Thoughts on God, Stephen Hawking and Other Brainiacs

That's young Stephen.  So I was watching the news or something recently.  Yes, I don't remember specifically what I was watching.  It's like that a lot lately.  Anyway...he said that there was no God or gods. To him, this God or gods would have had to be here before the big bang and he says there was nothing here before the big bang.  I disagree.  I'll get into it later...maybe.

I read his book, "A Brief History of Time," some years ago.  I forget everything I read.  I should read it again.  I won't.  I should read "Stephen Hawking for Dummies."  That would make more sense for me. BTW: Stephen has an IQ of 180.  Not too shabby...

Anyway, this declaration from him bothered me.  I guess this happens if someone or something makes you question your faith.  I'm human.  Stephen is human.  Stephen is some sort of genius I guess.  One of those "scholarly types."

I need to document what some other famous geniuses had to say on the subject:

Einstein:

He said he believed in the "pantheistic" God.  The Universe (or Nature as the totality of everything) is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God.  He did not believe in a "personal god," a god that can be related to as a person. He thought it silly to think of God as anything like us humans (I agree). He also called himself agnostic, He considered himself agnostic out of humility. He didn't have the hubris to believe he had the absolute answer.  I like that.

Einstein was only about a 160 IQ.  Einstein wasn't as big an Einstein as I thought.  That might sound funny but, I just learned there are some close to and over 200.  Seriously?  Is the person giving the test smart enough to grade the test?  Is the person that created the test smart enough to know what the right answers really are?  Fascinating...

Here is what I learned:

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

IQ of 210.  210!  What?  I'll use a quote to judge what his thoughts are on God:

Nine requisites for contented living:

Health enough to make work a pleasure.
Wealth enough to support your needs.
Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them.
Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them.
Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished.
Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor.
Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others.
Faith enough to make real the things of God.
Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

It appears Johann had a bit of a Zen mind.  That last one regarding hope, for example.  

Leonardo Da Vinci:

IQ of 205.  Damn!  Regarding the beliefs of Da Vinci, I seem to find a muddled mess of nonsense.  It appears many writers do not understand the difference between religion and faith.  As if you cannot speak of God without attaching some form of religion.

Many writers claim that Leonardo was a Catholic and thus, Christian.  Leonardo, being Italian, was most certainly born amidst a large amount of Catholics.  This certainly didn't mean he was Catholic.  In fact, he rejected Christianity.  He thought Christians were silly with their "cult of saints."  He thought it wiser to admire the virtuous people of one's own time, the ones who were known to be virtuous...not those virtuous by legend.

A lack of religion doesn't mean he didn't believe in God.  I have no religion.  I believe in God.  Here are a couple quotes that I like:

“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

“I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.”

Regarding the first quote: very Zen. Everything relates to everything else. The second quote shows an obvious belief in God. Yes, you can believe in God without having any religion. Da Vinci, as incredible an artist and inventor as he was, always felt his work could have been better. He was a perfectionist to the extreme.  Perhaps that comes with an IQ of 205.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: 

IQ also of 205.  Leibniz was one of the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is known as the last “universal genius”.  He made deep and important contributions to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of religion, as well as mathematics, physics, geology, jurisprudence, and history.

Denis Diderot, atheist and materialist, was almost moved to despair with regards to Liebniz: “When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz, one is tempted to throw away one's books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.”

Central to Leibniz's philosophy was the view that God freely chose the best world from an infinite number of possible worlds.  He also felt that a person could act freely when the contrary of that action does not imply a contradiction.  Meaning?  Fate and free will could coincide together.  In many things, Leibniz felt that both sides could be right if they didn't clash with each other. This is very Zen.  Zen seems to pop up in much of the thinking of these early brainiacs.  Also...God!

John Stuart Mill:

IQ 200.  I was not aware of this gentleman until doing this bit of research.  Interesting guy.  We share some similar views on religion.  Here is a ridiculously long paper written by Mill.  I am going to read the whole thing soon.  I'm too tired right now.  I was just trying to find his thoughts on God.  I opened a can of worms with this guy.

Check this out if you are inclined: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/mill/three/utilrelig.html

Mill believed in a “limited God,” a concept that he develops most fully in “Theism” written during the last years of his life. In this essay he does acknowledge that the most rigorous applications of modern scientific methods cannot rule out the argument from design as proof of God’s existence. Mill believed that the order of nature does in fact point to the existence of an intelligent mind conspiring to an end, to a God. 

Mill felt that God was not exclusively concerned with realizing the greatest possible happiness for the greatest number of human beings. This was one of the "limitations" he believed existed in God.  To quote Mill: "The limited God (and even Christianity) has produced some good, but it is now up to humans to build upon that good, to move on to the realization of the fullest human happiness."  Mill's religion was Humanity.  His intention was to create a non-theological religion and yet, much of his life was dominated by and guided by his study of religion (check out the link above and you will see what I mean).  He had tremendous animosity for "traditional" religion.

"It seems to me not only possible but probable, that in a higher, and, above all, a happier condition of human life, not annihilation but immortality may be the burdensome idea; and that human nature, though pleased with the present, and by no means impatient to quit it, would find comfort and not sadness in the thought that it is not chained through eternity to a conscious existence which it cannot be assured that it will always wish to preserve."

That's quite a sentence.  I like this guy (so far)...

Blaise Pascal:

IQ 195.  I only really knew of Pascal as the "math guy."  They also named a computer language after him back in the day.  

Of course, Pascal looked at the belief in God (or disbelief) as a math problem:

"If God exists then theists will enjoy eternal bliss, while atheists will suffer eternal damnation. If God does not exist then theists will enjoy finite happiness before they die, and atheists will enjoy finite happiness too, though not so much because they will experience angst rather than the comforts of religion. Regardless of whether God exists, then, theists have it better than atheists; hence belief in God is the most rational belief to have."

