A question: Is there a purpose for my life?

A Question: Is there a purpose for my life?

In order to understand the question.
Is there a purpose to our lives?
We must first evaluate,......

What is life?

Homo sapiens, the human race, at some point in time, we reached the intellectual ability of being capable to ponder our own existence. To look up at the stars in the night sky and to ask the, “why” question?  Why are we here?  As well as a myriad of additional questions including is there a purpose to my being here, to my life? It was at this moment in human existence, in which humanity began the search for truth and knowledge by means of philosophical epistemology.

Did this inspiration begin in a garden with a talking snake and the eating of a forbidden fruit? At a time when the god creator was constructing and performing the act of creation of his master plans for the human race. An all knowing god creator, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent, whose plans are run afoul through the transgressions (sins) of his/her/its first human creations.  This all knowing being; knowingly created fallible beings, with free will, knowing in advance, what was going to occur? God knowing in advance, through his omniscience, that these plans, will fall to pieces by the eating of a forbidden fruit, from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This tree of knowledge, which was placed in the Garden of Eden, with God having the knowledge that this event would occur.  The world fell into what is known as a “fallen world” by those of the Christian mindset. The insinuation here that. knowledge of good and evil was sinful, and humanity in its earliest of infancy is to be punished for the crime of disobeying the creator’s command to stay away from this tree of knowledge of good and evil.  So the Christian God set up and controlled the entire scenario, in the process controlling and orchestrating the fall of man.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Knowledge_of_Good_and_Evil

or was it……

Through the course of natural development, in a closed environment, on a planet rich with elements, oceans rich with iron, solar energy, given the possibility of sunlight and photosynthesis, amino acids, nucleic acids and RNA, forming proteins and ribosomes, life springs forth by way of natural cause, and evolves by way of natural selection. In a vast cosmos existing within a vast time span, beyond the comprehension of the human mind; life has emerged through a natural arrangement of existent materials.
Which of these two scenarios is the most reasonable?

It is with the latter notion in mind I speak from here on out.

The Argument for Abiogenesis

 It comes down to the unanswered question of, the spark of life beginning.
Abiogenesis, is this the most likely of logical paths in this notion of a spontaneous emergence.
But...
“We or I do not know” is an acceptable and honest answer.

Modern Stromatolites Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay Australia

We do not know the exact method of the appearance of earliest life forms. Among the earliest known life forms are cyanobacteria and stromatolite.  Stramatolite formed 3.5 billions year ago, in the early brine oceans of earth, still to this day, found off the coast of Australia as well as various other locations around the world.
How?
Science speculates on premises and hypothesis with eager willingness to discard each premise, or hypothesis, until peer reviewed science looks at the hypothesis and agrees that it reaches a level of an acceptable theory.
A scientific theory is not speculative, it is not the same as a hypothesis. It is the accepted, tested, and evaluated answer to a question or an idea. The best answer we currently have to a question based in scientific reality. We have a theory of gravity, we do not completely understand gravity. This does not keep us from knowing gravity exists, we leave open the door for new discovery and knowledge. This does not mean the theory is likely to be wholly disproven. Same with light theory, particle or wave or a combination. We do not know. We are searching. Science always remains open to new evidences.
What if science is wrong?
In the discovery of science truths and knowledge, we do not start with a claim, as religion does and then, attempt to support, defend and protect the claim. When claims are made and assertions are cast because it “seems” to be the best or only answer, this is known as. “An argument from ignorance”.  There is a knowledge gap and a leap or guess is inserted to fill the gap.
Science to the contrary, attempts to disprove notions and ideas more often than to confirm them. Even established scientific theories are not beyond disrepute. Proving an established theory wrong is a proud achievement in science circles.
What do we know?
Existence, life, matter, energy, the macro universe, the micro universe, the quantum universe, forces known, electromagnetic , atomic energy, fusion, heat, light, …energy equals mass times the speed of light squared,  E=MC2, forces known and yet not yet understood, gravity, dark matter, dark energy. Space/time, light speed over distance, light years, the expanding universe.
We are beginning to understand the universe.

