And what would that feel like? To really know we’re just complex systems born from time and chance. Does it change anything?

Ira & friends are re-airing an old episode entitled “#304 - Heretics” this week for the podcast. When I first heard this episode some time ago it really hit home for me on the things I love and hate about religion.

I’m hesitant to inject my own dogma into the discussion, as it would probably just end up ruining the intended message of the episode. But this is a blog, right? I’m allowed to whine and moan about my boisterous opinions, that’s why the bots read this monstrosity day in, day out. Nonetheless just go listen to it.

I found this one from Richard Dawkins, which is kind of interesting but more or less what you would expect from the most extreme [Mountain Dew voice] atheist spokesman on Earth. I’m not a particular big fan of him, as he’s just as devout about claiming there is no God as any Christian would be about there being a God. I say, let people believe what they want, and if they act on it, judge their actions, not their beliefs.

Anyway, I bring this to you because I really like this little snippet from his talk. It’s pretty timely, as we are about to elect yet another Chief to lead this country.

@ 18:35

High office in the greatest country in the world is barred from the people best qualified to take it, unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly, political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.

~ Richard Dawkins

Why are agnostic/atheist seen as bad people in this country? And if not “bad” at least the Christian community [majority] thinks that they need changing of some sort.

Game designers are leaning more towards creating tools and environments for players to have agency over their destiny within a game rather than creating a rigid set of rules and gameplay. It’s a trend that’s lead me closer to some notions I’ve had about video games and [art in general] for awhile.

With the advent of Second Life, various virtual worlds, MMOs and now Spore, it seems like game designers just want to play God. Is it that surprising? In a way, throughout its history, art has attempted to imitate life, or at least its issues. Whether it was the fact that some hunters killed a few bovine grazers that day [cave paintings] or a statement in opposition of war through abstract poetry, art often attempts to have something to do with our lives representational of our issues. Kandinsky or Duchamp don’t seem to have anything to do with imitating life, but they in fact do. Their underlying philosophies in relation to the form of art were certainly within the realm of “life”. Duchamp’s “descending a staircase” has everything to do with the new-found invention of film, and he was responding to that through static imagery, among other things. Kandinksky responded to the picture plane as an image, and not some representational “trick-of-the-eye” portal to another place in time. They were artists for artists, dealing with the issues of art itself.

This has a lot to do with games. Traditional art, photography, literature and film all have their limits, which were met relatively quickly. But games, what’s the limit there? And really, when I write “games” that’s a misnomer, really this involves all interactive experience. Because personally, I don’t consider Second Life a game, nor do I think many of its users. But, frankly, I’m going to continue to use “games” since I don’t think it’ll hurt anyone’s feelings. So since these games are attempting to imitate life more and more, what will really stop them from completely imitating life? All around the world, we’re developing immersive realities, control systems and headsets to try and feed our every input into the game so that we may truly recreate the experience of “life”.

The most interesting games at the forefront of this effort use tools and environments like a blank canvas for players to inhabit. Much like the Christian God created the world for which all things to inhabit. Setting the rules and creating the arena, waiting to see what the folks on his new Earth would do. Well they screwed it up, but if this were actually true and some being did create the world we live in, then wouldn’t games be the ultimate form of art. Art not just imitating life… but creating it.

Maybe gives new meaning to the line:

God created man in his own image.

Genesis 1:27

First, read this. It’s a well written piece about Sarah Palin and her ‘habits’ as a member of her church, and more importantly her ability as a potential vice president.

The whole article is pretty good, but then Sam really hits the nail on the head with this…

Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.

~ Sam Harris

But I couldn’t help but think to myself, even after I read this obvious piece of insight from Mr. Harris, “Nobody cares.” Even with something as logical as “We should have the most elite human being possible in charge of our country,” stacks of excuses, counter-points and buzzwords will fly from dissenters in a frenzy to make their own viewpoints makes sense again. What’s more, is that this statement is packed deep into an article with “Atheist” in the title. That’ll shun just about anyone religious from buying into Sam’s views, and that’s if they even read it. Which they won’t.

To me, the problem with elitism has more to do with a feeling of alienation than it does with picking the worst [but most fun] candidate. People are worried about being forgotten in the wake of a President’s efforts to right the many wrongs America has made. While that’s completely unfounded in any logic, it still rings true for them, and not recognizing this basic fact of the human condition leaves “elitists” to be separated from voters. I totally agree with Sam in most everything he wrote in that article, but going about it in this way, widening the gap, doesn’t help anyone or anything.

The stronger opinions get, the more this becomes an exercise in idiocy based on Black and White. Nothing on Earth is so one dimensional as our viewpoints. There seems to be a penchant within our society to separate things into opposing sides so that we may face off in a much simpler battle often reducing us to buffoons blindly guarding our side. Sure it’s easier to understand. It’s easier to get a canned set of views, points and counterpoints, but if we continue to celebrate this kind of polarization, I fear that ultimately, whichever side controls our fate, we’ll all have a collection of values and positions that amount to complete stupidity.