1996 Writings
This page contains three “blog entries” — originally written on paper, from 1996. They are as follows:
Want Versus Need (1996)
[I did not record the exact date of writing, only "1996".]
First of all, we must come to terms with the words used for the title. Webster’s Dictionary uses them almost synonymously, but here, I plan to use them almost as antonyms. By “want” I refer to desires, a seeking after, longing, yearning, wishing, hoping, as in the sentence, “I want an ice cream sundae.” By “need,” I mean something required, necessary, that without which I cannot live.
Second, let me set some parameters on my discussion. I will be referring to Man, and his need for God; and Man, and his want for God, and the difference between them.
Many religious people, including Christians, Muslims, Catholics, and even cultists, are convinced that every human needs God. Of course, those from each category will insist that men need their particular God, the God described in their scriptures, and their code of worship. To this discussion, the question of which God will be considered irrelevant. I am not here concerned with proving one God's authenticity over another's. I am concerned with whether man needs God or wants Him.
As I mentioned, many people are under the impression that Man needs God. The same people assure us that without God, life is impossible, happiness is unattainable, and reality has no meaning. I will stipulate that in the technical sense, they are correct, according to their own scriptures. Stipulated: God (one of the more popular ones, that is) created the universe (world) as we know it, set the stars and planets in motion, and then created life in all its forms (or caused life to exist, which then spread into its contemporary forms).
In this sense, of course God is necessary for life, happiness, and meaning. If He had not created everything, and set the cycle in motion, we would not even be here today, thinking about such questions.
In a more practical sense, I ask, is God necessary for life today? Since we have stipulated that He already set everything into motion, and designed the environment we live in, must we also stipulate that He is necessary for its continuance? If God took a vacation, would the universe fall apart? Most of these religions assert that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and present everywhere. If He is so smart, could He not create a world and a race of men that could continue to exist, even if He were not constantly at the controls?
Some say, "I need God to heal me." Do you? Did He not create our bodies to heal themselves? What are white blood cells? The God who developed our bodies was not ignorant. In fact, He anticipated every problem that we might have. If I scrape my knee, my blood clots at the location of the abrasion and soon forms a scab. Later, new skin begins to grow under the scab, and finally, when it is no longer needed, the scab falls away, leaving fresh skin. If I break a bone, it can be set, and will soon grow together again. If I contract a virus or a bacterial infection, my immune system will fight it off. God put all of these safety measures into our bodies millennia ago, knowing what dangers we would face.
Some say, "I need God to supply my financial needs." Do you? Can you not earn, or save, or borrow, or find, or steal, or inherit, or accept as a gift some kind of money? Not that some of these are the best ideas, or even legal, but they are possible.
Some say, "I need God to heal my relationships with other people." Really, now. Perhaps being humble and using some common sense in dealing with others would soften a lot of the rough edges off your personality. Maybe if you were not always looking out for your own desires, your wife would not have left you. It could be that if you had not been at the office so long, your children would still love you. God provided many means long in advance of your particular problem just so you could solve it.
What I am saying is that Men do not need God. Please, do not label me as a blasphemer just yet. I do have a more important point to make, but this small misconception has to be cleared up first.
You may ask about the Judgment or the Reckoning Day. Will I not need God then? Perhaps. But that is another question.
I am saying Mankind does not need God for the day to day existence he calls life. Everything I did today could have been done without God's direct intervention (except perhaps the revelation of this truth I am trying to convey.)
I am prepared to say that God, in His infinite wisdom and love, has fashioned our world around us in just such a manner that we will not fall on His mercy because we can't get along without Him, but rather that we could live without Him, sometimes for years on end. What does this mean? That God's desire is for us to come to Him because we want to.
What kind of God — even those proposed by the above-mentioned religions — would create subjects who would have to run to him with every little problem, whining and whimpering because they cannot live without His gracious help? In that case, His help would not be gracious, but required, by His own design. It is simple: He creates us helpless. We have problems with which we cannot deal. We come to Him for help. He helps us.
When the truth is just as simple: He created us powerful, resourceful, intelligent, and capable, for the end of letting us choose independence. We have problems. We solve them. We get along without Him. Then we realize how much more happy and fulfilled we could be with God in our lives. So we come to Him, because we want to. He is overjoyed that someone came to visit Him. He loves us. We love Him in return, and choose to obey Him. He helps us.
My whole, sweeping, mind-shifting point is that God wants us to want him, not need Him.
Proposition: You do not need God in your everyday life.
Question: Do you want God in your everyday life?
That is what you should be asking yourself. Well, think about it.
Note, 2018.07.31: Very little of the above represents my current views. I posted this here to show what my thinking was like at the time.
Creation Or Evolution (1996.07.23)
or "What Difference Does It Make?"
It has long been mankind's nature to argue. For many dozens of centuries humans have attempted to search for "Truth", by which we mean: "that which relates events and/or facts as they actually exist". In this quest for "Truth", we are limited by our sensory perceptions, our interpretations of our perceptions, our capability to grasp abstract ideas, and, of course, the language we use to express all this to others.
