Ashes to ashes

I just feel like an outsider when someone brings up funerals. People spend fortunes on the ritual, coffin and flowers. Clearly that act that is only important for the living, not for the deceased, but that’s way less logical than it sounds. Originally, burial was formed to prevent the spread of infections, and to dispose of the bodies, since they are very ugly and infectious when they start to rot. Some could say the process of grief is a sign of bonding, which is natural for emotionally adult people. I think they are somewhat right, however, it seems very impractical to me. By supporting the grief with money and rituals, people support their inner sadness over the lost ones. Maybe this process helps them to get over the loss? I don’t know. I’ve only lost my grandparents, and people say it’s not even close to the feeling of losing a mother or a father. Actually, I barely see my father and I don’t think his death would induce any emotions in me. And speaking of my mother, even if I love her, I think her death would not shock me greatly. She felt the same until her mother died, then she became very depressed. She’s sad whenever she thinks about her since then. So I’m not sure if my feeling about my mother will stay, but I imagine her death as some kind of relief for both of us. She would finally rest in peace, what she barely feels awake, and I would be freed up from her bond. I don’t feel she has the love of a mother towards me, rather than love of a selfish person. “Love” of a person who regrets many things in her life, and wishes her offspring to achieve things she could not. Demanding “love” of a person who made a child because she never got enough love from her parents, nor her husbands. I feel like she never loved me. She just needed me. And I think that’s why I could never bond with her. We were never equal. In her eyes, I seem like a property. Of course we had nice moments of life, but still, I often look her as a stranger. A woman I could feel sympathy towards, but not love. Should I be grateful because she gave birth to me? I’m not even sure being born and living biological life is appropriate. I’m not talking about suicide, just some sort of “soft” anti-natalism. I don’t want to make her mistake, I don’t want to force a human to be born just for my satisfaction, and I can’t see on which level reproduction becomes a selfless act. I don’t want to be a typical father either, who lives exclusively for the family or leaves a divorced wife and some children behind. There must be intermediate solutions, however, that I haven’t encountered yet. But having or not having children is a different story. I have a girlfriend who I love, and I’d definitely be sad if she died, but still, I have no idea how buying flowers and crying over a gravestone would help. Nor the silk and golden coffin would ease my sadness, I guess.

When we examine the topic from the deceased person’s point of view, there goes two options, one with an afterlife, and one without it. If nothing happens after death, and the consciousness just completely dissolves, nobody would be there to care about the rituals of the living. And I’m pretty sure nobody will care either if one’s existence continues. Why should they? Afterlife would be far more exciting. I’m sure either way I wouldn’t care if someone dressed my dead body in woman’s clothes and make fun of it.

I’ll probably offer my body to some clinical or pathological research if I die. I see no sense keeping my remains and putting it anywhere special. Furthermore, I think the cheapest solution would be the best, which is incineration as far as I know. I promised to my mother that I’ll put her remains besides her parents, but that’s just some romantic thing. She won’t care, so why should I care then? After death, only a corpse remains, that needs no special treatment as long as it doesn’t support the process of letting go. Sometimes I think about viking funeral, taking the body onto a raft and set it on fire as it drifts. Even the wood doesn’t have to be wasted, incineration in a crematory and pouring the ashes anywhere, like in a river would be perfect. Ashes to ashes, you know.

Eurovision 2014

The winner of the latest Eurovision Song Contest, Conchita Wurst aka. Tom Neuwirth got fair amount of attention and outcry. I also think it’s worth a couple of words. If anyone missed, here’s the winner song, Rise like a Phoenix.

After some research you can find he is originally a male singer with the name above, and that’s about all of the important facts. Not a big deal so far.

