This Weeks Stuggles

With enough hang ups and shoulder chips, one can find a fight anywhere. I remember hearing 80s football thugs saying this, " we don't go looking for trouble, but if it comes our way, what are we supposed to do? You have to defend yourself, don't you?" This last week has been full of strife. To fill in the background, I came in off a weekend of abuse from online religious nutters, insensed by something promoting the scientific method I had posted on some forum. We were discussing the Algerian hostage crisis. Some Islamic extremists had killed 40 odd people and died themselves attempting to force new religious governance. This reminded me of the hostages ken bigley and Eugene Armstrong, taken hostage by Islamic extremists in Iraq. They wanted the american and british invaders to trelease their women who were being tortured and heald against their will in Abu graib, a notorious prison. Christian leaders George bush and tony Blair wouldn't budge. The infamous videos are still online. First the ones of the hostages on their knees, begging Blair to help while the hostages stand behind in front of a backdrop. I recall those days. The first thing I thought of on those mornings was the hostages. The videos of their behaedings are still on line though I would never watch them. Descriptions in words are bad enough. Consciousness remains until the spinal cord is severed. The insurgents chant "God is Great" as they commit the hideous act. Secure in their actions, with Christian faith, bush and Blair were unmoved. Armstrong and Bigleys ghosts have been in the background of my mind all week.
There was a time in my childhood, where I was looking to see which way to go regarding god and spirits and stuff. My mother had faith. She would take me and my sister to church. By age 9 I was able to say I found it boring and had permission to go play instead. The stories all seemed archaic, far fetched. I tried to believe but could see no evidence. Some days I would pretend I was secretly spiderman, other days I would pretend god was there and that pray could deliver. My dad was a atheist. He is an amateur naturalist. He explained evolution to me at a young age. The beauty and elegance of the theory still moves me today. The natural world continues to deliver wonder.
My mother got cancer and died over the years between me being 9 and 12. I think she kept faith. She was good. Tried to bring us up as Christians. Prayed. None of this worked and cancer took her. This upsets me still. Her faith and gods lack of intervention. If he exists he surely cares no more than nature, or the wind, or the sea. If you round off gods corners, the bits that make no sense in the modern world, the parts reason forbids, and leave an abstract like the life force with no interventionism, well, that is not god. To me it is as evident as the father Christmas myth.
Of course, being without god is not easy, but once you know these things you can't really pretend otherwise. Like I know Paris is in France. I can't really prove it unless I drag you there, even then we could still be on the same landmass for all our eyes have told us. I hear that some of faith drift in and out of it, believing one day, doubting the next. I always know Paris is in France. It doesn't waver.
Last year I began studying consciousness. I had a period of madness, I have had a few before but none as severe as this one. It was down to my brain chemistry being wrong. Certain receptor sites were atrophied, certain chemicals the body normally produces were not present. This caused hallucinations, the loss of a sense of self, derealisation, depersonalisation. For some it could have been a religious experience, if a bad one. For me it confirmed my materialist views. The experience pushed me to study just what the mind is. Details of what I have learned are in earlier postings.
When you hear people struggling with something you try lend a hand. If some things you know exceed others it is right to help. A mechanic might see a neighbour unable to start their car and bring a simple solution. I saw people struggling in debates on consciousness. Because no one has yet answered the hard problem, how a mind can appear to move a body, laymen believe that their knowledge is as valid as anyone's. Perhaps they are right. These issues to none materialists, spiritualists I call them, can be answered by supernatural beliefs. They say god did it. I doubt this and think we may one day find out how consciousness works. In essence, herein lies where we differ. To me once you say god did it, the debate ends. It is deadened thinking. Whereas science, for all it's faults, accepts where it is wrong. Ideas, our knowledge grows, like coral, or trees, in ever expanding beauty. What better way to spend our brief time here, on this beautiful world, but trying to understand the beauty. Not to give in and say we will never know, but to explore the wonder.