Faith vs Science

The scientist says “This is a fact I know” and “This is my interpretation of what it means.” The first part is always good. The second part is where scientists get in trouble.

The religious scholar says “This is what the Bible says” and “This is my interpretation of it”. The first part is always good. The second part is where religious scholars get in trouble.

Notice that the first part of each statement does not involve human judgement, and the second part of each statement does. We, as humans, get in trouble when we extrapolate from what we think we know. We all, me included, are guilty of this fallacy, and it applies to either field.

All fields of study suffer from this. How do you know if the interpretation is correct? What tests can you apply to improve your probability of acquiring the truth?

One test would be consensus. Do the majority of scholars in a field come to the same conclusions? This test is a strong indicator, but there is no guarantee that the majority are right; for instance, for hundreds of years the Catholic Church held that the Earth was the center of the universe, incorrectly. So while consensus is a strong indicator, one must always bear in mind the possibility of error.

Another test could be whether the subject agrees with your knowledge gained by experience. Do the conclusions of the scientist or religious scholar disagree with things you already know to be fact? If you KNOW that water runs downhill, and someone says it doesn’t (in ordinary circumstances), then they must be wrong. However, you do have to be very careful that what you think you know isn’t actually just an opinion of yours.

Is it possible to achieve 100% certainty? Well, frankly, no. Not in a world with humans in it. You may have a source of knowledge (i.e. the Bible, or well-established scientific knowledge), but the interpretation of that source is always going to be suspect to some degree. So if we are sane, we always swim in a sea of some uncertainty.

Absolute certainty, in a human, is only possible at a very basic level. For instance, I know for sure that I don’t have any shoes on right now. But if you are talking about anything at all that relies on human interpretation, you can only reasonably talk about probabilities.

Faith is a whole different kettle of fish. A person with faith will often equate it with certainty. But the wonderful thing about faith is that you, personally, act as if it were certainty even though you know nothing is 100% certain! That is why faith is the miracle that God demands of us – because it’s hard, in the beginning, to have faith, but very rewarding.

God wants us to choose to be His children. He wants us to have that choice to make. This requirement for an element of choice is why God has constructed a universe in which it is possible to not choose Him. If God had made His presence imminently obvious without ambiguity, like gravity, for instance, then no sane person could choose otherwise. So he created this universe in such a way that we have to choose Him by faith, not facts.

Once you’ve chosen Him, a lifetime of experience conspires to provide certainty, as experience piles upon experience to confirm your decision, and faith becomes easier. In your mind, you are certain – but you can never prove it empirically. Exactly as God wants it.

-Popgun

The Second Amendment

The Supreme Court of the United States has finally reaffirmed that the right to own and bear arms is in fact a personal right. They also ruled that you cannot be required to keep your gun in an unusable state, locked up or disassembled, in your home, which some areas (such as Washington D.C.) had required.

They make it clear that laws that prohibit ownership of guns by honest, sane individuals cannot stand.

It is not quite enough, but it’s a great start. What we need now are laws that allow a licensed individual to carry a weapon anywhere, open or concealed. I say licensed, because there must be some mechanism to deny firearms to felons or people not mentally capable of handling the responsibility. Part of the process of acquiring a license should be education to make sure the licensee understands the relevant laws, and gun safety. Beyond that, I do not believe there should be any limitations on the right to carry (or ‘bear arms’). There should be no ‘gun free zones’ anywhere.

My reasoning is thus:

1. It is self-evident that anybody should have the right to defend themselves against any attacker.
2. Since an attacker may be willing to apply lethal force, the victim should be able to respond in kind.
3. Therefore, the victim should be able to arm themselves with whatever weapon they choose to use to defend themselves.
4. The handgun is in most cases the most practical choice. Guns do the job of self defense better than any other available tool. Little old ladies or out of shape guys like me can defend themselves against 200 pound thugs, even if the thugs have guns. Guns work rain or shine, at a wide variety of ranges, are very reliable, and you usually have enough ammo to defend against multiple attackers. No other technology has been developed for which these things are true.
5. It is self-evident that the right to defense should not be limited in scope, i.e. it should be available anywhere. Therefore, the law should be consistent nationally, and there should be no gun-free-zones anywhere. For the bad guys, gun-free-zones are like shooting fish in a barrel, because all of us good guys disarm ourselves in order to abide with the law.
6. Gun free zones mandated by law remove your right to effectively defend yourself; and yet the legal entity that establishes gun-free zones has no legal requirement to provide you with effective protection. Most gun-free zones are established by signs, which do nothing whatever to deter criminals, but which serve to disarm the law-abiding.

It’s a start. Now let’s work on cleaning up the rest of this.

-Popgun

Book of the Moment #6

Just Finished: “Soul Music” by Terry Pratchett. This is the second or third time I’ve read this book. Needless to say, I enjoyed it; any of the Discworld novels are good, although I have my favorites, and this is one of them. For those of you who haven’t tried it, I urge you to go out and get one of the Discworld novels and at least try it; they’re addictive. And very, very funny. Discworld is a fantasy world shaped pretty much like a pizza, which is held up by four elephants which in turn stand on the back of the Great A’Tuin, a gigantic turtle which is swimming through space. Living on the Discworld are various analogues of places on earth.

In this novel, Susan, the grand-daughter of Death, has to step in when Death takes some time off. At the same time, some magical music takes off with some characters loosely based on Buddy Holly. The satire of rock-n-roll is marvelous. Susan has got to be one of my favorite characters of all time.

Enjoy.

I haven’t had a chance to pick out my next book.

<UPDATE> I’m reading “The Witches of Karres” by James Schmitz. This is actually an old book, published 1966, which I read a good many years ago and am re-reading. This book is light-hearted space opera, and I remember it was fun to read. I’ll let you know if that is still true, these many years later.