The interesting story starts when he decides to perform as an unusual drag queen, with more facial hair that he ever had as a man. Whichever was his cause to do this, either to get more attention than an average male singer, or express his true self to the public, he teaches us a very important thing: self-confidence. I also like to have attention, I even wanted more as a child while I barely could stand up and speak to larger audiences, but I doubt I could do a thing like that man did. This man has harder balls than many of us, since no wonder he gets many haters with an appearance like that. It’s crediatble even if  he did it just to prevail in showbusiness, and admirable if that’s some sort of self-expression. An act of bravery either way.

I don’t sympathize with gay or transsexual people. Actually I don’t “like” people in general, be them gays, nuclear scientists, Jehova’s witnesses, astronauts, nazis, anything. I don’t base my sympathy on belonging to any group, religion, or having specific level of intelligence. But not liking them does not necessarily mean I have any other feelings than neutral towards them. I like individuals, based on how they think, and what they do. And I like this person. He helps us to learn not to judge. We don’t have to discuss if he’s a man or a woman. We don’t have to call him homosexual or abnormal in any way. We can form feelings of course. We can tell if this should or should not happen, but those are also judgements. Even liking someone is a decision of ours. And decisions based on emotions are often need some review.

People could tell this person should not be on tv since kids are also watching Eurovision. I have two comments to them. Nor you and your kids are obliged to watch tv. Secondly, your kid will face even more weird things, that’s inevitable. If you have kids, it’s time to teach them there are many different human beings that should be tolerated, as long as they don’t limit the well-being of others.

One of the critics reported that the whole Conchita phenomenon has spit on the face of “real” transsexuals, since there is no such group that he would represent, and he/she was only constructed to hack the Eurovision. Even is he has some point in that, I doubt that it hurts the feelings of smart people. If I were a homosexual, and I saw some manly man dancing in pink ballet uniform just to taunt homosexuals, I think I would not be taunted. I think if I’m smart enough, nobody can hurt my sexual or religional preference. And I don’t believe in “hacking” of Eurovision either. People simply vote. We make our idols. A real hack would be if someone hacked the number of votes itself.

And finally, some weird thought of the future. There are many sci-fi movies which represent a specie genderless. Who knows, maybe humanity will also take this leap someday. Maybe the border between genders is just fading, that’s why we have so many manly women and more emotianally sensitive men. Going genderless does not seem more viable to me yet, however, I have no clue what strange things can, and will happen to our bodies in e.g. 100 years. Perharps our bones will be replaced by more durable polymers, so do our organs. Maybe we’ll be only brains in containers, stimulated by computers and connected by some sort of internet. Or we leave even the biological brain behind, and copy our consciousness to some computer storage. From the moment that the joys of being biological can be perfectly replaced, there will be no meaning to continue biological life. But that’s another story. Cheers for Conchita.

Via Dolorosa

The other day I participated in a “Way of Suffering” ritual designed for kids. While I had twofold feelings about the ritual, I still joined it because my girfriend is an active catholic and took my curiousity. Actually I support all religions until they support global well-being and improve people’s quality of life by giving good principles that those people do not adapt using common sense. Long story short: catholic churches are cold, dark, most things relate to Jesus and represent his suffering. I find more “God” when I take a walk in the park, in the woods or along riverside. Long story long, as follows.

First, I participated in the preparation of the ritual, since all of us (adults and kids) were chosen to read the brief summary of a stage how Jesus suffered. Then the whole thing started, a strong highschool boy carried around a cross, two girls chanted after each stage we visited, going round the inside of the church. We got down on our knees (which was a good excercise for the thighs), and those who were familiar with the chant, joined the singing. After that, we all went back to the sacristy and the pastor did farewell to every one of us.

If I had to look for the manifestation of demons somewhere, I’d start in churches. I have very little understanding why it has to be like that. The cold, deep sadness and the chants almost turning to cries, the pointless grief over Jesus just led me nowhere closer to joy. I saw suffering there, and children are taught about suffering, too. They are thought about heaven, pidgeons, old wise men and this greatly-suffered idol of catholicism.

