realized, something which is only valuable to him as an object looked forward to. Humans are trapped in the pattern of lacking fulfillment and desperately seeking that which is materially satisfying, because we live in a material world. Men pander their lives away in lust and greed, endlessly seeking and never realizing that they can never actually get what it is they are professing to want in the first place. Why do men believe that receiving a material possession will make him happy? The allotment of stuff and things is in no way correlated to true happiness, or, more importantly contentment and fulfillment. Man achieves nothing but ceaselessly wanting more, what is it that keeps him from being satisfied with what he has- and, specifically, what is it that causes him to long toward the future, and deny the present reality he is living in. More importantly, I would say that men have taken this pattern which is applied to materialism and reapplied it to mental and spiritual realms of life. In relationships people psychologically assess that 'once this or that is as I want it to be, then I can proceed accordingly.' In the same way that men seek physical objects according to their instincts and desires they model the rest of relationships in their lives; relationships with other humans, with themselves, and with God or spirituality, or whatever it may be, as being incomplete until another thing may happen to satisfy their own impulses. The problem with this is that it expunges and erases accountability, and honesty to reality.

Throughout all of a man's life there is one thing that he has for certain: the day in front of him. The present time and moment, and the timelessness of that instant. The wishful thinking I described above is a denial of the present and a attempt to foretell the future, a future that no man can know, nor does any man have authority over. Honesty is necessary to realize that every instant we complete a thought or action is homologous to every other instant of our lives. We are incessantly changing and growing, but this truth of presence remains continuous. As a result, by necessity a man must base decisions off the reality that wishful thinking is ignorance and that instead he must realize his ideals about life in every instant that he lives. When men believe they can decide what is best for themselves and cause the future for themselves they are mistaken. First, no man can say what is best for himself in the material world. Second, a man only has a slippery hold on the future according to the laws of probability; namely the physical laws that govern this universe that things commonly proceed in a known and predictable fashion. However, a man is still operating based on the laws of probability and is not actually causing a future event to become accomplished based on his own authority and will.

The essential point is that craving a future that is different from one's present circumstance is evidence of a lack of fulfillment. Any pattern of life that is feed by this dynamic or by its nature encourages this dynamic, such as procrastinating, mindless indulgence in sensual entertainment (movies, TV shows, magazines, shopping, eating), drinking, smoking, sexual addiction, is utter insanity and must be understand for what it is: a testament to the inner dissatisfaction of man's heart, and the realization that contentment must certainly does not come from any instantly appealing source.

Meaning

The pursuit and definition of meaning is an inevitable action of the thinking man. Differentiating meaningful and meaningless entities in life is of fundamental importance if one's decisions and daily manner are going to be anything but insanity. If one is simply acting on instinct, getting up, getting one's food and work finished, that is all fine and well, but it does not satisfy a man's spirit. An intellect dealing in this mode of operation will be lead to question the reason even for instinct and doubt even the trivial meanings in life, inadvertently becoming a nihilist. Therefore the distinction of why good is good and why bad is bad is supreme in the path to life. The path toward life is ultimately what anyone man comes to: the journey to experience the dynamic of life, which is the antithesis of death. This ideological imperative is a result of every soul's longing for understanding, and no soul will live until it does understanding. As a result the quest for life is really a quest for truth, for truth kindles life.

The first principle in defining meaning is to consent that the things of reality have immutable essences that one can deal with, that knowledge is attainable objectively. The essence of principles and ideas is not subjective but certain, and certain outside of human influence. However, humans may still observe them and know of them, but there essence is what it is regardless of a human's true or false understanding of it. Therefore a man must first realize that ideas can be know, and the 'truth' of an idea is contingent upon the accuracy of the perception of the idea to the essence which the idea is. Unfortunately human recognition will also be flawed just as stating the word 'blue' never really gets to what the word blue is trying to describe, but, for the purpose of philosophy the 'approach' to the essential value of things is good enough to move upon.

