Vote for Mulligan

I do not like either of the current presidential candidates.

I thoroughly detest Obama. He is an ubber-liberal. I don't like liberals because they are always trying to tell me how to run my life. They feel that they know what's better for me than I do. They think government is the cure for all humanity's ills. I think it is fairly obvious that government is the cause of most of our problems. The liberals pander to the lowest common denominator. They know that is where most of the voters are. They want to take money from the wealthy and give it to the poor precisely because the poor can vote and they greatly outnumber the rich. It is illegal for them to buy votes with their own money. So they buy votes with the taxpayer's money instead. The only reason they act like they care about the poor is so they can get elected. We don't want their help and we don't need their oppression.

I don't like McCain much either. Though I generally come closer to agreeing with republicans on more things than democrats, there are quite a few areas where they irritate the heck out of me. As you may already know I'm not religious, so the strong religious influence on the party is a big irritant to me. In recent years they have adopted a very oppressive stance with some of the laws they have pushed through. I don't like the Patriot Act. I don't like people being held in prison at Guantanamo indefinitely without trial. I hate warrantless search and seizure. I don't care for wiretaps either. These activities are exactly the sort of thing that our founding fathers risked their lives rebelling against. Our country owes its existence to its opposition to this sort of oppression. Now, add to this McCain's support of these policies, his lack of charisma and his less than great leadership skills and you can understand why I will have a hard time voting for him.

Therefore, let's have a Mulligan on this election. That's right. I want a do-over. Let's start over from the beginning and see if we can't find somebody to run who is not trying to enslave us all. Surely in a land of 300 million people we can find someone worthy of the name Mr. (or Madam) President.

Viva Mulligan!!

Free Will in Christianity

Free will is an essential component of all Judeo-Christian religions. People have to have a choice of whether to sin or not. They must be able to choose to ask forgiveness for their sins. If a person has no choice but to sin unrepentantly then sending them to hell is more than a bit unfair. Even God cannot fairly punish someone for doing something that he forced them to do. If God created someone who absolutely had to sin and not care about the consequences it would be the height of spitefulness to send them to hell for it. So, I think it is safe to say that for the whole heaven and hell thing to be fair everyone must have free will. But, If God is omniscient, do we really control our own actions?

If you ask any christian they will say that God already knows how everything is going to turn out. According to them, he knows every single detail of every single thing that will happen in the entirety of the lifetime of the Universe. He knew that if he created the Universe you would come into existence and that you would do all of the things that you will do in the course of your life. He had the choice of whether to create the Universe and make these things happen or not. Free will is nonexistent in this case. If God knows beforehand that you will have no choice but to act in a certain way because of what he did, who is really responsible?

There are only four possible answers to this question that I can see;

1) No one has free will and God will punish unbelievers unfairly.
2) No one has free will and God is taking all the blame.
3) We have free will, God doesn't know the entire future and punishment can be justified.
4) There is no such thing as God.

I don't think any christian would be happy with any of these possibilities. Please post if you have thought of other options.

Religion

I spent the first 32 years of my life trying to give Christianity a chance. I went to church regularly for several years. Somehow it all never seemed exactly right. One day I decided that I had heard enough from the proponents of Christianity. I decided to learn more about other religions including atheism. I wound up deciding that I was an agnostic with strong atheistic suspicions.

I'm 99% sure God doesn't exist. That last 1% accounts for my agnosticism (if that's even a word). As anyone with a background in logic knows, it is nearly impossible to prove a negative. Just because you haven't found something yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Hence the persistence of such legends as Bigfoot and UFO's. While you can strongly doubt that they exist there are no practical ways to totally disprove their existence.

Another thing that I'm pretty sure of is that if God does exist he is probably nothing like anything any of the major religions describe. There are so many problems with the concept of God that they have come up with that it seems unlikely that their beliefs are accurate.

I will clarify what I mean in some of the posts that will follow. Also, don't worry that this will primarily be a blog about religion. I will give my views on all topics that I'm interested in.

Introduction

I'm creating this blog for the same reason many others do. I want a place to write down my thoughts on whatever interests me. I also want other people to see and comment on those thoughts. I have found that discussing my thoughts with others often reveals angles that I didn't think of. While it has been my experience on the Internet that most people don't have much to say that is worth listening to, the exact opposite is true of many people out there. These are the people I'm trying to reach.

I will try to stay true to the spirit of the name of this blog in most of my posts. I will be trying to vex people enough that they feel compelled to connect with me and post their own opinions. Unlike many people, I'm interested in opinions that contrast with my own. At the same time, I do not change my mind easily, but it has been known to happen from time to time.

Let me also mention that I am not an English major nor do I have plans of becoming one. I apologize in advance for any slaughter I may inflict on the language. I'll try to keep the damage to a minimum.