There were not only negative things there, though. I managed to make a small conversation with the pastor after the ritual, and I disappointed positively. The overall attitude of hers was just how I would have wanted to see. She was happy, and focused on teaching the younglings to express love towards each other. She sort of told heaven is not a place, rather a state of mind where we are happy and joyful, and her catholic concept of hell is almost the same as the satanist definition of “without God”. And I think the point of this whole thing. Religions should be tools of the same purpose, to make followers happy, not ashamed. Even their greeting “praise the Lord Jesus Christ” should be reconsidered respect to the goal, which  should be, instead of worshipping a man and talk about his suffering, to be happy, to improve quality of life. I’m not sure yet how should we replace this dogma, neither I have to bother myself about it (that’s what Pope Francis is for, lol), but these facts sort of embarass me, and even if I’m not bothered by evangelizers, I’m wishing for a change. The ideal setup for christianity, in my head, is closer to the so-called hippy culture, which focused on being happy and love each other. Focusing on “The son of God” is almost as wrong as having marijuana. It might fill a hole, but leads to nowhere on the long run. As written in the Bible (which is not such a bad book in general), even Jesus asked to follow, not to worship him. We are living in deep misinterpretations here, that should be reformed. And I see some chance for being done so. There are open-minded pastors and priests, even this Francis guy seems “cool”. Maybe changes are on our doorsteps. But until they ring – for the love of God, lol – teach the young to common sense rather to make them learn about suffering. And if you wish to teach them to Jesus at all costs, at least focus on the philosophical side of his life, not the overmystified one. Or bring fun and joy to the church if you are involved in any. Amen.

Antisocial networks

I just recently encountered the topic of being antisocial by choosing the virtual life of “social” networks and video games over real-life activities, which as one of my friends said, is a large issue for the young generation. I somewhat agree with her, however, I think before forming such a statement, we’d have to examine many attributes of our lifestyle.

First of all, we are living a life in a far more cosmopolitan way than our ancestors had. My grandfather lived on a ranch with seven of his siblings and his family. He might have known about 50 people at most as he had grown up and joined the military. It was his only chance to break out from that environment and try to become more than a farmer. If he didn’t join, he’d just live his life in an area of roughly 20 square kilometers. My girlfriend’s mother had similar early life in a small village, not even knowing about what happens on the other half of Earth.

As urbanization and population growth continued unstoppably, we suddenly became more crowded. And with the help of technology, we can even reach people our parents could never even see or talk with. We can phone our relatives oversees, instead of visiting them only once in a lifetime by boat. We have internet, skype, facebook, whose are surely not provide direct connection, but they provide the best connection invented so far. Simply to say we are in touch with more people than our parents used to.

The other aspect, of course, people who totally give up direct interaction and only virtually exist. We can encounter high shcool students on the metro, staring their phone and other gadgets. We, “conscious people” could laugh at them, but should we? These people wouldn’t even talk to other people of public transportation anyway. Their phones are their link to something more social than we have while laughing at them. They just copy a pattern that broke out dozens of years ago, due to our increased movement space.

I think being “antisocial” or using “social” networks over real life is a natural way to defend our private space, which we have less by every day. There are situations when we only want to take a rest, with not getting aware of anybody outside our skull. We want peace, like those men reading the news. At the same time, we are putting energy to one of our greatest desires, namely: being noticed. Sometimes we just need this one-way connectivity. Using our technology to make loneliness go away is not something we would feel shame for. It’s just the trend of the century, part of our evolution. We are not more antisocial than we were 100 years ago. We just use these half-social methods to get a taste of being connected.

FInally, if someone becomes antisocial using our technological inventions, and still manages to reproduce, this one doesn’t do anything wrong then. I believe this is also a case of foxes and rabbits. Our state of connectivity will just eventually reach its optimum.

