Friday, November 25, 2011

Thanksgiving

As the last morsel of turkey passed my lips I reflected on how it was possible.  First someone had to establish a farm grow  the turkey. Then the bird is shipped to a meat processing plant, killed, the feathers and innerds removed without my involvement. The meat is shipped to the market and the customer buys it.  A cook prepares and cooks it.  It is served at dinner and the leftovers are refigerated for comsumption later on.  I did nothing to deserve the bird.  I didn't produce the feed for it to eat, construct the road on which it was  shipped to market, manage the supermarket where it will be sold, generate the electricity by which it is cooked and refigerated.  All I did was show up when called to dinner.  I didn't build the house where we ate dinner, manufacture the plates and utinsils it was served on and consumed by.  I didn't do much of anything accept consider how many blessings it takes for me to celebrate thanksgiving day at home with my loved one in the freest nation on earth.  Thanks to everyone who make it possible.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Existence

 Our challenge is to figure out how we came into existence without something or somewhere preexisting our existence.

 Can existence come from nothing or does it have to occur within something or is there no possibility for nothing because there has to be a place for something to exit.

  If there is no place for nothing then where did something come from.  Something else? But were back to the beginning.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Purpose

There is nothing mortal man can do in this universe that has any meaning at all.  Our very existence is so miniscule and over shadowed by the immensity of space and time that anything we think or do is inconsequential, inadequate, and immaterial.

Yet we exist. We act, we think, we dream and then we die. It seems that our temporal purpose is to seek happiness until we die.  Is there life after death? Can our souls exist in another realm? If so then does this life have anything to do with this existence? Does it provide us a second and third purpose? Would those purposes be to server others and learn from that service?

Serving others can bring happiness to the individual but is it insufficient in a temporal world where survival of the fittest is an axiom and where bad things can happen to good people. Science in its finite wisdom denies anything supernatural and pretends that their belief in the substance of things hoped for is somehow evidenced by things not seen or proven.  So it is not temporal knowledge that we should seek even though our continued well being is predicated upon it.


Religion accepts things supernatural and faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Are we then purposeless or do we have a purpose that exceeds even the vastness of space and the timelessness of eternity but only after we become spiritual beings.  Therefore our purpose here on earth is to seek attributes of spirituality not temporal happiness. Our purpose is to be spiritual in our actions toward others as we serve them and become stewards of the elements that surround us.

Those actions are revealed in the New Testament and Book of Mormon. It is our opportunity to read, study, ponder, pray and act upon our understanding of the scriptures gaining enlightenment through which we can ascend to a higher state of awareness eventually achieving exaltation and achieving our intended purpose.  Assuming that we were created by God and not evolved, as science hypothesizes, which is in conflict with the state of entropy which surrounds us.  We then have one purpose and that is to  practice true religion which is to server others and seek spirituality in our temporal endeavors practicing truthfulness, honesty, integrity, faith, hope, and charity.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

bubbles

Watching bubbles appear in a glass of water being heated is analogous to space mutating into substance in reality. Space can not be anything because once it is something it has to be surrounded by something else.  Thats why bubbles are our term for something not water.  Where does the water end and the bubble begin. What is inside of a bubble and when does the outside of the bubble become the inside of the bubble.  In the world of the very small eventually you have to get where the inside and the outside are the same thing.  In the world of the big; bubbles are something other  than the substance they are in air, oxygen, nitrogen... but in the world of the very small, existence is in the realm of something and nothing.  When does nothing become something? How does nothing become something? When it becomes something what surrounds it, nothing?  Is there ever a time when nothing exists? Is there ever a place when something exists without something else existing to surround it?  So how do we come into existence? If you break us down eventually you have nothing left to define as us but we still exist, assuming that we were not killed in the process of breaking down.

Cosmos: Chance, Creation, or Design

The recent nova program missed the point again with the fabric of the cosmos.  They fail to apply logic and instead come up with incredible explanations for simple things.

Their dark matter is really space and our so called existence is simply vibrations of that space which result in the physical universe.  People move about and stars shine because of the vibrations of space. The vibrations are simply the fluctuations of energy within a sphere of influence which results in all particles large or small.
We don't actually move but the vibrations are relocatable like waves of water, sound or electricity. The adjacent space becomes excited in a replica of the previous space and is perceived as movement when it is actually trans-location of the energy or actually the vibration of space.

What makes things big or small and shine.  It is descret vibrations like difference between treble and base.  Is it one single type of vibration or an infinite range of vibrations all existing simultaneously and in concert with one another.

The organization of space into physical entities is the question. How does that happen.  What dictates form, function, and duration.  In a universe where entropy is the climatic state how does order come about in the first place.  Can it be left up to chance? That seems insufficient to account for the complexity and diversity that exists. Can it be the powers of a God? That seems to be too supernatural to accept.  Who provides the design and what powers it?  Is it the collective "force" of our intelligences which seems to be supernatural in affect but natural in consequence.  So is religion a manifestation of our collective consciousness empowering individuals to write and act accordingly. Is science the effort of the individual to seek knowledge? Is the sum of all things the physical manifestation of the universe, its people, its place, and time tempered by fallacy and foible?