Early Humans

3 million years ago after one of the last great ice ages, the topography of the land in Africa began to change. The forest thinned to grasslands and our ancestors, Australopithecus Afarensis (Lucy) left the trees. In doing so, they were forced to stand in the tall savanna grass on their two legs to view the surroundings in order to defend from predators, their hands were freed up for other uses than knuckle walking and climbing. They began to hunt and eat meat. Their brains grew. After 3 million years of evolving, they began to work together in larger groups forming permanent settlements.
As early as 70,000 years ago, small bands of close knit families, 8 to 14 individuals would work together, hunting and gathering to survive. Just after the last mini ice age took place, the hominids of northern Europe began to abandon the hunter gatherer lifestyles. They began to establish small encampments in which people began to specialize in their talents. This created an evolutionary and mind altering change.
The Result
Once hominids reached a position of understanding the benefits of co-existing in a social setting with one another, they found time on their hands to specialize in crafting. This person is very good at creating arrowhead for spears, this person is good at tanning hides, and this person is very good with building shelters, and so on. . They discovered the use of fire, created the wheel, created tools, used to cut, chop, pound, pry, build! We/they left the hunter gatherer phase of our evolution to move towards a socially shared life experience. Through this, humanity realized the values in co-existing in a peaceful collaborative efforts.

It was quickly determined that, stealing from others and killing within the community was not an acceptable means of well-being for the betterment of the community and it would not be tolerated. A further rule may quickly have been recognized is not interrupting an established family unit, by way of forcing oneself onto another's  mate. This recognition of values or morals is among the most easily established rules within a community. Seen as the best means of establishing a thriving community’s well-being.
Spare Time
With this new-found community through specialization, the use of individual talents to contribute to the best welfare of the community, there became time for spare time. Grubbing out a life in the hunter gatherer style 24/7 became obsolete.
Life began to be one of discovery. Humans began to ponder existence. The human mind was developing; we wished to know and understand our world. We looked around and were able to control and conquer our world. We began to understand the world. We discovered the benefit of having power, control, and intellect. We became arrogant in our apparent mastery of the world around us.  Not only to control conditions but other humans. With this realization, spiritual leaders were established, recognized and religion is born. The Shaman of the tribe was looked to for answers, and with that respect came power.

Understanding the Universe

At one point not long ago, 500 years, only a mere blink in human existence here on this planet, European civilization, the purported center of the educated world, believed that the earth was at the center of the universe. A geo-centric or earth centered mindset existed. Everything does after all appear to circle the earth.
  We have discovered since that time, we have had many things wrong. We just maybe, are not as smart as we like to think we are.

What is intellect?
Are we at the top of the intellectual food chain? Well, Maybe?  Here on this tiny mote of dust floating only very briefly in the cosmic landscape.  For the smallest fraction of time on the cosmic calendar, it is safe to say, yes, we are the rulers of this tiny insignificant portion of existence in this colossally vast space / time universe. Does this mean we are special? To even ask this question in light of the evidence for the vastness of the universe is to say, at the least; arrogance amplified. Is this a sad or bad thing? Not if you approach the answer from the point of view that we can understand this.

We live in a time when we know and understand how insignificant we are in this amazing place. I personally sit in AWE daily. So grateful for the progress of our ancestors that allows us to benefit from this knowledge, here, now, in this time. I/we are among the very first humans in the history of the planet to be able to hold this understanding.
 This new age of understanding is less than 100 years old. It began when Edwin Hubble in 1923 discovered that what was thought to be gaseous clouds known as nebulae, were actually other galaxies. I won’t go into an explanation of the size of the universe here, though I would like to, I urge anyone who may not or even if you do, find out, find the explanation. It is larger than the human mind can comprehend.

Valuing Life

Life is the word we use to describe a biological form, from tiny bacteria to a Great Blue Whale, from the moss growing on the side of the giant redwood tree, to the red wood tree.
We value life!
We value our own life, as best we can tell, so do all living forms which have the ability to defend their own lives through their own actions. Even though we may not consider them sentient.  All animals with a brain will struggle and defend themselves to survive. Can we say the same of plants? Plants, trees and all forms of flora share in the fight to survive, in their own ways when they can. Life comes on this planet extremely easy. It exists everywhere. From 6 miles high in the troposphere to 6 miles down in the ocean floor.
http://www.livescience.com/26645-microbes-in-the-sky.html
Life can pop up in the most inhospitable of places. From our perspective anyways.

