The New Podcast

Not that you noticed but the old Self Help Center Blogcast was deleted by my hosting site. Something about getting bought out by a paid site. Only the assholes at Podcast did not tell me anything about what was going on so I lost a years worth of shows because I don't have most of the podcast saved.

I know none of you like the podcast so none of you care but the podcast was downloaded over 2500 times so maybe a few people out there want to know where I am hosting the new version.

HERE.

What follows will be part 1 of many :

A Purposeless Driven Life.

A Purposeless Driven Life®

A Magnum Opus by Romius T.

Subtitled: A compendium of all the things I have learned.

There is no purpose to life. A fact you are well aware of.

Two days have passed since your birthday. No one acknowledged your birthday.

No one should have.

By not acknowledging your birthday your friends have given you not just you a gift, but the best gift they can give you. The gift is that of awareness. Awareness of the emptiness of life.

You feel alone. Good. You are alone. There is no god.[1] Even if there is a god, he does not care about you. No serious person could believe in a personal god. But many serious people claim to believe in a non-personal god. I think you call that belief Deism. [2]

In this essay I had hoped to get around talking about the existence of god, but since I brought it up and since so many of you will have some kind of belief in god I guess I might as well tackle the belief head on.

Deism

Deism is not an acceptable answer to the purposeless driven life. That’s because deism allows many of its practitioners to see purpose in the world. The more pernicious deists see agency in nothing more than random patterns. Usually deists see the agency “behind” the phenomenal world.

Many deists see “design” in the universe and believe that means there is a god. [3] But not all deists make such easy to refute claims. Einstein:

"[If you]try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious." [My emphasis]

Einstein was a great man. He was also a very smart man. He was much smarter than me. But is what Einstein talking about god? "Yes, you can call it that.”

Actually. No. You can’t. That’s not god.

The awe that humans feel when confronted with the “inexplicable” is understandable and it is what drives every great scientist and philosopher to truth. The desire to make sense of the world is natural. Every child is born with it. Curiosity may not be limited to humans, but it certainly is one of our finer characteristics. But it is a giant leap to go from confusion to god.

Veneration.

The problem with the Veneration of Mystery.

I don’t worship anything I don’t understand. I don’t know why anyone would. That's why I am more of a Troy Aikman kinda guy and less of a Tony Romo kinda guy.[4] Even still. That seems like a personal choice of mine and not a logical argument.[5]

Let me break down the “logical” argument for you in to several parts.

First.

Deists act like Atheists.

Einstein said that he “venerated” the “force behind” the seeming logical consistency of the world. But did he? Did he go to church? Did he light candles? Did he worship? Did he pray? How did he devote himself to the force?

The answer is he did not. That is why Spinoza was excommunicated.[6] And rightfully so. Deists never get around to really doing anything religious. They love a good mystery. They make terrific writers of constitutions, but they really have no place for gods as most people understand them. Because Deists don’t act like religious people they often get confused for Atheists. [7]

Second.

The world may not be so darn comprehensible.[8] Einstein was not a fan of Quantum Mechanics. He once famously said that “god does not play dice with the universe.” He was wrong. God does play dice. Even if god does not play dice I just wanted you to know that I knew that quote by Einstein. Also, I knew that the second I started the sentence “Einstein once famously said…” you expected me to use that quote. So I did.

I guess my point is that if Einstein would have just paid more attention to Quantum Mechanics he might have been an Atheist and saved us all a lot of trouble. [9] But he didn’t. And that is another good reason to dislike religious thinkers. (But that is still not a good enough reason to not believe!)

---

[1] I know there is no need to instruct you on the silliness of a personal god. All I have to do is point out that Zeus is not real. Nobody prays to Zeus anymore. Speaking of praying. I have no idea why people pray, or light candles. Really! When the fuck did lighting a candle ever do anything? If you think that lighting a candle can do something other than increase your contribution to the alarming growth of green house gasses into the Earth’s atmosphere then you are fooling yourself. What you really believe in is magic. And that is sad. There is no such thing as magic. I know that saying that “there is no such thing as magic” seems like a big claim, and maybe it is. You might even want me to prove. Well I am not gonna. And I think you are an asshole for suggesting to me that I should. By the way, if you believe in magic you can’t claim to be a deist. If you are not a Deist then you are in the same category as the monotheists and the crazy right wing creationists. That category is the crazy folk.

[2] At least the dictionary says it is.

[3] Do I really need to suggest to you that you go and read Kant? If you don’t want to do the research for yourself then you HAVE to take my word for it. The ontological argument is an argument only an idiot could like.

[4] I still think Tony Romo is going to win me and the Dallas Cowboys at least 2 Super Bowls.

[5] If you like big words you might have used aesthetics.

[6] I suppose you don’t know who he is either. Einstein based some of his understanding of the god force on the pantheism of Spinoza, "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

[7] There is a huge fight between Atheists and theists over Einstein. It seems everybody wants a piece of him.

[8] We could play a bunch of logic games here. If the world is ultimately incomprehensible (i.e. the thing in itself that is the force behind the apparent lawfulness of the universe) how could the world be comprehensible at all? We probably need to read more Kant.

[9] Interesting side note, Einstein’s religious thinking may have clouded his scientific mind to the point that he overlooked Quantum Mechanics and thus avoided reconciling the new science with his theory of relativity ultimately dooming his quest for a theory of everything. The ultimate theory of everything would prove god does not exist which would make this whole introduction parenthetical.

I believe in one less god than you

YES WE CAN!

Simply the Funniest thing I have seen in a long time

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Can someone please explain Capitalism to me?

I don't understand. We have to give trillions of dollars to keep a system afloat that benefits the few over the many. But the only way the system stays alive is if the many give....

We are faced with a real chance to change the world. We are living in a world historic moment. But all we will do is prop up the system again. Until the next crisis.

Trillions of dollars.

We should be focused on making energy free...
We should make every home an energy producer through solar power and recycling. But we won't.

We will just give till it hurts so the rich people who run the world can keep running the world because we are so certain there are no alternatives to the mixed economy we have now....

We deserve what we get....

I write a fan letter to Ricky Gervais, because he has a blog/plus I post pictures of Miley Cyrus' side boob

Ricky Gervais is one of my favorite comedians.

Dear Ricky Gervais,

I want to say congratulations to you for having a blog (just like me.) Which I guess means we are a lot more alike than I thought. Like you I am short, chubby, and funny. Unlike you I did not find a way still make lots of money and have a big career. I just have this blog. Which means that I spend my time sitting around my house in my undershirt crying and downloading pictures of Miley Cyrus to my computer.

I will post pictures of the side boob of Miley Cyrus on every post I make from now on, or at least as long as I can, and I can't really see any reason not to. (Other than Big Bad Billy Ray Cryus.)

Enjoy the side boobs you monkey perverts.

P.S.

Ricky,

Did you know that google has not gotten around to spelling your name correctly? I would think that google has a list of all the famous people famous enough that people who don't know how to spell would be able to spell the name if the were smart enough to use google spell check. Well you aren't that famous I guess yet, even though you created the office and extras.

I mean I wasn't a big fan of the "original" office. Maybe because it was too British. What the fuck do I know? I hate Monty Python which makes me dead to some people. All I know is I love Extras. I even liked that romantic comedy you made about seeing dead people. So if you are all pissy about me hating on the Office just use all that juice and call Gooogle and tell them how to spell your frakin' name all ready.

Until then I refuse to spell Gooogle's name correctly either.

Cheers,

Romius T.