Death. Just the word makes most people’s skin crawl.

It seems so…final. So much more so as an atheist. Religious people have an afterlife to look forward to after their death. An atheist knows, or is at least fairly certain, that there is no pearly gates, St. Peter or 72 virgins waiting for them on the other side of life.

Death has been on my mind a lot lately and not because I am wanting to die; set your mind at ease with that. My uncle, Galen, died a week ago and it has hit me fairly hard. I didn’t see it coming until we went to visit him in the hospice. That is when it hit me. Hard. I knew that it was coming eventually; he did have spinal cancer and was the spry young age of 87 after all. I just wasn’t expecting it this fast. I had so little time to converse with him; learn from him; get to know him. It doesn’t seem fair somehow. And yes this is entirely selfish but I think that he enjoyed our conversations as much as I did. He had a brilliant mind to go along with his artistic and creative abilities that is unrivaled in my eyes.

The only artwork that we have in the house is from his hand. They are among my most cherished items.

About 3 years ago I was hospitalized for 9 days and Galen and Priscilla came to visit me. I was surprised to find out that they were coming; I had not had much interaction with either of them for most of my life. It was around Easter and although I abhor religious holidays I do enjoy chocolate. They brought me a giant chocolate bunny and we sat and talked for a while. I had only vague memories of Galen being very religious and was fairly certain that I was going to hear some preaching. I didn’t. We just talked. There was no religious talk whatsoever. It really was a pleasant surprise and great visit. I found out later that my memories of his religious beliefs were just that, memories. He was no longer involved with the church and after many conversations and input from others I discovered that we had more in common than ever. We both hated organized religions and doubted the existence of a god in any form.

I am much more militant about my atheist beliefs than he was but there were a lot of points that we could agree on and in the past 3 years we have had some great talks. He even handed a folded paper to me at a family get together that was a couples of pages of his musings and beliefs on religion. I still have it. It meant so much to me that he would take the time to write out his thoughts and give them to me. I read it right then and there and tried to return it to him but he would have none of it. It was mine to keep he said. We talked briefly about what he had written but as is the case of so many family get togethers there was too much going on and too many people wanting to talk to one or the other of us. I had wanted to follow up with him and talk some more but it never happened. Just a short time later he was hospitalized and I only saw him one more time. He was not conscious and so we never got to finish our conversation.

There was a nice memorial service at their house in New Durham the Sunday following his death and I had the opportunity to share some of my thoughts and memories with the assembled family. It was rough but it was nice to see so many people who loved him and had been touched by him. Although I had far too short a time to get to know him, I love him. I miss him. Although I did not see him on a regular basis I miss the knowledge that this wonderful man is in the world and I could look forward to getting to talk to him again.

Holly told me that if anyone I knew was going to come back and tell me “Aww man Hippy, were we ever wrong! There is an afterlife!”, it would be Galen. I have not received any such message or visitation. While not proof that there is no afterlife, I know that if there were any way for him to get a message to me about it, he would.

My biggest comfort is in the quantum theory that there are an infinite number of parallel universes that contain every possibility. I know that in at least one of them, Galen and I are still able to have conversations and who knows, maybe we found each other sooner and had longer to enjoy those conversations.

I seem to recall a time when creativity burst forth from my mind at the speed of thought. I don’t care what that arrogant genius Einstein has to say about it, thoughts are far faster than the speed of light. What happened to my creativity? As I have aged has the basic structure of my brain changed such that creativity is less important than survival and my neurons have rewired themselves into survival mode? Disturbing thought. Usurped by my own mind. Bastard. But seriously…or as serious as I can get…has anyone else noticed this? I read plenty. I watch movies and documentaries. I love increasing the knowledge with reading news articles, tech blogs and the like. I am enrolled full-time in college. What else could it be but age? I seriously would like to hear your input.