Even the simple statement "This is a chair" could be widely suspect, if only one person disagrees on the definition ["thing you sit on" could refer to a table, the ground, etc.]. Of course, this is silly since most English-speaking people agree on a general definition of the word "chair". The problem here is solved by agreement on word usage, unless of course, one is accustomed to board meetings, and has heard the phrase "Please address the chair", referring to the chairman or elected leader of the proceedings.
But if a subject survives the language/definition test, it is still possible to argue based on ability to grasp abstract ideas as well as sensory perception. And many people disagree about the nature of abstract concepts such as "love" or "peace" or "good" or "God". If the statement were made: "This is love", there will no doubt be more than one opinion.
Now, most humans assume that the Creation of the World, or the beginning thereof, is an actual event, or fact. In other words, it is generally assumed that this actually took place. The problem comes because we can not rely on sensory perceptions, or interpretations of them. So we rely instead upon other things. Some rely on their religious beliefs, scattered and widely differing though they may be. Others charge that the quest is futile and move on with their ignorant lives. Still others concoct their own ideas and try to prove them. And a very few put off conclusions to search for clues or facts which will hopefully lead to a valid conclusion. (Of course, there are many in "research" today who engage in the practice primarily to "prove" what they already accept.)
Research, even by honest men, leads to still more widely varied explanations for the beginning of the world. Why is this? Simply because the facts they uncover are interpreted through their own frameworks of previous knowledge and experience.
But — and here we come to the conflict — in the Western Hemisphere, only two general solutions are competing for mans' affirmations. One, the older, more traditional view, is known as "Creation". The second, relatively new on the scene but widely gaining support, is known as "Evolution". (The term evolution usually applies to life forms, but will be used here in a more general sense, referring to a non-Creation viewpoint for the origin of the world.) Both of course have many different possibilities when speaking of details, but these are the general camps into which the debaters fall.
Simply, "Creationists" are those who believe that the universe, and all that is in it, was created (made, built, formed, or brought into being) by a deity — a God or gods or some force not existent in the natural or observable reality.
"Evolutionists", then, are those who believe otherwise, that by some method — usually "chance" — other than a supernatural force, the universe (etc.) became, or always existed, and that it has since been altered by Nature and natural selection, governed by natural or "scientific" laws.
Of course, there is the middle ground. Some renegade evolutionists admit that a supernatural force could have affected the process. And some creationists admit that their deity may have left some (or many) things to chance.
Both camps have "facts" on their side, and both use "logic" and rhetoric to attack the other viewpoint. And members of both schools of thought can become very adamant, even to the point of anger, stating, "We are right!"
What difference does it make?
Adherents to both groups usually lean so heavily on their presuppositions that they are very unlikely to change their views, no matter how strong the "evidence" presented to them. Both kinds usually hold steady jobs and have very similar moral codes. Of course, the Creationists' moral code is based upon what they call "absolutes" handed down by their deities, while the evolutionists' moral code is based upon what the human race has invented to live at peace with one another.
Both usually agree that taking the life of another human is "wrong", as well as rape, theft, and any other violation of another human's "rights".
Suppose Creation were "true" (although unprovable). Does that necessarily mean that life on Earth cannot change, adapt, or even evolve in certain ways, due to "natural selection", or survival of the fittest? Some strands obviously are even now dying out, due to their inability to adapt to the changes in their environment or to their difficulty in breeding. Even if those of us who easily survive show compassion and shelter these weaker examples of life, this only causes them to become weaker.
Suppose Evolution were "true" (although unprovable). Does this negate the existence of a higher power? Could not God, after observing the beginning of our universe — which He foreknew — communicate with the intelligent races on the planet, and lay down His "moral" code, and reveal of Himself what He desired to reveal? Or could He set Evolution in motion?
Thus, the two views, which are so heavily debated, even around the planet, are not mutually exclusive. Even the proving of one view could not destroy the basic premises of the other. And so I ask again, what difference does it make?
Note, 2014: I have taken a very few liberties with the above text while transcribing it in 2014 from my original manuscript written in 1996. For example, I added a missing "they" in one sentence, and corrected a few verb tenses. I did not replace any words or remove any, at least not intentionally. I corrected some capitalization errors and removed a few unnecessary quotation marks. I changed underlined words to italics and ALL CAPS to bold-ital.
Original documents:
• Page 1 • Page 2 • Page 3 • Page 4
Future Possibilities Of Evolution (1996.07.31)
A strange thought just struck me as I was reading Douglas Adams' novel "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency." Not that the novel was the catalyst of this strange thought, although it could have been.
For the most part, science fiction usually assumes, and many times even states implicitly that the world as we know it came about by billions of years of evolution which only recently produced us. Notable exceptions are Stephen Lawhaid's science fiction works, those of C.S. Lewis in his greatly overlooked "Space Trilogy," and, much less notably, my own struggle-laden beginnings.
