Jack D Capehart's blog

Certainty and Doubt

It's certain that I will always be doubtful and it's doubtful that I will ever be certain.

People who are certain about almost anything scare the hell out of me! Those are the people who cause wars or kill the wrong person. Probably worse than that, they teach their children to be certain and this is where religious fanatics come from.
The real problem is not so much religion versus science - it's certainty versus doubt. Religions don't allow doubt and science doesn't allow certainty and therein lies the rub!

Thomas Jefferson on Christianity

But a short time elapsed after the death of the Great Reformer of the Jewish religion before His principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing the oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, which themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ. (To Samuel Kercheval, 1810. C. V., 492.)

ACCURACY and PRECISION

When you read a statement like, "Did you know that 42.73% of all quoted statistics are just plucked from the air?", you should be able to see the difference between accuracy and precision immediately. The statement is very precise since 0.01% means one part in 10,000 but you know it can't be accurate because of the impossibility of measuring something like that. Too many people use the words interchangeably, so if you're one of them stop doing that!
Anytime we measure something, we can only do it with a certain degree of accuracy depending on the equipment we use and the conditions under which we work. If we know the accuracy of our equipment and the effect of the conditions under which we work then that should tell us how precisely we should state the answer. If you're using a ruler whose smallest divisions are 0.1 inch and the item you're measuring falls between two of the divisions, you might estimate the 0.0x or hundredths digit to be a 3 say but you should indicate this by recording your measurement as xx.x3 plus or minus say 0.02 or 0.01 indicating that you were guessing the last digit and also how accurately you thought you could geuss it. The 0.01 or 0.02 is sometimes called the "precision" of the measurement. In science, more accurate measurements often tell us that our theories and laws need to be changed and the precision of our measurements tell us how sure we are that they need changeing.

Deism - A Good Compromise Between Reason and Faith

Deism:    Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and organized religions of having received special divine revelation.

Thomas Paine may be considered to be the founder of Deism.   He became notorious because of "The Age of Reason" (1793–94), his book advocating Deism, promoting reason and freethinking, and arguing against institutionalized religion and Christian doctrines.

His book is available at:

( http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/singlehtml.htm )

Thomas Paine states: "There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is not to be found in any other system of religion. All other systems have something in them that either shock our reason, or are repugnant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in order to force himself to believe them.

But in Deism our reason and our belief become happily united. The wonderful structure of the universe, and everything we behold in the system of the creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the existence of a God, and at the same time proclaim His attributes."

He says about revelation in the “Age of Reason, Part II, Section 20 – Conclusion”:

“Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between God and man, can only be applied to something which God reveals of his will to man; but though the power of the Almighty to make such a communication is necessarily admitted, because to that power all things are possible, yet, the thing so revealed (if any thing ever was revealed, and which, by the bye, it is impossible to prove) is revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His account of it to another is not revelation; and whoever puts faith in that account, puts it in the man from whom the account comes; and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed it; or he may be an impostor and may lie. There is no possible criterion whereby to judge of the truth of what he tells; for even the morality of it would be no proof of revelation. In all such cases, the proper answer should be, "When it is revealed to me, I will believe it to be revelation; but it is not and cannot be incumbent upon me to believe it to be revelation before; neither is it proper that I should take the word of man as the word of God, and put man in the place of God." This is the manner in which I have spoken of revelation in the former part of The Age of Reason; and which, whilst it reverentially admits revelation as a possible thing, because, as before said, to the Almighty all things are possible, it prevents the imposition of one man upon another, and precludes the wicked use of pretended revelation.”

What's Wrong

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Steven Weinberg (Nobel Laureate in Physics), quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999

 

          There’s a worldwide loosely knit organization with many sub-groups, and factions, which don’t all, agree with each other.  The things they disagree about are mostly inconsequential and unprovable ideas or rules that were made so long ago they have no meaning today, and yet they disagree so terribly with each other that their disagreements have caused many of the world’s deaths to date.           

          This organization, of course, is religion and what’s wrong with it is its inability to change or adapt when new knowledge comes to light.  In other words, when someone discovers something new and even when he proves this new thing, if it goes against what religion teaches, religion has no mechanism or method to incorporate this new knowledge and so it is denied!

          Just ask Galileo.  He was forced by the Church to deny what he knew was true.  I believe he even spent some time in jail!  This is the classic example, of course.  But, it’s still happening today.  Creationism or “Intelligent Design” is not a science.  It is a religious belief and is not based on fact but on ideas that must be accepted on faith alone.  The theory of evolution is based on real evidence, good research, and many years of experience and is what should be taught.

          When we are children we believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, etc.  When we get older we learn the truth, but our “worldwide organization” will not permit learning the truth about and outgrowing the mysterious fables of the Bible.  The Bible is mostly made up of stories that were written by people attempting to provide guidelines for mankind’s survival in the world.  The priesthood of the “worldwide organization” has ruined this attempt by misinterpreting the intent of the Bible to be a rule book that must be interpreted literally and accepted on faith alone.

          The Bible is so full of such wonderful ethical and moral rules to live by, but they are covered up with so much ancient mumbo-jumbo that the “worldwide organization” insists must be accepted on faith alone.  What grown person can believe that there exists an all powerful and benevolent entity when they know beyond doubt there are thousands of tiny innocent babies all over the world suffering horrible pain and miserable death every day! 