Where is the value?
Humans, men and women together can create new life in a matter of 9 months, continually for years. Some people may not like this but the creation of human life is cheap and easy. This is not meant to devalue life. Life is precious to each individual and to the surrounding human beings they share their lives with. Even our fellow animal life forms on this planet have been observed to show empathy when they lose a member of their family. Elephants, whales, dogs, pigs, and many other forms of animals show fondness and caring within their own species and outside of their own.
As an example, most of us have experienced losing a pet, a lifelong friend. A dog or a cat, a bird or a hamster; we cry and mourn the loss of that pet. We held value for that animal because we had a personal relationship with that animal. At the very moment you are grieving over the loss of this pet, you are not grieving over the thousands of humans dying all over the world not to mention down at your local hospital or even out at your nearest crossroad auto accident. Lives have value, personal value because we apply value through relationships.
I credit Sam Harris with this; Thousands of people die in a tsunami, and we continue with our evening meal, but we gather in candle light vigil for the little girl who fell down into the drain pipe.  We understand countries come to aid of other countries in mass tragedies like tsunami’s, hurricanes or volcanic eruptions, but when the devastation is near to us, even if on a much smaller scale, we seemingly value it more and react differently when we are directly touched by it.

The Durability of the Human Race

Let’s establish some reality!

Armageddon!  Great movie right?
The earth, could be hit by an asteroid tomorrow, destroying all life on this planet, with no one left to mourn the human race.  We could be completely wiped out. It has happened to life on this planet before. There have been 5 mass extinction periods in the life of our planet. We could be next. Actually, we are next, unless we do something about this. Our solar system is a cosmic shooting gallery. Earth has been hit in the past and it WILL be hit again. When our earth is hit again, as long as it was not completely obliterated, Earth will continue on its path around its star. Unperturbed over the total loss of the life forms once known as humanity, in the same way millions of other species have come and gone on this planer. The earth would recover. It may take ten thousand or a hundred thousand years, but most likely, the remnants of any life that survived, whether at the bottom of the ocean, in the sub-arctic, or within a continental crust, life would reemerge and begin a new course of evolution. A new species would rise to claim the top of the food chain position. Almost guaranteed not to be human, but we would share DNA if it evolved from current life forms that survived.  Possibly even another intelligent form of life would evolve. They may even invent a god/genesis story to comfort themselves. Guaranteed not to be any of the thousands of previous religious theologies imagined by humanity during our tenure on this planet. This would be a theology of a new specie. No Jesus, no Thor or Zeus. In a new language which we could not begin to imagine.
How long do we have?
It all depends on the star we call, Sun. We exist only for as long as the Sun exists.The sun is only middle aged, 4.3 billion years old of it's expected near 9 billion year life span. There is a lot of time for the next species to rise after our extinction. Consider, the earliest signs of homosapien, as we know ourselves; have only existed for approximately 200 thousand years, this is a drop in earths geologic time bucket. We have attained a civilized <subjective> society in only the last 10 to 15 thousand years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

Earth’s Lifespan

In time the sun will become a red giant, heat up, and envelope the first two planets, in the process destroying all life on Earth. It may incinerate Earth as well. The sun will burn all its hydrogen away and begin to cool, shrink and die.

http://www.universetoday.com/18847/life-of-the-sun/

Everything ends. Everything dies! Even the universe will die, trillions and trillions of years from now. Want to speak of eternity? This is a short period of time compared to eternity.  We exist in the very early life of this universe; the universe is a mere 13.4 billion years old. Life will exist in this universe for a fraction of the time this universe will exist. In time all stars will burn out. We live in the stelliferous period, the time of stars. The universe will go cold. All life will cease to exist in this universe, not just on our tiny speck which was destroyed so many trillions of years ago, but anywhere in the universe. Makes you feel kind of small, even insignificant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

Eternity? Eternity where? Even if the multiverse theory is considered, does anyone really want to exist for eternity? That would be tantamount to a prison sentence. Star Trek Voyager Season 2 Death Wish, has an interesting episode outlining this dilemma.

Something from Nothing!

"In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing.  But this is mere temporizing.  If we wish to courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from.  And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question?  Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?"  Carl Sagan—Cosmos

Where did the universe come from?
Something had to make it?
Nothing can come from nothing.
The universe did not appear from nothing?

These are the wrong questions to ask.

