Tau11 – My Journey of Lifelong Learning

This is a living archive of my thoughts, experiences, and hard-earned insights, drawn from an unusual life. Here you’ll find reflections on the food I’ve eaten, the things I’ve bought, the people I’ve encountered, the places I’ve seen, the books I’ve read, the quotes I’ve kept, and the trends I’ve spotted and capitalized on.

I write this for you, my children, those already here and those yet to come. Daddy loves you more than words can hold. I want each of you to live lives you’re proud of. This is my thinking, in my own voice, left here for you to explore. I hope one day it proves useful.

If, by some unlikely chance, I’m gone before I can guide you in person, let this stand as a poor substitute. But in the more likely case that I’m still here, let this serve as an intellectual archive, a record that I held these convictions long before you were born. May that give weight to my words, and credibility to the wisdom I hope to pass on to you.

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Against The Gods – SM

“Atheism: The acceptance of the non-existence of imaginary entities such as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Bronze Age sky ghosts.”
A thinker cannot logically differentiate the nonexistence of a deity from the nonexistence of any other thing which does not exist. Principles by definition apply in general, rather than in particular, just as a method of long division cannot only apply to one particular combination of numbers.
The usual response from theists – it is impossible to use the word ‘answer’ – is to place their god “outside of time,” but this is pure nonsense. When an entity is proven to be self-contradictory, creating a realm wherein self-contradictions are valid does not solve the problem. If you tell me that a square circle cannot exist, and I then create an imaginary realm called “square circles can exist,” we are not at an impasse; I have just abandoned reality, rationality and quite possibly my sanity.
Nothing of any merit or weight can ever be said if the truth is impossible.
I cannot deny the existence of a medium while using that medium to carry my argument.
The frank reality of quantum effects is that they have no impact whatsoever upon sense perception, since any and all quantum effects cancel each other out long before the aggregation of particles is perceptible by our unaided senses. This is why an electron may seem to be in two places at the same time, but a table never is.
Finding ex post facto homes for gods in quantum physics, when all concepts of deities evolved prior to any knowledge of quantum physics – is a ridiculous and desperate attempt to rescue the irrational through an appeal to the scientific.
Why Gods?   It is helpful, but not essential, for atheism to explain why the concept of gods is so widespread and prevalent among mankind. The 10,000 or so gods that lie scattered across the past and present cultures of our species must represent some form of universal content or meaning for this fantasy to be so widespread.
“God made life,” which as mentioned above, on closer examination, always turns out to be an exact synonym for: “I do not know.” To say, “God did it,” is to say that some unknowable being performed some incomprehensible action in a completely mysterious manner for some never-to-be-discovered end. In other words: “I haven’t a clue.”

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