There are numerous other ways he looks at the logic or illogic of the belief in God.  He simply believes that those that believe in God live a better life whether they are right or wrong.

I like this guy also...

That's enough.  My OCD has kicked in. I will continue my research without the chains of this very long blog post.  I will return with additional thoughts from other brainiacs as I see fit.

Why Do I Run?

I have no idea.  I'm so sore right now.  The wife is about to watch Dancing With The Stars so I ponder.  Perhaps I am trying to regain my youth.  Perhaps I am simply trying to test my limits.  Of course, some people climb mountains to test their limits.  Some run across deserts.  Some swim across oceans.  It seems what I am asking of my body is not all that much.  Yet, my body is not cooperating.  It's not doing what I want it to do.  I refuse to accept that this is what 51 years old looks like for me.

In the picture above, I am 5 and my dad is in the background walking around the track.  I could run a mile in 9:00 when I was 5.  I have trouble keeping up that pace now.  I am hoping to be better once the snow is gone and I can run the trails more productively.

But...I'm lying to myself even now.  My legs are in rough shape.  I have some kind of shin pain.  I just looked it up on WebMD and it appears I likely just have simple shin splints.  I guess I never really understood what that truly is and how painful it can be.  I need to run on the front of my foot more (part of my laziness) and stay away from running on hard surfaces.  I figured out the latter on my own.

But...why do I run?  I started at a young age.  I took a break at 17 when I got confused with what was and who I was.  I was never the same runner again although I ran fairly regular through to my early 30s.  In organized sports I was forced to train regularly. I never took it tremendously seriously but left to my own devices, I slacked much more.

I wish I had today's drive in that young body.  Zen teaches that the past is the past.  It no longer exists.  I need to accept who I am today.  I am doing that on many levels.

Anyway...running.  I honestly don't know why it is so important right now.  It doesn't matter.  I should ride it out while I have the energy.  I just need to move...move with no apparatus...just my feet, body and mind.

I don't wear headphones.  I don't understand how anyone can have proper balance/coordination without hearing the world...hearing the wind, woods and critters.  I don't understand why anyone would block out the sounds of the woods or even the streets.  I love coming across critters in the woods.  This is cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkemK00kPo4

Stuff like that happens in the woods.  The marvelous randomness of the real world...


That was all written yesterday.  It is now today.  The question is: why do I run?  I think it is mainly the no apparatus aspect.  Like...you could run anywhere...even if you had no shoes...

There is definitely a Zen to running...the freedom of being alone in the woods with just one's thoughts.  Or to be Zen and have no thoughts. Only experience what is going on around you and specifically, what is in front of you.  Whatever.  I used to do some of my best thinking while I was running.  I was like a machine in my youth.  I didn't appreciate it back then.  It was my "normal."

Now I do running meditations...sometimes I think and sometimes I don't.  Wax on, wax off.

I think I have a good plan to eradicate the shin splints.  I looked up some stretches and exercises and will do them every day.

Why do I run?  Because I can...

Like riding a bike with hemorrhoids...

It's no secret...I love the woods and love riding in the woods.  I love to bring a camera as a way to document my journeys and take pictures of interesting things I find.  I don't have hemorrhoids in this picture.

In the photo above, I am at the start of a trail that runs for 78 miles from the Douglas State Forest in Douglas, MA to the ocean at Blue Shutter Beach in Charlestown, RI.  I know where the whole trail goes but have never ridden the whole length of it at once.  Some day I will.  Below is a picture of Blue Shutter Beach...nice place...

The world can be so beautiful and yet, so ugly.  The ugliest things in the world are greed and hate.  In Buddhism, it is simple: do good and don't do evil.

Life is full of pain.  I'm an empathic person and sometimes I feel like I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders.  Like my own pain is not enough, I must carry every one else's as well.  This may sound insane but it is who I am.  This is why, over the last few years, I have decided that there is more to life than spending a large amount of my waking hours selling software or cell phones or any variety of other crap to crappy people.  I think I have a higher purpose.  I'm working on figuring out what that is and what it looks like.  A good start would probably be to not call people crappy but some just are...and that is their problem and doesn't have to be mine.

I know what it doesn't look like.  Life doesn't look like people treating people like pieces of furniture.  It doesn't look like people controlling people or hurting people or taking from people.  It doesn't look like a guy riding a bike with hemorrhoids.

I am a member of a Buddhist community.  Life looks pretty good there.  Life moves slowly.  People care about each other.  They care about what they eat.  They don't care about having any more than they need.  If they have more than they need, they give the rest to others in need.  The people at the Zen Center remind me of what the Native people must have been like.

There is a TV in one of the common rooms at the Zen Center and I have never seen it on.  I have never seen a cell phone or iPad or computer of any kind in use there.  It makes me wonder: how much of the "stuff" that we have do we really need?  How much of the stuff that we don't have but feel we need do we, in fact, really need?

What is a need?  Do people even know any longer?  Real needs are things like: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity and freedom.  This morning I spoke to a 92 year old gentleman named Roland at an assisted living community.  I have to tell you, he looked like he was in his 70s at the most.  He wore a big smile and was happy to spend some time talking to me and I was happy to talk with him.  Someone there called him the mayor.  I'm pretty sure most of Roland's needs were fulfilled.  I don't know for sure if he has affection in his life today but I think he does and I know he has the rest.

Roland is one of those angels you come across in your life.  He teaches you a lesson if you are open to receive it.  I want to spend more time with people like Roland.  I don't want to ride a bike with hemorrhoids.  That is just painful!