How can there be nothing?
How can nothing exist? You see the problem with this question? Nothing and exist don’t go together. Nothing, (noun) cannot have a description put to it. It becomes something. This is a crazy as saying well there must have been a creator. Who or what made the creator. If something created the creator that becomes what is known as, infinite regression. Well the creator always existed. Well the universe always existed, this gets us nowhere and explains nothing.

There’s that word again. Really comes down to a definition of nothing.
Again saying we do not know is the honest answer.
Imagine nothing!
Okay let’s attempt to define nothing. Is nothing the empty space between our hands?
NO, there is air and space between our hands.
If I am in outer space where there is no air, there is still space, space is not nothing. There is distance to space, and light must travel through this space to get to wherever it is headed. Does something require mass/weight matter? If so what is energy. Keep in mind these two things, mass and energy are completely interchangeable. This is what E=MC2 describes.

Let’s imagine space fabric, which is what mass bends to create gravitational fields. We do not detect, see or understand it, in the same way ancient man did not understand the atmosphere or the air around us. In the same way, does a fish know it is in water?

The quantum world suggests that, given the properties of existence, given the zero value of our flat universe, energy appears, and with energy comes matter, it must, and this is getting into a very difficult area to comprehend, and to demonstrate, but it is to mean, existence must exist. Yes, this is a statement not much different than, therefore god, from a theologians or a scientists point of view. It is not a claim, it is a hypothesis and science would love to find a way to prove incorrect, or correct. The discovery of truth is the goal, not finding a way to fit the desired hypothesis.
"I do not know"  this is the honest answer. Let’s find out is the correct response.

Higgs Boson
This is an interesting recent discovery. The Higgs Boson was recently detected through atomic collisions at the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland. The Higgs Boson is the particle that in a sense, freezes energy into what we know as matter. It is called the “God Particle” due to the claim that it is responsible for creation of matter. Don’t read too much into that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

Matter to energy / energy to matter
Another interesting note on matter and energy. Science claims that no particle, no atom, no energy has ever been lost or destroyed in the universe. All energy and matter is present that has ever been present in the universe. Hence energy and matter are never created from nothing. When wood is burned to ash, the essence of the entire piece of wood still exists within the universe. This is called phase transition, when mass is converted to gas. We have a very easy time converting mass to energy but converting energy to mass is another thing. There are experiments with the LHC, Large Hadron Collider where science works on this. Converting energy to mass, is what Star Treks replicators do.

What do we find?
Things are becoming clearer to us through science, more so than through philosophical speculation of religion or the scriptures of an ancient book. Science itself creates a method or possibly a philosophy of how we look at life. It demonstrates a sense of awe and spiritual connectivity to the universe. Spiritual used as a sense of being and belonging.
Science has demonstrated to us many ways to view the world, it is through science and truth in knowledge that we progress as a specie.
There are a multitude of theological genesis stories throughout the history of humankind. Christianity holds no monopoly on this idea. Theologians have a claim, a story, which they attempt to maintain in defiance of known truths.

Cosmic Time
Given enough time, nothing will survive the test of cosmic time. Nothing including earth itself will survive cosmic time. Everything ends! The universe will die in what is known as, heat death. The fact is as science sees it, life in the universe is only possible for a very brief section of cosmic time.  I have already mentioned the stelliferous period. Click on the link below to view a chart.

Eternity and Religion

Do the people of a religious belief who speak of eternity, really understand what eternity is? An eternal life is; never ending, exponentially to the infinity squared plus one, and never, ever, ceasing to exist.
This I contend, is no different than a prison cell.
To not be able to discontinue existing. Living for eternity in a place, whether it a jail cell or a multi verse of universes filled with worlds, pales to an eternity. Everything given infinite time, will become effectively, old news. This is the curse of eternity.
http://images.cryhavok.org/d/3084-2/Heat-Death-fo-the-Universe-Timeline.png

Purpose?

So let’s talk purpose. Seems a bit insignificant and arrogant to me in light of the full realization of what it is to live in this glorious and amazing universe. To place our individual selves' in a role suggesting we have some divine purpose is arrogant. To ask how can I contribute and create purpose is a noble question.
The question often asked by the religious believer.
What’s my purpose here?  What purpose does God have for me?
Wake up! There is no divine purpose!
We are extremely fortunate to live, to know, to experience, to love, to learn, to reproduce, to have family, to exist and to; for a very brief moment….A VERY BRIEF MOMENT in time,
To know the universe!
Revel in that! Your own purpose in life is what you make of it. Your proverbial eternity will be witnessed in how you effect the world going forward after your time is spent.

