When will I be done with therapy?

That's what my therapist asked me in my last session. When will I know that I'm done with therapy?

It should be as simple an answer as "when I'm no longer depressed." But how, exactly, do I know for sure that it's (at least for a while) over? When I first started therapy there were certain symptoms that I (with some help) identified that concerned me most:

• Low motivation to write, as in, none. This despite the satisfaction I received from it, and the associated intellectual stretching. 
• Lack of interest in socializing. 
• Poor mood (of course; it practically goes without saying)
• Lack of interest in reading.

Since starting therapy and getting on meds, I've improved greatly. Obviously (at least if you check my recent blog output compared to the past year), I'm writing more, and with it, thinking more. My interest in socializing has returned, and my mood has greatly increased (I still have those days, but who doesn't?).

However, my interest in reading hasn't properly returned yet. I've done a little bit of fiction reading lately, but it's just not grabbing me and sucking me in like it used to. And these are books that I looked forward to when I bought them, from authors and series that I enjoy! I've been a bibliophile ever since I first learned to read, and the last I counted, I had over 400 books before I gave up counting. If my wife saw me reading, she knew that she would have trouble getting my attention, because my mind was in another world. I'd sometimes (often) forget about little inconveniences like food, drink, and using the bathroom. In past depressive episodes, I retained my interest in reading, sometimes to my detriment as I would use it as an escape from real-life problems that needed dealing with.

So, am I bothered that my interest has not fully returned yet? Oh, yes. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm surprised it wasn't the first thing to return. In some ways, I don't quite know what to make of myself without reading being a regular feature of my life.

But, do I really need to have that fully back to what it was in the past, in order to say that I'm beyond this particular episode of depression, and can leave therapy? