God No, Well Perhaps for Some

How do we define existence?
Or is god more like Schrodinger's cat, both exist and not exist at the same time?
Does something exist if we can see the effect of believing when we examine the lives of believers?

What I actually believe is twisted, but I need to explain it. Gods are at best concepts. Concepts are the only thing I know of which are beyond space and time. Concepts have no physical existence, but there existence can be inferred from there effect on people who believe. So, if we say that god is a concept only, then there is an effect which infers existence, but there is still no physical existence.
To believe is to use a full strength placebo, sort of effect. It is not real, but the effect is, to the point of having an effect. Based on observation the effect is real, yet we know that cause is only psychological. This, for some proves existence of a god.

So depending on the definition, god can be said to both exist and not exist at the same time, analogous to Schrodinger's cat. It all depends on the definition. We also see this in physics with some of the particles, where we cannot see the particle, only the effect. Some of this is waved off as a size issue. I have not yet heard a religious person claim there god is too small to see.

So we know now that god does not have a physical existence, but do concepts exist? Without a doubt, mathematics exists, yet has no physical existence. Schrodinger's cat. So god belongs to the concept class of objects that effects can be inferred but no physical existence in space nor time, and it's effects are equivalent to placebo effects. Well, OK.

This definition allows all people to be partly correct, or psychologically correct without understanding placebo effects, all the while praying to a non physical identity that is only an identity in their minds. So god only exists in the minds of the believer. End of.

After reading Peter Mickaelson, Why We Suffer, and seeing the multiple layers of emotion that Peter's muse conceives, while Buddha simplified it to "attachment to delusions", the placebo effect becomes a simple result of our "deadly flaw", or attachment to mental objects, emotions, thoughts, easily described as delusions. This we must learn to live with. For some, through a fluke of luck, the deadly flaw is weak, while for others it is strong. That attachment to our delusions is the basic problem, regardless or the delusion. The fourth Noble truth points to a solution for those of us with strong attachment to our delusions. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.   
 

Exposing the Roots of Addiction

There is a lovely little book by Peter Michaelson that claims to expose the root of Addiction, and while it may expose some of the roots, it does not expose them all nor tell how to destroy the roots or plants very well. If exposure is sufficient to kill the root, than it is useful to expose those roots.

He does identify correctly that while AA/OA/NA are useful for treatment, the cause of the problem is still there, uncorrected. Exposure may be enough to stir our own responsibility for correction, and some of the common issues are aired enough to provide correction. Our secret attachments are toward those environment that we learned to live within, but are no longer suitable for life. We like to live in the familiar, for sure, so do we create the familiar over again, or is that all there really is, and we are forced back into the familiar because that is what there is?

Some of his unnecessary phrases, like a child, I find quite off-putting. Some of us were forced into a subservient positions because of control freak bosses, and subservient position was one of survival in the position. Unhealthy environments do not just exist in homes but in workplaces as well. What started in homes is often carried in business, especially in poor economies and by brutal tyrants such as Trump.   

So if I grew up largely unsupervised, ignored, but provided for physically, just one more body living in a busy farm, am I secretly seeking attention or avoiding attention by staying away from people to avoid harassment? School was a way to keep me out of the way, homework was a way to avoid work at home, but not completely. Oh well, I survived and left. I was not prepared for life in the City, but who would be. And then I got adjusted, life was shaping up, and the computer came along and the economy went for shit, and never really came back in my chosen industry. It had a few good years, intermittently, and in some areas. Just enough to keep hopes alive, but it never delivered on the promises. I kept on trying, for I judged it was easier to keep on then change to a different field.  Oh well.  

So back to exposing the roots of what may be an addiction.  

I, Atheist

Coming out as a Atheist is equivalent to saying to my ancestors, relatives, and some friends, that you are wrong about your beliefs, I am right, and that is too bad. All the resentment between religions, the intolerance, bigotry, hatred, even persecution results from the innuendo of you are wrong, I am right is re-lite in the religious person. This is the natural response of being a faith/emotion/tradition based person rather than a hypothesis based thinking, logical person. I am sorry that we all cannot go through this mental evolution at once.