As an olive branch extended to those of us with the need and desire to find a deeper meaning or a divine connection:
If we have a transcendent purpose, it is to know the universe. We are how the universe can understand itself. I suggest we can feel very special in this way. We are of the universe. We are of the stars. This is a beautiful truth of our existence.

In my opinion, this is the most glorious part of life in this universe. To attempt to trump this knowable truth with the insertion of a more complex god entity is in my opinion a travesty and a true loss for those who spend their days on their knees with their hands clasped together, heads bowed and their thoughts spent on an ancient mythology.

This singular life we have, should not be treated as if it is a test or a stepping stone to an eternal after life we cannot know actually exists.
Perpetuating the idea through religion that the human race has some kind of special station with a god or within the universe is not only an arrogant assumption, it is damaging. I contend we are one of millions if not billions of intelligent or at least sentient life forms spread throughout the galaxy. Life forms that have gone extinct to life forms still yet to to exist. We are having our proverbial 15 minutes of fame in the universe. Yes religion does some good, it also does great harm.

Christopher Hitchens asks,
"can you name any good deed that could be done by a religious person and not done by a Godless one",

The good done by religious believers while it may be done in their own minds for the glory of their god or a sense of buying their way into heaven, these good deeds can also be done without such a belief. For the goodness and wellbeing of humanity. This is the direction we should tend towards.

Summation

Religion, in fact, since its inception, has worked at keeping scientific truth subdued and buried and it still is today. Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Giordano Brunno in the 16th and 17th centuries all experienced first hand the heavy hand of the church for the blasphemy of speaking the truth of the world.
At key points in our history, the belief of the religious leaders, who held a vested interest in the power they wielded through their undemonstrated beliefs has held back science progress. The George Bush initiative on denying the use of stem cell research in the USA is among the most recent. Teaching children in school that the sciences of radiometric dating, the science which demonstrates the age of the earth and the age of universe as false, that evolution is not true, in deference to protecting a god belief. THIS IS damaging our education system today in the USA.

Only through real demonstrable and testable knowledge can we know the universe. Only through science discovery have we advanced our life span and found cures for all the diseases that threaten our lives. Only though science have we improved the quality of our lives with technology. Only through science have we been able to discover our place in this universe. Only through science have I been able to transmit this message to you by an internet blog.

If we continue to teach children that a god did this, that the world was created by God 6000 years ago, that evolution is false, and we need not inquire any further, we are hampering our efforts to progress forward.  I would implore people to spend more time in their life trying to understand the universe. To discover the workings of the universe, this, if anything, this IS our purpose.


Unless we get off this planet and begin to inhabit the solar system, our moon, Mars, the human race WILL be doomed to become much less than a footnote in cosmic history.
Are we really so arrogant in our need or assumption of a divine purpose that the resulting ideology becomes a detriment to the survival of the human race? We need to get out there into space and make an attempt to colonize, at least our own solar system. Possibly join an intergalactic community? If we can not get off this planet we are certainly doomed! That is purpose enough for me!

If you like this article please share by using the links below, Google+ or FB, etc. Also please leave a comment below. This all helps with Google search ratings. Thanks!

Suggested watching/reading
The Inexplicable Universe Neil De Grasse Tyson on Netflix

Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 version

Cosmos Neil De Grasse Tyson

Discover Channel

The Universe with Brian Cox

The Elegant Universe Brian Greene Book or Netflix Amazon Prime

Pledging Under God! It’s optional or Just don’t say the words!

        

On the topic of the pledge and the flippant suggestion by religious as well as some agnostic Americans,
“You don’t have to say the words under god”, or suggesting that, "Saying the pledge is optional".
You don’t have to say it at all, speaks right to the issue that the pledge of allegiance has become invalid as a pledge we can all share. A pledge of allegiance should be something we can all recite with pride and unanimity.
So, which side is it that is being self-serving here?
Secular non-believers who’s only request is that divisive terminology not be included?
Or the religious who hold an unwavering position for an ideology for which they alone attribute value?A pledge of allegiance, or an oath that is supposed to actually hold real meaning is not something that we should be able to arbitrarily modify to fit our own individual worldview, by leaving out a section.Should the President elect at his inauguration, upon being sworn in to office, be allowed to adjust the sworn pledge / oath to the office of president in order to suit his own sensibilities? If the answer be no, what then does this have to say about the idea we can choose to leave words out of what is supposed to be our shared national, Pledge of Allegiance?