So, good and bad are different, and can be known as different, objectively, not subjectively. Now, what makes a thing good or bad. At this point a human must neglect to instill his own value system upon a system or situation, because the situation has a nature of its own outside of the human's influence. Many would say, "It is a bad thing to smoke, or a bad thing to steal." One cannot adequately explain this assertion by saying 'smoking leads to ill health, or stealing breaks the law, of even the law of morality. If one uses this argument then why is ill health bad? And what is morality founded in that gives it judgmental significance. The ultimate conclusion of this line of thinking is to say that life is meaningful, or, life is good. One still must conclude why this is so, and one cannot justify this statement philosophically without saying the life is good because life is made by God. The purpose of life is only significant in the context of a Creator that induces significance. According to this meaning/purpose are conditional not on a natural subjectivity but instead by the subjectivity of one who is defined as eternal. God is now, was, and will be. Our subjective decisions are baseless because we are today and will be gone tomorrow. Any 'good' we can do is only good so long as the reality that we are acting in exists. This is an unsatisfying morality because it is inconsistent. If this is the case one can only satisfy the total sum of reality by accepting the idea of a consistent principle, which is God. God is the only foundation upon which life can be established. Without a point of reference everything following will be unfounded and ill-established.

One is forced by necessity to conclude that God exists or at least something consistent in reality must exist for anything to be meaningful in context of the greater idea.

The Trouble with Atheism

What arrogance and narcissism it takes of an atheist to evaluate the existence of God based on their own judgments and impressions of justice. What immutable 'good' can a sole human produce, what universal standard can a person possibly derive to impose upon a situation and thus conclude upon a universal question? Any benchmark or principle a human may attempt to ascertain will be procured from either their own 'will' and viscera or developed as a reflection of a higher truth which exists in spite of human observation.

There are two arguments an atheist can choose from, after they posture the none-existence of God. The first argument is that human life as we know it is devoid of reason and order, and especially empty of any sort of meaning. There is no plot or plan to life, and humans each have their own agency of will to determine their own futures, but, there is nothing a human may strive toward or hope to achieve because life still inherently lacks purpose, and as such no purpose of a human action is possible in its consequence. All is indifferent, bleak, and blase. This is existentialism, which posits that there is no meaning in life and then attempts to explain a human's role in the world. This ideology is intrinsically absurd, because many humans have feelings that transcend basic instincts, many humans attempt to apply meaning to action and circumstance, and many people have experienced situations in which life beyond 'survival of the fittest' takes place. If life is merely evolution then to what purpose may a human live other than procreation and death?The existentialist is a skeptic and does not have the guts to even accept that there is good and bad, there is tension in life, and tension presumes a pulling of something, to a certain end, not just a meaningless assemblage of nonsense leading to nothing. Besides, existentialism fails to answer essential questions such as the source of evil, what love is, and why humans have reason and what does reason lead to.

The more likely position an atheist is going to take is the position that there is not a God, but the world is indeed ordered and there is meaning to life, particularly meaning in the actions of humans and in our lives. The purpose of life, as a result, is to follow the meaning that we either define ourselves, or the meaning that we find in nature. The problem with this is, that, as I mentioned above what meaning can a human determine which is truly meaningful? A human view of the world, or of morality, based on observation and experience is inevitably subjective, and therefore inconclusive. Any evaluation of purpose a human makes subjectively will be unavoidably contingent on whatever standard of purpose they utilized in their evaluation, and resultantly unfounded. No one can say legitimately that it is a good thing to love one's neighbor. Why is it a good thing? Because it fights the forces of hatred and works toward establishing peace among brothers? Well, why is this a goal worth achieving- just so everyone can live nice and peacefully now for no reason when the end of their lives will be the grave anyways? World peace is a good thing? Is it? According to what standard? The meaning and purpose of life is to love? Well, why? Because love produces good things? Well, good things leading to what? Any moral assertion a man can make atheistically tends to prolonging mental, physical and spiritual life, or improves in immediate quality. What to what end is this pattern when the prize of life is always death? The intellectual understanding of this, the pursuit of reason when the foundation of one's every thought is that the universe began randomly, if dealt with truly, will lead to one place: suicide. One cannot enforce their own order when they refuse to consent as to why the world is order, if they do this, their 'order' will be laid in confusion and their path uncertain. Despite all this, the moral atheist still accepts that the world is ordered, and that there is meaning to life. This cannot be, though, as a result of disorder. The only order that can possibly be created by disorder is an order that lasts only as long as the thing that makes it so lasts, only as long as its subjective justification exists, and disorder, by its nature, is chaos and eternally changing. Basing a decision on a pattern that is forever vacillating will lead nowhere and is an awfully foolish resolution to take as a man or women. This baseless pattern is the default of most humans and ends in capricious hesitancy in all things. Purpose cannot be established upon a purposeless world, such an attempt is vain futility and a man would do much better to simply take his own life. The point being, life is meaningful and the meaning found in life cannot be elucidated without including the existence of God. Furthermore, attempting to make sense of life by the mechanism of evolution, or by human goodness, or by human peace is equivalent to stating that there is reality, and then there is a sub reality level that humans operate on upon which meaning is found. For this 'sub' reality to exist, and mainly for it to be valid for an argument's sake, there must also be, by necessity, a super-reality, or a higher realm of existence.