I recognize that religion got our society this far, but it is now time to let go of traditions and venture into the future in a rational manner, with our eyes wide open and hypothesis in hand, make decisions that are good for the world, ourselves, and others. With the indicators of climate change growing so wildly, and no rational political process available, we likely will be forced into action. So what is the rational response? Test for accuracy all that we know and project those forward and see what it points to. That is all is hypothesis, and there is likely no god, no after life, and that which is not common to most religions is likely wrong. Compassion, logic, reason, virtue... for other humans should be the foundation of treatment of others. Tradition, aka religion... intolerance, bigotry, persecution must go. We must determine what is right separately and together, based on science, evidence and truth not tradition or "scared texts."  For this I am responsible. 

The causes of climate change have passed the point of no return; carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is over 400ppm in the atmosphere, and methane is over 1600 ppb in the atmosphere. In 1960 these numbers were 280 and 500. The Arctic is 20 degrees C warmer, the September sea ice is down to 25% of 1960 levels, and methane hydrate is melting, releasing more methane about 200 times the rate it was in 1980. By 500 ppm Co2, we will be suffering. The second whammy will be methane at 3000 ppb. The third will be nuclear winter. Few others care so why should I? Oh well. 

    

The world cannot support this level of population, and nobody will voluntarily reduce their life style. We all are becoming protectionist, which is not a bad thing, I think. We have gone too far in trading, and not in producing everything we can ourselves. Oh well, the carbon dioxide and methane will likely finish us baby boomers off. The survival of our species is at stake here and now.
  

I am not going to take on any of these issues, but knowing the obvious, sit back and watch the young whirl away. Until there is a government in power that places the people first, the problem will not be resolved. Note that I did not say solved, for the only solution is reduction in world population back to 3.5b or so and stabilized industry of profitable carbon fixing established. We are the species at risk, if this is not done soon. We current humans do not do well in a methane rich atmosphere. The next sapient species may be able to breath in a methane rich atmosphere. Oh well. 

We see that the only solution to radical Islam is there extermination, and radical christian attacks on Islam is similar response, we see the non rational evangelists deigning reality of evolution and rational development. We see the "out of sequence" artifacts as possible evidence of seeding DNA onto earth, and we know we are not the first nor alone in this universe. The third mass extinction is just irrelevant, as there is only one species we should be concerned with. 

When I was a young fellow in high school we talked about overpopulation, and potential climate change. Then it was particulate and dust that was the concern, nuclear winter scenario that was prevalent. We beat that but dust may be part of the solution for methane overload solution.

So here I sit, part of the problem, but unable and unwilling to go against the world, but need to. The first step is declaring the reality of one of the many problems, and start to develop a solution for myself. 

Separation

Separation of religion and state is next to impossible. Equal is the separation of religion and culture, or of culture and employment. Separation of state and religion requires a split personality or a compartmentalized life. Not an easy task, if it is really possible. So the US expects that it's citizens that are involved in the government are somehow superhuman. This is not reality. The best they can acheive is an effort to not let religion to dictate the outcomes.

Separation would require the ability to make decisions totally rationally, without any emotional feeling involved. Anyone with a triune brain should be capable of doing this, if they can totally detach from the primal, and emotional/automatic portions of our brains for a period of time. As soon as they develop this ability, they separate the cultural/religious portion from reason part, and realize there is a cognitive dissonance between the two, and would not be electable without the automatic portion of the brain. So to be what we need is to fail at elections. Not possible. Duh. 
  

Dualing Hypothesis

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation. —Herbert Spencer

Ah but this is not Herbert Spencers work (https://www.thefix.com/content/contempt-prior-to-investigation-AA-Herbert-Spencer8042)  but that does not matter. The point is that the statement presents a fact, that many things we learned are just wrong, regardless of the source that we learned them from. We are still responsible for having and using those bits of knowledge, even it they are wrong. Every thing is just hypothesis, as little can be proven to be true and right. It is our responsibility to make a few simple thought experiments to test our foundation concepts.