My advice to people using indirect connection: ask yourself a question, is that really makes you happy? Is it the best thing to do with your life right now? If so, you are already achieved that many sociologists only dream of, and you should not feel shame for it. And if you think you can do something more useful, or joyful, let’s do that. You still can have friends who play sports instead of video games. You can have friends who don’t use technology to keep in touch. Or you can choose a lifestyle between those two. A little real, a little digital. Or you can go Amish. Choice is yours.

A final thought: if internet hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t have been capable to express these thoughts, only for those who I live close to.

Planned parenthood nowadays

Bedrooms of children around the world: http://news.distractify.com/culture/childrens-bedrooms-across-the-world/?v=1

That’s exactly why I think we barely should bring any children into this world. We help the poor, we help the hungry, but we can’t help their reproduction rate. Dozens of years have passed, but Africa is still hungry. We don’t solve anything by feeding them. We should let those people walk their path, unless we are 100% sure about how to help them. But we definitely don’t help them by food and childcare.

What I see there is people. Irresponsibly reproductive people.

Cosmological Natural Selection

A nice article giving a theory for the purpose of our universe, in which our life is only a sidetrack. I think this question remains unsolved since we can not observe the universe from outside, but still, theories keep our mind fresh and open. Enjoy.

Doctors and mortal men

I just had a very interesting discussion today. One of my friends, who is a sociologist, shared a link about a women expressing disappointment about her surgery. She had her intestines operated, then the recovery period went bad. She had hernia, vast amount of flourishing scar tissue, etc. The interesting part was how this thread continued. I was expressing my disappointment about the financial situation of local hospitals and the incompetence of some doctors I had encountered, when a young doctor and a traumatologist joined the conversation. The whole conversation led to the conclusion of theirs, explaining the education of med students are impressive, while the system has deficiencies of various levels. The whole thing reminded me to my mother, who places doctors above mortal men. In her eyes, they are our commited saviors, a blessing to society. And many of the doctors kinda have the same oppinion about themselves, which made me think.

First of all, I don’t believe everyone and everything should be cured. Biological evolution has stopped because humans have the technological power to sustain life of the weak. Since diabetes is not lethal nowadays, its genes that increase the risk of having it, is transmitted to our kids in greater amount. But declaration of rules about who we should cure is more than dictatoric. What would I say if my life partner would die because the law doesn’t let to cure her? I’d be shocked. However, I think some regulation will hit at some level, like at Foxes and Rabbits. We are simply too many on this planet, and that will change. I don’t have idea how will it happen, but I’m pretty sure it will.

So, back to doctors, and their god-complex. I had two major operations until now, and I’m thankful for their work. However, if I had to define their work, I’d say they use skills and knowledge, things that can, and probably will be replaced by computers in the future. Let’s take the laser eye surgery. Hyper-precise femto-lasers cut the eye tissue better than any surgeon ever would. Take a look at invasive operations. Ingredients are: evaluation of the available data (diagnosys), surgical planning, precise use of the tools (cutting with scalpel, stiching), and post-surgical healthcare. There are already several decision making systems in the market. For example at diagnoses of eye illnesses by computers are already as accurate like the ones of a doctor. Medical science started roughly two thousand years ago with Hippocrates, while computer science started about one hundred years ago, roughly by the invention of semiconductors. The first personal computer was made about 50 years ago, so computer science is still in his very early age. But still, a computer can be as good at chess as the world champion, an embedded computer can drive a car more efficiently than a professional racecar driver, simply because it is capable to do differential equations in real time, unlike the human who relies solely on experience and muscle memory. Computers can collect the knowledge of all doctors on the planet and make decisions based on statistics of this united experience. They provide computational power that we could barely imagine. And using computer vision, a planned surgery can, and will be executed more precisely in the near future than it could be by and human medic. Diagnosys and automated surgical planning is also a matter of years. The post-surgical healthcare might involve human assistance, but mainly for emotional purposes. Who knows, maybe we would even skip that phase, since machines will heal us immediately. Nanotechnology is no science fiction any longer. I can easily imagine intelligent nanobots replacing our white blood cells in order to vanquish cancer and AIDS like a flu. Some day, many jobs filled in by humans will be replaced by machines, It would be inbelieveable than we can regulate the chain-reaction by a computer, but can’t replace the knowledge and skills of a doctor. And how about intelligence? It might be replaced by decisions based on statistics. How about creativity? Well, it might be replaced by predictions using a huge knowledge base. Imagine a world, where the doctor of yours knows all the files, procedures and outcomes of cases like yours from the last fifty years all around the world. It compares your symptoms to all illnesses that might fit, with the exact percentages of fitness. It can give you the most probabe diagnosys. It can plan your medications, your surgery, the best way to install a prosthesis according to a simulation of optimal tension of the parts, using a procedure that minimizes risk and gives you the shortest recovery time. Or Imagine a world where your blood are full of tiny perfect robots, that can regulate things that you can’t manage on your own. I think it’s far more likely that cancer will be vanquished by an engineer rather than a chemist, or a doctor.