We as citizens do not have to and are in no way forced to say, “Under God” or for that matter the pledge. But also, there is nowhere that says that we must remove our hats or put our hands across our hearts when the national anthem is performed at public events.

If you are not offended by the decision of non believers to 'not speak, or say
"under God"
arbitrarily from the pledge; by the same token you should not be offended when someone does not remove their hat or stand during the national anthem. To do otherwise would be selective hypocrisy.
Or could it be in the case of the pledge, the religious actually do understand why non believer's choose not to recite the words. "under God" and don't care about whether or not the country is divided or indivisible, as long as the religious maintain the, "under God" mantra in the pledge.

To further this point;
I would submit if you are willing to allow the pledge to be arbitrarily altered by an individual in order to fit a particular life view; then by allowing this revision, by sanctioning this omission, you are admitting that there is something discordant and divisive with the wording of the pledge. God and religion are unarguably, without a doubt one of the most divisive ideologies humankind has ever had to deal with socially. Due to this well recognized fact, under God, coming just prior to the word, “indivisible” in the pledge should be recognized as contradictory and divisive by any reasonable persons.

The FACT that under god was inserted into the pledge in 1954 by Congress in the midst of the McCarthy era, during the cold war / red scare, in order to make a politically motivated religious statement that we as a nation are a “God” fearing and religious nation is historically accurate. This was done in order to make a clear statement to the world, the Soviet Union and the Kremlin, that the United States stands against the spread of non belief in deities, which Russia was advocating for at the time.
If there was anything the Soviets got right, it was not to mix religion into government.
However; do not even attempt to construe this as, I am implying the government should advocate in any way for restricting  religion in a free society. Freedom of and freedom from religion is paramount to a free society and is, in fact what the founding fathers true intention was upon forming the establishment clause. They just did not have the conviction to say, "freedom from religion" due to the current social reality concerning religious belief that existed at the time. In the same manner they ignored the statement that, "all men are created equal" and then they did not include blacks, women, or Indians.

Contrasting this historic fact, that under God was put in the pledge in 1954 specifically to identify America as a God  fearing nation, in this video clip shown below; 
Eric Rassbach deputy general counsel for the Beckett Fund at the September 4^th hearings in the Massachusetts Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District makes a nervous if not flaccid attempt at convincing the judges, the term "under god" does not actually mean that we are a God fearing nation.

 The following is a transcribed quote from the video below.

Rassbach: Ahh, So first of all I don’t, I don’t think that ah, ah I do think that it’s ah there’s a, a misprision of, of fact here that is that the, the I don’t I don’t, believe that the pledge is, is making a religious claim about God or the existence of God or any number of ah, theological….”

Judge interrupts:  No it’s making a claim about the country that the country is a nation under God.

Rassbach: Right! And I, I guess what, what eh..

Judge: Your pledging allegiance to that, ah aspect!

Rassbach: Your pledging allegiance to the flag, and an as we as we put forth in our brief we actually believe the term under god is a, a legal a legal term of art (did he say art?) goes all the way back to the 1200’s that talks about the limitation on ah the government’s ability to take away rights. That is that we have a limited government.
Mr. Rassbach’s stuttering jerky delivery throughout this exchange makes the listener wonder if even he himself has actually swallowed his line of revisionary nonsense all the while praying this panel of judges would.

Furthering Mr. Rassbach’s digression into redefining the term, "under god", as a political philosophy, as opposed to a religious claim; while the judge is reading the following, Mr. Rassbach has a smile on his face that is very telling; in a snake oil salesman kind of way, hoping that the judges will accede to this vacuous interpretation.

The judge goes on to state that he saw from Mr. Rassbach court submitted document the explanation; “the term under god is used as, a matter of natural law from whence our rights are derived”.

 I would be interested in seeing the peer reviewed scientific studies done on this “matter of natural law” regarding where our rights are derived from.