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Broken Windshield

     Whack, the sound caused we to flinch and I quickly looked to the left side of the windshield to see where the sound came from.  Almost immediately I see the large star of cracks right at the edge of my windshield.
     I was on my way home from a trip to Idaho. 300 miles down, three days there and another hour on the return trip to be in perfect position for a rock to come flying out of the tire of tractor trailer hauling hay and hit the very edge of my window.  A moment here or there, a mile per hour faster or slower, an inch right from where I was and my window is unbroken.
    My morning had been spent getting ready. I stopped to visit with my wife and say goodbye to her.  We spent some time visiting with one of our old friends at the university, refused some birthday cake, and I got on the road.  Along the way I drove with the cruse control on and off. I stopped to take several pictures. I even spent some time slowly cruising the edge of the highway anticipating a picture spot of the Teton mountains.  My van is somewhat underpowered so it takes some of the steep grades more slowly than a car. I am not consistently at the speed limit.  The steering and my concentration in not very precise so I use up most of my highway lane to heard the car down the road.
   Given all of those variables what are the odds that a rock will come flying out of a truck tire that has been driving on the same road, only in the opposite direction, for who knows how long and hit my windshield at exactly the left most edge with sufficient force to seriously crack my windshield?
      I read an article the other day that there were a routine number of accidents where a person was crushed by a car in a very peculiar fashion every year and no matter what variables were altered the same number of accidents with the same peculiar characteristics still occurred.
     So is it a coincidence and the odds are simply high enough that a broken windshield is part of the scenario or is it fate and my windshield was the one of those windows that needed to be broken to satisfy it?

Debt

Debt is the forfeiture of the future. Buying something that will be paid for by future work means that the when the future arrives you can't choose to do something else, you forfeit the alternative. You can't spend the money earned on any thing else.  You have no choice but to work to pay off the debt. The payment of interest always accompanies debt. The cost in the future is some percent greater than the original price of the item bought on time. So debt really is servitude. You contract your ability to work for an agreed upon amount of time plus the additional time to pay for the cost of the interest of borrowing someone else's money.

Debt is never good but the cost of debt can be considered acceptable, by the individual, when the car or home, that is purchased with credit, can be driven or occupied while paying for it. The price of servitude is considered agreeable.

Debt should never be agreeable when it requires the servitude of another to pay for it. So why do elected legislators think that it is acceptable to enslave their constituencies?  Because it is not only their money that they are spending. It is not only their time they are committing. It is not only their future that they are sacrificing.

Debt become debilitating when we don't hold our elected officials accountable. When we don't recognize the cost of government debt as something that affects us. When we don't realize that our futures and our children's futures are being forfeited.  When we unthinkingly demand from our government and accept services that requires debt to pay for.

Debt and the accompanying interest enslaves the borrower whether it is the individual or the citizen.  The problem is when the borrower irresponsibly enslaves the next generation and a crime is committed when the third or fourth generation is included.  The generations before me enslaved themselves and affected me.  It is my generation that has not only enslaved our children but apparently have enslaved multiple generations into the future. Only time will tell how many that will be.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Shoulders of Giants

The idea that we stand on the shoulders of giants has always impressed me but it never completely satisfied me as an adequate statement of our conditions.  We do stand on the shoulders of those giants in our past who have implored us to do better, invented something that benefited us, added value to existing things, or incited us to action that brought about positive change.

We also stand on the bones of those who came before.  The soldier that gained and protected our freedoms. The farmer that cleared the land. The contractors that installed the infrastructure. The jobs that were created and lost in the process of business. The structures built, inhabited, and re-inhabited. The business started, the investments made and lost to be purchased by someone else. And the taxes on our labors that have been imposed.

Everyone of us throughout existence stand on the shoulders of giants and the bones of those who came before.

History

History doesn't repeat itself. The Future patterns its self after history. Our ignorance of history does not condemn us to repeat it but it disables our sensibilities to similar circumstances, telltale behaviors, and probable outcomes. Unfortunately, the Future is never satisfied with 'similar' but always wants to exceed and to increase its size and scope.  Our inabilities to learn from our mistakes seems more likely the culprit. Our unwillingness to accept responsibility for our actions appears to be the cause.  Our natural tendencies to dismiss the obvious becomes the catalyst. And the fact that good and bad are eternal companions makes me wonder about the the possibilities of affecting a change in the routine.

Pandora's box is never re-closed, each drop of ink changes the water and it cannot be removed.  In retrospect, is the advancement of society dependent upon or delayed by the replaying of historical events. Does the welfare of mankind benefit or suffer from its own inabilities? Is it the unwillingness of the individual or the anonymity of the group to blame? Can we alter our tendencies in the light of the past. And is it our perspective or our preferences that determine good from bad.