As a conclusion, the new god-occupation is at engineering and IT, not at healthcare. At least we should educate medical engineers, not only doctors. The largest gap between our computers and us lies in creativity. It lies in research. We all should do research, and automate tasks that can be automated. Surgeons reading this might have higher blood pressure by now, but they have to accept that their sun is setting, as we all accept that they are still doing better than computers in many aspects of medicine, and our smartphones are still not smart enough to perform surgery on us. Yet.

Anatomy of Sin

A psychopath has no feelings like remorse, empathy, shame, or compassion. Sometimes I just feel like the way they were presented by Dr. Vogel (a psychiatrist character, Dexter season 8) was just right. They are perfect on their level. They don’t have feelings that would weaken them. They are bound only by the laws of physics rather than the laws made up by humans, neither by laws made up by any gods. Let’s not examine if there’s an actual God that made those laws or if those are also created by humans, too.

What is considered a sin? We can differentiace between earthy laws about it, which are more or less the same in each country, and heavenly laws, which are significantly different considering each religion. Be you a citizen of any country or a member of any church, we all can agree more or less about Hitler has sinned. His most significant activity according this aspect is killing people, and he killed many. He killed many innocent humans. Did he? Actually, I’m not sure he even killed one by his own hands or pistol. I’ve never heard in history classes about Adolph Hitler engaging in a lethal fight or executing anyone, ever. After a couple of minutes spent with Google I realized he barely killed anyone. He was a soldier in world war 1,  but haven’t killed a man except that period. He killed others as a soldier, which is barely  considered a sin. He got iron cross for it. Many “brave” soldiers get ridiculous awards for skilfully killing people of other fractions, but they are celebrated for it. They are awarded shiny piece of metals.

If you really, really wanted to, if you deeply needed to kill, how many men could you kill? Maybe one? Two? Don’t forget that you’d have to get rid of the body and hide your act from authorities, friends, everyone. How many could you actually kill until getting caught? You had needed to be a very talented serial killer to achieve it more than a couple of times until getting busted.

So, how could Hitler make it to almost 6 million? Obviously, he had help, from many of the like-minded. However, we blame the whole thing on him. Okay, many nazi leaders have been punished, but we still mostly take Hitler while thinking about nazis, even though he killed no people if we omit his past as a soldier! So, it seems killing is a sin, so does to prevail others upon killing people. But we also legitimize the act of killing by calling these people soldiers. Patriots. Can killing be legitimized when someone defends hit country? Is he defending the life of his own and his loved ones? Is it really a kill or be killed situation? According to laws, soldiers are allowed to kill while serving the country. We even can kill others if that’s self defense. Christians say killing is a sin. It’s one of the ten commandments. Satanism allow us to kill as self-defense, so does national laws. The sin of killing another human is controversial. Sometimes participating in a kill, like Hitler did, is unforgiveable, sometimes killing is a brave, patriotic act. Hitler claimed many of his acts as self-defense for his country and people. But who can really judge in which case is it a self defense? No one can prove that any people that got killed wouldn’t have killed others if he had had let alive. It’s the same classic problem like with the following question: if you were driving home and encountered a kid playing in the street, and that kid was Hitler, would you hit and run him? Would you do the same if you didn’t know who he was? I guess not. In most cases, we only have partial information of the situation. We have no clue on the future. We don’t have the knowledge to judge who is worth to live and who is not. However, we are doing it. In the world of animals, situations of self-defense are more clear. Only a couple of species, like cats kill others for fun. We shouldn’t. We should only kill if the situation is at least as clear as in nature. Long story short, laws and religions both deny killing, however, earthy laws and satanism are more permissive, since they both legitimize self-defense.