Unfortunately, for the skeptical atheist, life is effusive with meaning and the principle of purpose presses against every human thought and action. The lavish presence of purpose in life reflects the reality that life is purposeful, just as the laws of Physics define specifically how the world is ordered. As a result the atheist must still confront the existence of purpose and meaning in life, if he is to account for the total sum of reality. Any philosophy that fails to satiate a concern or question of life must either be dismissed or questioned. Atheism by its nature is invariably flawed when it supposes that there is meaning without acknowledging a God, and therefore is fallacious. Because of this an intellectual man, chiefly a man who desperately wants to know the truth, will by necessity be compelled to admit the existence of God. Without an orderer, there could be no order. Without an author a story would be deprived of plot. Such a story would be a mindless bedlam of entropy that collapses upon itself into thermal equilibrium.

I have said all of this to admit that I now acknowledge God as truth.

Cryptic Poise

With an unassuming ascent,
Arrives a grace untold.
From gold tinted hearts,
A Life-Giving gene.
That upon a coincidence of place
The earth received a brighter face.

To dispense neglect to this sweet form,
Would be as if to dispel a dove,
That brings epistles of bliss in such diffidence,
That they remain hidden to man’s sense,
Which has been, in its absence,
Assigned wholly, to selfishness.



















In conceit he questions his lot,
Until he is painfully snapped down!
At the hands of a different, indifferent fate,
And the news, that she has passed the heavenly gate.

Like Clockwork

Like Clockwork, the moon glides shining to its nest.
The watchmen hangs a lantern through twilight,
And wonders, if one could trail the moon's flight
Through sky, starlight, and cosmic Might?

Upon cobblestone, a crooked carriage creaks.
Drawn by the gravity of a wicked will,
and man's conviction of his superior skill.
It's sight set on an incipient light, found over the hills

"And far away, it seems-"
Said the watchman to his mate-
"That a carriage approaches in the dim light."
So they drew the curtains tight, and hoped for a safe night.

At the crest of the final hill the carriage's axle snapped,
And the knave's curses could be heard through the dark yard,
As by the time it would take to untangle his muddled fate,
The sun would have risen, and caused his aim to appear embarrassingly late.

Inexorable Vegetarianism?

I have been thinking a lot about Fate vs. Free Will lately. If there is a god, especially of the Christian form, it would certainly be plausible for such an entity to have the ability to predestine our actions or be of a nature superseding time. The quandary comes when one contemplates an individual's salvation in this setup of a fatalistic ideology. If God has already allotted all of our movements and decisions, then someone who never accepts God is fated by God to his path of 'not accepting God,' and is ultimately chosen by God to be doomed. By the fact that such people exist, what quality of God's nature allows him to do this? How could God doom some and predestine others to heaven? And what a miserable existence it would be for those 'fated' to hell, and how intrinsically arduous it would be to avoid arrogance and piety for those 'fated' to heaven.

Needless to say, such a seemingly irrational doctrine is easy to dismiss. However, the primary shadow that paralyzes me in my denial of it is the idea that if there really is a God then such a being would undoubtedly be beyond our nature. And if this creature invented the universe, and us, he would surely have a better knowledge as to what and how we should exist, and perhaps in some ephemeral logic impossible to our minds there exists a justification for a doctrine like Predestination. Moreover, the clay pot does not question its maker as to its purpose or its design; in the same manner who are we to question a Sovereign will above our own?

These are simply questions I have been pondering. Questions that deeply perplex me but I have trouble fully and confidently denying.


Subsequently, for the record, as of today I am a vegetarian, with exception to dairy products, eggs, and an occasional indulgence in sushi. I have embraced this decision after a spontaneous outrage in the inhuman pragmatic nature of America's meat industry, and a realization of the idea "We are what we eat."