Mr. Rassbach? Would it not be more accurate to say, supernatural laws? Therein lies the rub.view the full video here:

While there could be a great deal of philosophical debate over the subject of "natural law" is/being what determines moral guidelines and that the claim the words, "under god" have any significance or relevance to this claim are vague; if not completely vapid.
Let's just say, "one nation, under natural law, indivisible", at least this would be an attempt to disguise the claim as secular.
Or could it be, this actually is not the most important intent to this message in the pledge?

That being the idea of where morals come from?

Why are we identifying in the pledge where morals come from.
How is this relevant?
After all, the claim natural laws create and bind rules of moral behavior is highly debatable. NO! Not even close...Nice try!
The intent and message "under God" sends, is to lay claim that a god exists.
The insertion of under god in my opinion has in fact bastardized the pledge.
Meaning that it has lowered in condition or worth, and debases it's value.

It runs in direct opposition to the Establishment Clause, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
While the insertion of this into our pledge is not a law, it is clearly a congressional endorsement to the respect of a religious claim. Even in Mr. Rassbach's imaginative way "under god" implies a legal term defining that we get our rights from natural law,
well, this in itself is an arguable philosophy and has no business in a secular pledge.

The Supreme Court of the United States has adjudicated extensively on the Establishment Clause and has found that the intent of the founders goes beyond mere law, that it recognizes a separation of church and state, and was intended to do far more than merely prohibit the establishment of a state religion.
The insertion of a religious ideology such as, being “Under God”, no matter which god, into  a formally adopted Pledge of Allegiance by congress in 1945 is clearly a violation of the Establishment Clause.

The fact that a majority of the people of the United States, including the very liberal US 9th Circuit court of Appeals in San Francisco CA have not come to this same conclusion is in my opinion a demonstration to the US government’s failure to protect a growing minority of non believers from the religious pinnings of a majority rule.

The United States has a long history of overcoming this same type of arbitrary majority rules mandate, both socially and politically imposed injustices.

1. The founders not having the fortitude to do away with slavery even though stated that all men are created equal in the Constitution of the US.

2. 1787 even going so far as to create the Three Fifths Compromise in Article 1 Section 2 the population of slaves and Indians would be counted as 3/5 of a person.

3. Indian affairs.

4. Women’s rights.

5. Civil rights.

6. Gay rights.

AND now..failing to respect and support, secular ,humanist, non-believers, atheists constitutional right; to be recognized as US citizen patriots who do not holding supernatural beliefs.

Fact: This nation has a citizenship of 20% or more and still growing base of non religious, non believers. This exemplifies that this inclusion of, under god, does in fact discriminate against a significant portion of the population.  
Never should justice or what is a human right be determined solely by majority rule.

Because of two words in The Pledge of Allegiance, we have a controversy, a division in this country.  I will repeat the pledge should be representative of ALL this nations’ citizens.

I feel that this pledge in the current form is not one that myself or the 20%+ other secular Americans should be asked to merely “just leave out” those two divisive and servile words, “Under God” which ironically precede the word, “indivisible”.
I do not live under a god nor do I accept that morals are a result of natural laws or of the commands of a god. It is more than any secular American citizen should be asked to do, and that is; to shut up and accept it.

If The Pledge of Allegiance is ever to mean anything to ALL Americans, the insertion of those two words, "under God" should, will, and must be removed. So once again we can be one nation indivisible.If you like this article please share by using the links below, Google+ or FB, etc. Also please leave a comment below. This all helps with Google search ratings. Thanks!

The Human Cost of Belief

To my Christian Face Book friends, if I have any left!   

I, am an anti theist!

    I have had friends new and old who have unfriended me because of our differences in belief. Yes I make my position openly apparent. It is at least as important to me to create a world where reason and truth are the primary goals, as it is for the believer to spread and confirm their own investment in their own delusion, .. er I mean belief. What "actually" is truth, matters to me. I don't feel believers feel as strongly about what is "actually" true. I, am willing to risk their imposed threat of eternal hell damnation. Although that is not actually a consideration for me, I use it only to make the point.
    Actually, hell, in my opinion would be living for an eternity worshipping a needy, jealous, narcissistic deity, who loves to play mind games with the human race. But that is another issue.