I just can’t help linking this video here:

Another interesting aspect of this topic is the starting point. When does murder exactly become a murder? Religions mostly say, every time. Satanism and law say, when it’s not for self defense. Laws even fine people who kill entities of protected species. Vegetarians say killing any animal is a murder. I’ve never met people saying eating vegetables is a murder, even though plants can feel pain. Obviously, we have to eat something. But can we kill a mosquito? It’s barely about our feeding or self-defense. Is it murder when other species go extinct because of us? Is it murder when we manipulate our surrounding place in order to live better? Is it murder to kill ants for building a road? Is it murder if a bird feeds the nestlings with a worm? This topic becomes more and more vague if we mix in religion. Does God really exist and let 6 million jews die, the chosen folk of the christian God? Did jews sin and was it God’s will to die, like at Sodoma and Gomorah? Was Hitler just God’s tool for the plan? That last one might seem ridiculous, but do locust swarms sound more legit? Just like ants not understanding what happens to their home when we build a skyscraper over their colony, we are also not aware what’s the greater plan if there’s any.

A couple of paragraphs happened, but we are still not closer to what is considered a sin. Maybe nothing. If there’s only chaos on the highest scale, our sins are just part of the chaos, thus forming consistency. Maybe common sense just makes the definition of sin fade. Maybe our acts just makes us drift and increase entropy in a system we are not yet aware of. I’m not speaking about karma, this action-reaction happens here and now, with everyone involved to a certain level.

We all try to optimize our quality of existence, in a competitive environment. Sometimes we have to choose ourselves over others in order to continue our existence. “Letting live” is also important, since our actions result in reaction. Nazis perished in the end. So would we, if we didn’t learn rules of this world. And we are still not sure about what are the exact rules of this existence. Yet…

Evolutionary algorithms

In computer technology, there’s a more and more common optimalisation technique called evolutionary algorithms. Problems or tasks of the world can be modeled and solved in a similar approach as mother nature solves her own ones. We all more or less understand the concepts of nature since elementary school. Let’s take a specie of some ancient fish-like creature for example. They live in swarms in the sea, being omnivores. We already know about natural selection. Those fish have to face predators, diseases, and environmental hazards. They live in a place where only the fittest can survive. Mostly the fittest breed only, in order to maintain their biological qualities. Furthermore, there’s always some mutation that helps later generations to adapt more to these circumstances. The least capable entites of the swarm die, while others breed and improve. They become more evasive to predators and diseases, and conquer the land to live on by becoming amphibious. All in all, they optimize a function: their quality of life. That’s a natural evolutionary algorithm. EAs of the computer world work the same way.

Let’s take the following task: we have an unexplored ocean bottom, and at its deepest point, we could access to a very valuable food source. We have a couple of robot fishes who have a limited range of vision, but they can instantly exchange information by using some long range radio communication. The initial setup is that we randomly drop our robots into the ocean, give each one a random direction to explore, and give them a set of rules, for example:

• if you are close to another robot, keep your distance
• if you see a deeper point than you are currently on, start swimming towards it
• if you see another deeper point on your way, you can change direction, but don’t do any radical changes on your path
• ask other robots about their exploration, and if any of your buddies found a point that is much more deeper than yours, you can change direction and swim towards him
• if others ask you about you, report your depth
• don’t turn back unless the value of that decision is assured by others

This is swarm intelligence in a nutshell. It can be modelled, programmed and executed on a computer. It work in a similar way like fish swarms and ant colonies. They optimize to some target function, like the quality of life, which can be described by level of safety, amount of available food, etc.. They work together. They collect information on their own but they share it with the community. They take advantage of global information in their own life. Eventually, the swarm’s quality of life will improve, just like in nature.

