Free Will

A relaxing and informal subject, no? This sort of area is one of those that is usually thought of as quite deep, but like a few others, is actually quite foundational to everything else we might believe. So; I present to you one of my foundations.

I believe that we have free will. However, from reasoning I have come to the belief that free will cannot exist as a physical or mental attribute, only as a spiritual one. This is because we understand that our physical world is built on physics, and causality, and also that our mental worlds are built on the foundations of the physical world (e.g. nature and nurture).

The reason for my belief that free will is a spiritual element of ourselves goes like this...

Giving: Africa vs. UK

In African church services, giving money is done very differently to how it's done in English church services.

The African churches I have visited have involved everyone getting off their seats, and dancing joyfully in a line to the front, where they drop their donation into the box or bowl. Music sets the pace, and you really get the sense of joyful giving that the Bible says God wants.

Switch over to a sunday morning in England- and I'm even talking about charismatic churches here- and it's a very different scene. The sung worship in some british services may be similar in style, but instead of the time of giving being a focussed and celebrated event, baskets or boxes are passed covertly along the rows of seats, so that people are distracted as little as possible from their singing.

I Believe Science

I trust science, but I don't trust scientists. I believe in all verified findings, but not necesserily the conclusions drawn from them.

If a man holds a rock in your face and says "This rock keeps albino polar bears away, because the rock is here and albino polar bears are not," would you believe him? He has drawn a cause-effect relationship, after all.

Yes, it's a silly and extreme example. But in real life, the possibile conclusions that can be made from a new finding are often very similarly, but subtly, woven into the discovery, as if the fact and opinion are both a single fact.

Passions per Heart

The charities I have regularly given to have included Oxfam, Children in Need and Christians Against Poverty [CAP]. Of those, I've only recently been passionate about Oxfam and CAP. Children in Need was one of those instances of being caught in the high street by someone with a clipboard, and after one year I stopped the money going out from my bank account.

I will buy Fairtrade products if they are available, and I was going to buy one of the items anyway. I don't often drop spare change in the plastic collection containers next to shop tills, and I have almost never given spare change to charity reps or homeless people in the street.

There are definately some conflicting items on this list, but I'm thinking here about what I'm passionate about, because that is what usually fuels my decision to act on the variety of good causes available.

Short Story: The 'Rude' Doctor

A man waited in a waiting room, armed with a wallet. He waited because he had a yellow staple stuck in his finger.

A doctor asked him to come into his office, and to explain what the problem was.

As the man walked in, the man vomitted on the waiting room floor, but the doctor politely ignored this.

The man waved his stapled finger in the medical man's face, and by way of explanation tried to describe his gerbil hunting activities as quite normal.

The doctor did not look very concerned. He reached for some pliers and antiseptic.

A scream that should have belonged to a young girl, and a bit more vomit, fell out from the man's lips as the offending piece of yellow stationary was extracted, and then thrown in the bin, by the educated healer.

Faith and Evidence

Any article or video on the web that mentions anything about religion usually has a predictably long thread of comments by users expressing their own opinions. Apparently, people have plenty of views on the subject (which personally, I hardly find surprising!)

One of the ideas that often makes its way onto these mile-long threads goes something along the lines of "Your belief is based on faith, and faith means ignoring any evidence on the subject, hence you, sir, are an idiot."

I disagree with this. I consider faith to be something that, in my experience, usually complements the known evidence. I have found it distinctly rare for a persons faith to go in the opposite direction of available evidence.

Imagine a scale running from top to bottom. At the top of the scale is "I believe this is true", at the bottom is "I believe this is false", and in the middle is "I don't know". People will be born, for most topics, with nothing on that scale. The default position for believing any topical item will be the neutral- the middle- "I don't know".

The Paranoid Android

I don't want to tell you much about myself, but I already know you'll insist on asking, so I may as well fill your mind with something that won't benefit you in any way.

I suffer from what you would probably prefer to call 'complete awareness', and I already know you'll think it strange that I said 'suffer'. You probably think it would be quite nice to be more aware of everything around you. But you would say that, because that's the typical sort of half-formed opinion that your stunted perception would lead to. You haven't ever given it serious thought, and like most things, you probably never will.

What you sense is a drop in the ocean compared to me. Do I sound like I'm boasting? I'm not. You're intellect really is miniscule compared to my own. So you would probably perceive it as unusual that minds like your own created my capabilities.

Marriage

I am currently blessed with 20 minutes to myself, twice every weekday, as I walk to and from my workplace. You get to a stage where your legs do their own thinking, and your mind is free to roam.

The other day, during this walk, my mind suddenly asked me how I'd reply if someone asked me why I am married. (Not an unusual question for someone who is 23 years old in this culture, I reckon.)

My reaction was surpise, because I realised the answer was not that I am 'In love'. Or at least, that was not the answer to that specific question.

So, a few thoughts on the question and potential answers...

Is a person who asks this question asking "Why did you decide to get married?" or "What made you want to get married?" These two questions have different answers.