But even if one holds to the unpopular beliefs of Creation Science — and many do, albeit in widely differing forms — almost all of us believe, take for granted, and even admit that some forms of "evolution" actually happen. The fact that the Earth has changed since written history began, both by erosion and by man's efforts, shows that things evolve. Certain types of insects have adapted themselves to survive our onslaught of chemical warfare against them — true, we kill billions every month, but flies, roaches, mosquitoes and ants are still with us.
Even changes in our own race are apparent. The average human male in the Western Hemisphere now stands roughly twelve inches taller than his predecessors, only five or ten centuries ago. Besides that, we have adapted — evolved if you will — into a much more complicated race. We have begun to control many powerful technologies — Fire, Destruction of Atoms, all kinds of Electromagnetic Radiation, the movement of electrons (electricity), just to name a few.
We have even engineered the genetic evolution of plants and animals by selective, controlled breeding and genetic alterations to the point where these species can never revert to their original state. Where will these casual, usually unnoticed changes take us in the future? What will happen when we begin to alter our own DNA, if indeed it is not already occurring in secret?
When (not if!) Mankind begins to make his journeys to the stars, to colonize and exploit other planetary or artificial habitats, will this common evolution take new turns? Imagine if you will, a human so genetically altered that he/she can be sustained by breathing the atmospheres of Mars or Venus. Go further, and imagine humans developing apparatus with which to breath underwater — not SCUBA equipment, but actual gills! (see "Waterworld", with Kevin Costner).
Shall being stronger, smarter, larger, more adaptable, or other things cause us to develop new "species" or to use a term other than Homo Sapiens in reference to these new, perhaps better creatures?
But the odd thought that struck me as I read the novel mentioned above was in reference to a chain of events that could ostensibly occur on lines to those mentioned above. What about other forms of Earthling life experiencing their own lines of future evolution?
What qualities supposedly have enabled Homo sapiens to conquer the Earth? Intelligence? Organization? Speech? Survivability? Consider with me four members of our everyday environment each of which possess some of these qualities: Dolphins, ants, flies, and cockroaches. Dolphins have long been considered the most intelligent of the beasts, even more so than chimpanzees. Some scientists have gone as far as to say that dolphins have a greater capacity for intelligence than human beings, and these same men have credited the dolphins with having a working language. Ants, since the ancient times have been noticed to have great organizational skills and physical strength, although they have no language or intellect to speak of — that we know of. Flies and Roaches have been successful mainly because of their breeding habits, but also for great mobility and, on the part of the roaches, an ability to survive wherever they are.
What is to keep them from developing further than their present state? Say, for instance that dolphins begin using their fins to hold things in, to build for themselves shelters from the predators of the sea. And then, many generations behind them, a mutant strain of dolphin which has separated bones in its fins gains supremacy, using the fin to grip things, such as food, or primitive tools. And the story continues. What is to keep ants from accidentally discovering that small twigs and leaves can be used to disguise or even hide their hills? And then later realize that these same twigs can be used to fortify their homes, even replace them when used right. With the bigger, stronger, faster flies we see every year, what is to keep them from continuing the trend? Surely, the larger ones have larger brains, and can instinctively avoid those areas where many flies die, thus increasing their life span. This will lead to even further mutations, and adaptations, perhaps even a new organization. And the cockroaches, God forgive them, could also, in similar ways, evolve into a more horrifying prospect.
When this thought first hit me, I said, "No, it would never happen while man still roams the Earth." Which caused me to imagine a time when mankind didn't roam the Earth. Maybe, thousands of years from now, or even longer, when humans have colonized the stars, perhaps Earth will become a distant memory, or even a legend to most men. And eventually, it will be used up, for our purposes, so we will leave it, and continue on, letting the Great Mother Earth Rest In Peace. But what if, unknown to these interstellar colonists, back on Earth, they have left an interesting scene. While man has taken with him many examples of Terran life, some on purpose, some on accident, and these samples of life remain the same, those left on Earth can finally be free of man's involvement.
It will be then that these previously abused species can erupt into a full-scaled evolutionary revolution. This gave me a wonderful idea for a sci-fi novel. It will be told from the viewpoint of a historian, millennia from now. He relates the exodus of mankind from the Mother Planet, and how their civilizations developed. Then he describes the evolution — or rather the result of the evolution — of one or more of the above species, and how they came into contact with mankind again. Thus, the first interstellar war between humans and an alien race, except that it will be humans from alien worlds fighting against greatly evolved pests from the Home World, perhaps with the dolphins acting as intermediaries.
The humans will fight, because they are afraid, and deep down they have always been afraid of these "nasty" creatures, and because they feel that the Earth has been stolen from under their noses by inferior beings.
The New Species Alliance will fight because they soon learn that it was the Human Race which so long held them in subjection, and did not allow them to rise to their full potential.
Will the NSA win? If so, will they wipe out mankind? Or will the humans be victorious, and reclaim their home planet? The third possible ending is that they come to an uneasy truce, and try to coexist peacefully.
Maybe I'll actually try to write that novel one day.