Evolutionary algorithms are quite similar. They have a population of random starting entities, and a set of rules, but the entities are periodically modified. Let the task be to extract gold from a mine. The programmer plays the role of God, but he has limited amount of resources. Each robot can spend 100 energy to sensors, engines, storage capability, and power of its extractor drill. The programmer randomizes the values so there would be robots with different capabilities. For example one robot would have 25 units of energy for all, while another robot would have 50 units of energy for sensors and 50 for engines. The third one would have 50 units for storage and 50 for extraction power. The programmer lets all entities work for a while, than he measures their fitness. The first robot was capable to see nearby minerals, to move to it, to mine it, and to store it. The second robot was capable to see minerals from a larger distance, and it could move to it very quickly thanks to its engines, however, it had no drilling power and no storage space, so it failed in mineral collection. The third robot could mine mineral efficiently and store a large amout, however, it failed to sense it and to move near, since it had no energy spent on sensors and engine.

We usually have limited resources and many important factors to consider for successful execution of a task, as you could see in that example. Each factor participates in the task with a different amount of importance, for example if the mine is dark, perception is more important than movement, but if we mine diamond instead of gold, drilling power is more important than storage space. Each task has its own requirements but we don’t know the importance of those in the beginning. So, the programmer evaluates the “fitness” of all robots, the capability to achieve success in the task. After that, he can divide the population into two parts by fitness. The worse half of the robot population can be powered off thus saving energy for the better half. We also can examine robots of the better half and design new ones by their properties. For example, it there are two successful robots, one has 25 units of energy for all of the four attributes while another has (30, 20, 30, 20), we can design a robot with (27, 23, 27, 23) units of energy distributed to its subsystems. That new robot can perform better or worse, it will be evaluated in the next unit of time. It’s similar to natural selection. Those who perform bad, perish, and the strong transfer their genes to the next generation. Just as in nature, weak children can be born from strong parents, however, they will perish too. With this approach, if we let this system run for enough time, the population will became stronger and eventually approximate the perfect solution for a task.

We can’t be always sure that if we approached perfection close enough. Computer programmers usually just wait and see what happens. If the population has no more significant improvement after each unit of time, they just shut down the algorithm and work with the best entities they could discover during the process. That’s how many areas of our life work right now.

Our Father, part 1

Interpretation of ancient texts has always been difficult and ambigious, and proper transliteration of such a concise book as the Bible is a great challange even between the walls of the christian world. Why shouldn’t we take one more step in this mist by comparing the very essence of religions to common sense? I can deeply identify with the concept of unity, considering the core of all religions. We all are humans, with the basic desire to feel peace, happiness, and satisfaction, However, we choose different paths in order to reach them. Some of them are harder, some are more popular, but basically they intend to lead us to the same goal. If we subtract the religious side of Pope Francis’ announcment, a very valuable humanist statement remains:

Just do good, and we’ll find a meeting point.

Let’s try now to take off the bad marketing from christianity, and inspect its core without the layer of mud that ignorant people shoveled on it, just like they did with satanism. We should not doom it just because it has a couple of contradictions and vague chapters. I know a couple of enthusiastic christians who are actually happy and can live their life more fulfilled that way. Unless they start to evangelize by force, or harm other human beings in any level, all beliefs that helps to improve one’s quality of life, can be considered appropriate.