-Popgun

Obama Starts Using His Race as a Tool

Friday night in Jacksonville, Florida, Obama said:

“We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid,” Obama said at the fundraiser. “They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black? He’s got a feisty wife.”

I’m not exactly sure what to think about this. It sounds like he’s trying to make out like he’s a victim because he’s black, and inexperienced, and has a funny name, and therefore you should vote for him.

Undoubtedly, there are some people, somewhere, that won’t vote for Obama because he’s black. Shucks, I probably know some of them, mostly in my parent’s generation. But as for me, if Condoleeza Rice had decided to run, I’d have probably voted for her. She’s black. She’s also really smart, experienced, poised, knowledgeable, and she has my respect.

Obama, on the other hand, does not have my respect.

As he admitted; he’s inexperienced. He also has associated for long periods of time with bigots, racists, and terrorists, and apparently didn’t see anything wrong with those things, until the public noticed. His demonstrated judgement in these things is questionable. And I don’t believe that he is a man of his word, as the change he made in his campaign financing proves. And he wants to talk to international terrorists without preconditions, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk to General Petraeus in Iraq.

Besides that, he doesn’t interpret the Second Amendment the way I do; he wants to remove the individual’s right to bear arms; and I believe the Second Amendment was intended to allow any sane non-felon adult to go armed at all times. Which I do, everywhere it is legal for a Texas citizen with a CHL. For more on this, see the guns topic on this blog.

And he wants to increase your taxes. And by his own word, he’s happy with the high gas prices. How can anybody expect to win with a platform like that?

It’s got nothing whatever to do with what race he is.

- Popgun

The War Against Bahia Grass

Changed the blades on my mower this morning. I’ve got a Toro Titan Z5200 zero-turn mower, and it’s the neatest thing since sliced bread was invented. I now mow two acres in less than 1 1/2 hours, which used to take me 3-4 hours with my old Swisher. I use Gator blades, which have a pretty vicious set of blades cut into the airfoil that creates suction; they’re pretty effective. I sure got my money’s worth out of the old blades. When I got the new ones, I realized that I had not remembered that the blades are supposed to be square on the ends. You couldn’t tell it by looking at the old ones. I believe I had probably lost 2/3 of the metal in the outer six inches of each blade, and the blades were probably 1/2“ shorter than they were supposed to be.

No wonder I was having trouble getting a good cut. I’m actually looking forward to cutting the grass next time!

-Popgun

Book of the Moment #5

Just Finished: “The Stars Down Under” by Sandra McDonald. As mentioned before, this is the sequel to “The Outback Stars”, which I’ve already read.

I enjoyed this book and it’s predecessor, but there are aspects that I don’t particularly like. It’s basically science fantasy; the story is science fiction with elements of pure fantasy mixed into it. Quite a bit of this is written from first person perspective, and the author sometimes tried to convey the sense of disorientation and confusion of the individual. At least, I hope that was the intent, because it was successful.

The story is an interstellar space epic, tied in with the Australian Aborigine culture and beliefs. Kind of a weird mix, but fresh in the sense that I don’t think anybody else has done this before. It’s nice to find a new idea out there. There are villains amongst the humans, and adversaries (militant aliens).

The writing and character development were good, the reading enjoyable, mostly, but I don’t care for the psychedelic parts. The book was left open for a sequel, and when it comes out I’ll probably read it. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give this book a 7.

Next Book: “Soul Music” by Terry Pratchett. Be warned, I am a Terry Pratchett fan, and I’ve read most of what he’s written. Including this book; this is a re-read. I love his weird humor. It makes you re-examine your own reality.

-Popgun

Motorcycle Update

The Suzuki DR650SE I have on order is taking forever to get here. I checked around for alternatives, and it seems the high gas prices have caused a run. One dealer told me that they can’t keep anything in stock that costs less then around $8000.

The Suzuki is presently ‘between the boat and the warehouse’ in California. They tell me that it should be here in two weeks, worst case. I guess I’ll have to wait on it, which is frustrating, as I would rather be riding.

-Popgun

Obama’s Take on Handling Terrorists

It has become clear in the last few days that Obama’s approach to protecting us from mass-murderering terrorists is to use the legal system of the United States to try and incarcerate them. This is from his interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper. This is supposed to ‘protect’ us from terrorists.

Using our legal system to deal with terrorists will not prevent any attacks. It won’t even give them anything to worry about; the people orchestrating the attacks aren’t the ones carrying them out. Our legal system is designed to punish criminals (those which get caught) as a deterrent against criminal behavior. Anybody with the mind-set to murder thousands of people at one time is not going to worry about whether he might get caught. Our legal system was not designed for this situation, and it will not work to protect us from terrorists.

Take note of this fact; whether you agree with President Bush’s policies or not; since 9/11 there have been no successful terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. This is demonstrable success of his policies. Yet people continue to argue about what will keep them safe. Available data suggest that President Bush’s polices are effective for this. The man has done what he said he would do. Facts are facts – check it out.

Obama, if he becomes president, will certainly change this policy. The question is, will his new policy work?

By my analysis, I believe that if Obama implements his policy as stated, we are going to be at considerable risk. First, he will remove the pressure we’ve been keeping on the terrorists that’s been keeping them occupied, by retreating in the face of success in Iraq; and then we’ll threaten to put any naughty terrorists we catch through our legal system. Ooh, I bet they’re scared!

No wonder Obama’s been endorsed by the terrorist groups Hamas and FARC, among others.

-Popgun.

One Reason I Switched to Mac

Genuine headline on OSnews website: “Man Gets Windows Vista to Work With Printer”.

Enough said.

-Popgun

Father’s Day Movie

Second Hand Lions – recommended – and appropriate to the day.

-Popgun