    This schism causes rifts not only between close friends and family members but fellow Americans and humans who do not know each other, in politics. This is due to the undeniable fact that believers have chosen to believe in an ideology based entirely on faith and the writings of a 2600 year old book! Believers have been taught and accept, in the case of Christian religion, faith in Jesus is the truth, the path, the light and the way. This is merely indoctrination poetry.
Faith is not a pathway to what is true!

“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” Christopher Hitchens.

        We do not use faith in our daily lives to make normal daily decisions, or at least we attempt to use the best knowledge available to make our decisions. Buying a car, where to go to school, what food to eat, when it is safe to cross the road, who we should marry. Why is it; that with one of the most important universal questions we can choose to ask, an answer is accepted upon faith and a culturally driven ideology?

At a time before science, we searched for answers to comfort ourselves. Humans made decisions by observing their surroundings and applying an answer which seemed to them reasonable. Natural events had answers created from an ignorance of the physics of nature. Storms, volcanic eruptions, good crops, bad crops, comets in the sky, droughts, were all credited to one god or another. In an attempt to understand the world around us we felt at ease being able to credit with willful ignorance, a pretentious knowledge which was untested and unverified. Lightning came from the clouds; hence Zeus was angry. Demeter was the Greek goddess of a good harvest. You can Google just about any natural phenomena and somewhere in history a god or goddess will be given credit. The source of the word hurricane is taken from the Mayan God Huracan.

“Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.”
― Thomas Jefferson

Religion has had it purpose in human evolution. It served as a scaffold to create a system of order and control in a time when law and order was difficult if not near impossible to maintain. Murder, death, and rape wear rarely punished by the law of man. The threat of eternal damnation after your own death was a tool used by the church and rulers, the people in power in an attempt to control bad behavior. Religion has been and to some extent remains the means by which rulers, governments and the church control the masses. Evidenced by Sharia laws. This impalpable scaffold which humankind used to build a moral and decent civil foundation has seen it's time and it is now the time to kick the scaffold away. We are now a race of humans who have evolved our morality and continue to do so, know understand what it takes to maintain a just and free society.

Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion. Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great.

The continued effects of this religious system persevere in our modern era of scientific discovery and understanding.        
Why? Is it the threat of hell? Is it because of where you were born? Because your parents and authority figures told you so since the age of 5 that this religion is the correct one? You believe it makes sense and how else could this wonderful place exist? This is known as an argument from ignorance; well I don't know so it must be this, what else could it be?
What is wrong with, "I don't know?"
The technological and medical world we live in is directly credited to science. Science does not use faith to find answers. This has worked pretty well for us and it is fairly safe to say this will not change.

   There is no reason not to believe that when we die we are finished with life. Is the fear of no longer existing in the future any different than when we did not exist in the past?  Until it is rationally and empirically demonstrated that we continue on in some form after dying, I treat this life as my one and only chance to experience life. This life is not a stepping stone to a better place. This is it! Life is wonderful! Carpe diem!

    What I am trying to get at here is, old friends, new friends, neighbors and co workers, we have a rift between us because of these belief claims. It is YOUR decision to believe in something, an ideology, and openly and publicly assert it towards society.. with a total lack of evidence. My decision to not believe in your theological god, is no different to me than my reason not to believe in Zeus or Thor. I go one deity further. Your belief system threatens people who deny and question it honestly with eternal torment in a made up after life place known as hell. How do believer's reconcile living with that as a world view?
For the mere position of doubt and incredulity; Abrahamic beliefs assert that unless you abandon your reason and rationality to a belief supported by faith you are condemned to suffering an eternity in the afterlife. Now if this were a platform any politician ran on I wonder how that career would end up. Our ancestors in this country left England to escape this type of tyranny.
    Believers are compelled to think bad things of those non believers who approach the claim with skepticism. Recent polls of Christians suggest that atheists are the least trusted people in the country. Worse than rapists. This makes it kind of hard for us to be friends doesn't it?. You believe in something that creates dissension and hate towards non believers. Because of what you, believers, have decided to take on faith alone.

This comes at a cost for us all.

    I share the view a legendary composer artist posed to us in 1971.  The world would be a better place if we all believed that which has been demonstrated as true. No heaven; no hell. All people living for one another, for the day! You may say it's a dream. This is my dream as well.
Imagine!