First of all, why should any freethinker bother with prayers? Well, as it was explained in older posts, religion intends to fill holes of our mind/soul, and improve our quality of life. So, we might have a reason to rethink this tool of our life, starting from its core. But what’s the core of christianity? If I had to tell the Bible in one sentence, I’d chosen The Lord’s prayer (Matt 6:9).

Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

I’ve always felt myself uncomfortable with that prayer, and since I couldn’t agree with the cornerstone of christianity, I decided to drop it. I never was sure about where my prayers go, too. However, I encountered a linguistic challenge in my recent work that made me think about improper transliterations. Even this prayer, considered pure and valid, directly from the mouth of Jesus, can be a victim of accidental or intentional misinterpretations. But instead of deeply getting involved in aramic and ancient greek languages that I’m not competent in, let’s use common sense to interpret it.

There are a couple of sites already on the internet that interpret the Bible adjusted to the needs of a community. The first nazarene site gives a brief history of this prayer, with some origins, aramic and greek transliterations involved. At first sight, the nazarene transliteration is not more than another piece of new-age garbage. There is even a site that claims the nazarene version as the original intention of Jesus for the prayer. It might be true or not, but either way, the nazarene version is one step closer to common sense. So does the gnostic version:

O Giver of All Life,
Who Is in Heaven and in Earth,
In Whom We Live, Move,
And Have Our Being,
Holy Is Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom Come.
Thy Will Be Done.
In Earth, as it Is in Heaven.
Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread,
And Forgive Us, Our Trespasses
As We Forgive Those
Who Trespass Against Us.
Keep Us from Temptation.
Keep Us Ever Mindful of Thee.
For Thine Is the Kingdom,
And the Power, and the Glory,
Forever and Ever.
Amen.

To give a chance of understanding the prayer, let’s look it piece by piece.

Our Father. The term father makes the concept of existence of a supreme being a bit too antropomorph. The same problem like with the kids’ book of religion. God as a wise old man in the clouds. The nazarene version drops the term father and simply addresses the deity as giver of life, the creator, which is more acceptable while unifying God concepts of most religions. Its a huge step to be more rational, as it supposes existence of a supreme being that does not have to necessarily resemble to us. There is even a translation that like “Creator of the Universe who is (also) inside us”. If there’s a God, he/it does not have to be externalized. And that’s the point where this statement of many religions can be linked together. In pantheism, God is all around. God created everything, so we are part of it. In christianity, God (that old man) created Jesus as his son, so it seems logical that we are part of the family, created for his face, for his DNA if you like. Even such a teen-idol religion like wicca says God is in mother nature, but since we are also part of it, God is inside us too. Satanism says we don’t have to search for any gods, we can be our own.

Despite they say it slightly differently, all statements have the same core: we are here, we exist, and we are somehow related to creation. We got a life to live from someone or something, and all we need to do is to be aware of it. The different styles how religions introduce God is just an adjustment for all people to have their desired level of understanding. Satanists don’t need to rely on any external lifeforms for security, inspiration or making moral decisions. Some of us still consider our parents as the safe haven of our stormy life, and even if any of them passed away, we still need to fill that hole with a kind, caring old man, like the christian god. But why is God concept important at all? Because it gives us a basic awareness of existence. We have a chance to live, think, and feel. I don’t really understand quantum phisics, but I can feel satisfied by having beliefs about it, while I don’t claim competence and I let real scientists reserarch. Science looks for the answer for existence for a long time, but until it finds it, beliefs can be useful, even inspirational for the research, as long as we don’t get stuck in false statements claimed to be the ultimate answers. All in all, the deity concept is practical, be it outside or inside us, it fulfills its function, and we shouldn’t let it tear us apart just because of the colorfulness of religions. There is about 20% of our world that has “other” religion from the most popular ones. They are not atheists since they believe in the deity, but they don’t share the common definitions for it. Perharps they could be the perfect scientists, looking for the creation of life, extraterrestial civilization and such, since they are open-minded yet not bound to a specific, separate model that we all should avoid.