           If you are so unfortunate as to live in a country where Church and State are not separated as much as they are in the United States, the penalty for not accepting the “mumbo-jumbo” is severe physical punishment, and even death.

          This is why we should not ever let religion creep into our schools.  Schools are for learning things that need not be accepted on faith alone!  If anyone wants to do something religious in schools, instead, why not teach the reasons for learning all the good Christian ethics and morals the Bible teaches.  A “course in morals and ethics” not a “prayer meeting”!  Start with the Golden Rule.  WHY do you think we should treat other people the way we would like to be treated?  It’s because most people tend to treat other people the way those people treat them.  After all, we learn by mimicking what we see others do.  Therefore if we treat other people the way we would like to be treated, they will learn, and treat us the same way.   This is the real reason for practicing the Golden Rule,  not just because it’s in the Bible and the Bible says to practice it.

          And don’t say we should pray for forgiveness for our sins.  Society forgives our sins, not some mystical being that people wrote stories about two thousand years ago.  If you can’t undo your sins then do something to pay society back for the sins you have committed.  Help out some needy family or join Big Brothers or Big Sisters or join the Peace Corps or just do favors for people and never ask for anything in return.  If you can’t do anything else, Send Money!

 

What we need is a new Church. The Church of What’s Happening Now!  Not Yesterday!

 

I’m not perfect!  My greatest flaw is that I’m one of the few thinking, reasoning people stupid enough to say what all the other thinking, reasoning people REALLY BELIEVE!!

 

I should never have taken the “hypocritic oath”.  I can no longer abide by it!

             Many people awash in the sea of society use religion as a life preserver.  Some of them are not the kind of people who look for proofs or facts or reasons why things are so.  They just decide that something sounds good so they say that is what they believe.  They can’t (or don’t want to) separate the “mumbo-jumbo” from the good moral and ethical teachings in the Bible and so they swallow the whole pill of religion.  People like this may be part of the reason I hesitate to voice my opinions on religion to everyone.  If I convinced them they were wrong, it would sink their life preserver!  But that’s only a small part of the reason I try not to broadcast my beliefs.  The biggest reason I don’t is because many of the people to whom I broadcast them would immediately disagree with me and since they believe what they believe just because they decided to believe, there is absolutely no way to convince them they are wrong.  I would be wasting my time even discussing any differences in beliefs

 

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

 

Food for Thought

Say that several thousand years in the future teleportation has been perfected and the way it works is to make an exact duplicate of a human being including everything in the immediate vicinity like clothes, briefcase, shoes, etc. and reproducing all of this at the destination. The exact atomic configuration will be reproduced with each atom at the exact same energy level and same location with respect to all other atoms. Then the original is destroyed by instantly converting it to separate chemicals. The question to ponder is: "Would you accept this method of travel?" It really comes down to whether or not you believe consciousness is something separate from your physical existence or a part of it.

The Internet Puts Gossip on Steroids

Gossip (malicious chatter or rumours about other people) has always been a problem but today it may lead to suicide, murder, or the overthrow of governments because the internet and email provide an easy way to amplify and multiply its effect.
I venture to say that most if not all of you have received emails which claim to be true and seem to reinforce what you always thought might be true about a person or situation and your immediate thought is: "This needs to be read by all my contacts!" and you immediately forward it to everyone in your contacts list. You have fallen into a trap by believing something you read that reinforces what you always thought might be true.
Whatever you read on the internet or in emails from your closest and most trusted friends could have been written by a drooling idiot in an insane asylum or a convicted felon in prison or an unscrupulous politician lying about his opponents. Never assume that the emails you receive from a certain person are guaranteed to be sent by that person. It's not difficult to make an email look like it's from anyone at all.
I always test the validity of emails I receive and other things I read on the internet by going to snopes.com and searching for key words. I have been using Snopes for years and I trust them because they offer references to support their opinions so you can go check them out if you want.

Quantum Mechanics

Quantum Mechanics describes the butterflies that cause the storms we call reality.

Using "Qualifiers" can turn you into a "Reasonable" Person

By qualifiers, I mean words like; "some", "many", "it appears that", "maybe", "I think", "it seems", etc.

Not doing so when referring to a group or class of people, will immediately label you as a bigot in the eyes/ears of your readers/listeners and not doing so when stating facts, can label you as a careless or dogmatic thinker.

You should never or very rarely refer to a whole race of people, a religious sect, a political party, or any large group as "them" or "they" because what you are saying very rarely refers to every member of the group.

We think of too many groups as all having the beliefs, qualities, or characteristics of a few of their more radical members.  A pertinent example is Muslims.  Most Muslims don't interpret the Koran as telling them to kill all non-believers.  Most Muslims loosely interpret what their Koran says and don't advocate Jihad.  For that matter the King James version of the Bible could just as easily be interpreted as saying to kill all non-believers but it is usually given a looser interpretation.

Why Religion was Invented

Religion is the crutch that many people seem to need to enable them to treat each other the way they should.  It's too bad that it seems to require belief in things for which there is no evidence.  It need not be so.  We could all lead an ethically proper and moral life without ever professing belief in things for which there is no evidence.  We could start by living the golden rule.  Just remember, in all your dealings with any person, to treat them just the way you would want them to treat you.  It's so simple.  All you need to do is think before you speak or act.  Think first THEN speak or act!  Things will happen at a slower pace but you will be much happier with the results.