All this made sense to me when I wrote it. We are responsible for our own thoughts, and what we do as a result of those thoughts. Our culture has so many things wrong, and as a result, we were culturally indoctrinated wrongly, or with wrong concepts. We do not even realize we have collective or cultural neuroses. When we get down to a genetic or natural level, we start to see the errors. When we compare one culture to the next, we see the difference, and since the beliefs are mutually exclusive, logically, one or both must be wrong. Now it is my responsiblity to sort out which is wrong, or more likely, what is right as they are often both wrong.

What does it have to do with me is a good place to start. If it is none of my concern, well that leaves breathing space. Who has control, or does no one have control? We can project the illusion of control onto someone, where they do not have control, well there mind does not have control anyway. We can do likewise to ourselves, and wonder why we fail. Consider a weight loss diet, and the failure rate. The thin wonder at why we fail, and we are not in control if we have food available. If we do not have food available, and are able to keep ourselves busy where there is no food, then we can lose weight, short term. In reality our body is in change of appetite, our mind is not. Our appetite is beyond our control, and we can only influence it. Many control diet by rigid measurement or only providing that which we do not like. Oh well. So are we in control of our thoughts? Are we logical or controlled by our instincts or emotions/automatic brain?

The scientific method is a five step method, we have some observations and we produce a hypothesis or two to explain the observations. Those observations are then used to produce predictions of the outcomes of an experiment, and if those predictions are correct, the hypothesis moves one step closer to being assumed correct. If the prediction is wrong, the hypothesis needs to be modified, or is just wrong. Observation, hypothesis, prediction, Test, Conclusion, and around we go again.    

One of the most judgemental concepts is is there a god or not. Before we can take this on, we need to understand logic, evidence and truth. Evidence can be best understood as the result of logic and truth. When we start with truth, evidence, and logic, religions depend on traditions for there foundation, and ultimately on the existence of god or no god. Without a god, all religions fall apart, or down to we do this because it is tradition, not reason. Hearsay is not evidence, and as a result all religious books are not evidence, no mater how well they define the religion or the beliefs.

We can nest the scientific method; that is create a hypothesis of dueling hypothesis, that is to say test two hypothesis at the same time, no god vs there is a god. From the armchair it is obvious that there is no other case, for something cannot simultaneous exist and not exits. There is a special case of existence; ideas, concepts, theories, mathematics, logic, reason, that exist but have no physical existence. Yet there can be no doubt that these things exist. How about a god? Can we use a god to predict the future with a mathematical certainty, or a probability, even if we cannot apply exact dimensions to the probability? No, it just does not happen.

Consider the child cancer question. The ability to predict using the hypothesis is one portion of demonstration that the no god hypothesis is likely correct, but the god hypothesis requires modification such as a "greater good concepts" to be rational in any sense, so the hypothesis immediately needs to be modified to allow reality. This is the satin crack, or the introduction of a trichotomy from what was a dichotomy problem, which is not a scientific process, but makes the god hypothesis likely incorrect it that form. That all indicates the concept of there being a god does not stand up to scientific examination. Religion then turns to bulling, condemning logic and the philosopher who stands up for science, against religion. Religion has gotten us as far as it can, now we are on our own, and need to apply logic to get us further. We live in a time of overpopulation, and death is the great equalizer.

Examination and running of the dueling hypothesis will lead the logical, and changeable observant to the conclusion that there is no god. There are those also who do not have the capacity to do the thinking required, and those who will not change regardless of the result of the thought experiment. There are those also who's livelihood requires them to believe, and until retirement, are trapped into a  way of life. The end outcome is that there is very little to support a god exists hypothesis. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

Now knowing this, we have a responsibility to teach the next generation the truth, and why we believe all true concepts to be true. Vulcan Scientific Director Statement like of thing.

There ought to be a charter of responsibilities for humans written in English. There are numerous charter or rights and freedoms, but nothing saying how one is to obtain these in a over regulated and over taxed world.  Several have tried, Grayling, Levine, and likely others. Many philosophers deal with a few concepts, one at a time, as do many religions. Some are mutually exclusive. Some value tradition above reality or logic/reason. Some a just not real enough in the modern world. So far it is just every man for himself.