My mind is crammed full of php and algebra. Pain! Suffering! If there is 23 coins that add up to $3.65 in dimes and quarters, how many of each do you have? Algebraically speaking? I know the answer but how do you arrive at it using algebra rather than deductive reasoning?
Oh and regular expression matching in php is ridiculously ridiculous.

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. – Patrick Henry – I have totally cleaned this e-mail from all other names, sending it to you in hopes you will keep it going and keep it clean. This is something I will fight for and I hope you all read it all the way through. You will be glad you did. The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-old’s) took only 3 months and 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971…before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land…all because of public pressure. I’m asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. No Tenure / No Pension.  A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2. Congress (past, present and future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/2012. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it’s time. THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!

This I Believe

I believe there is no god. I don’t care what you choose to call him: God, Allah, Yahweh, A Higher Power, etc. I believe in mathematics, science and physics. I believe all the fundamental characteristics of our Universe are readily expressed in the language of math, not mysticism. Thousands of years ago our ancestors looked at the night sky and saw mythical beasts, gods and warriors. Today we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that these are nothing more than patterns in the stars, galaxies and planets that our brains impose on the night sky. I believe that it is past time for us as a species to move beyond our beliefs in mythic creatures and imaginary, all-powerful, all-knowing beings in the sky. I believe our world has seen enough atrocities committed in the fervent belief in one god or another. I believe that the “Dark Ages” will never be truly over until we can throw off these belief structures that continually pollute our history. I am reasonably sure that some are praying for my mortal soul at this point and I am saddened. I believe that you should worry more about what is done in the name of your “god-man-deity-being” and the belief systems that you hold so dear and stop worrying about me and others like me. Delve into the science. Learn the Truth about evolution. Throw of the yoke of guilt over imagined “sins” and think. We have a massive frontal lobe in our brains and I believe it is time we start using them more and our beliefs in imaginary deities in the sky less. This I Believe.

I designed and implemented an experiment for my psychology class. It was a time perception experiment of a normally sighted person being blindfolded for 2 days. I still have to write up the paper but I figured I could put the data and graphs up here for now.



Image by ASurroca via Flickr

Posting from school on my brandy new T-mobile HTC G2!!! Loving this phone. Thanks Holly for my Merry Birthday gift!

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Tomorrow is the big day! Hippy heads back to school. I am having flashbacks of Rodney Dangerfield but more as The Hippy Dippy Weatherman ala George Carlin. Not that there is a “campus” and frat houses and stuff but still…

I am a little nervous. After all it has been 20+ years since I was in a classroom. I think it was 1988 when I dropped out of High School. I am excited too and I am sure that it will go fine and I look forward to learning and being around like minded people. I am a little worried because no one seems to know who my academic advisor is, including the head of the technology department. Slightly worrisome. I am going in early tomorrow before class to try to get this stuff straightened out as well as getting my student ID and some financial aid stuff done.

Mondays and Wednesdays are Visual Programming I
Tuesdays is Web Page Development
Thursdays is Intro to Psychology

Wish me luck!!!

So I finally picked up the book and I am glad I did, so far. The first section deals with Hinduism and it is extremely interesting. The very idea of self as godhead is interesting, especially to me as an atheist. I can be my own god and work towards enlightenment and bliss. I will write more about my thoughts on the book when I am done reading it. Or maybe after each section. We’ll see.

UPDATE:

So I finished the section on Hinduism. I must say that of any religion that I have ever examined this one is thus far the winner. I can relate to it and its ideals a whole lot more than I can to some of the more popular Western Religions. Acceptance, empathy and a lust for life are the basic ideas that stand out in this religion. Not sure how I feel about the whole reincarnation thing though. The one thing that I really do like is the thought of self as godhead. Working towards enlightenment and becoming one with the Universe are basic tenets that I already hold. I am the Universe contemplating/examining Itself. After all, we are all stardust.

Read the rest of this entry…

Mark your calendars. This is the year that it will finally happen. Hippy and Holly will be getting married on June 25th 2011. Videos, pics, tweets, emails and foursquare checkins all welcome.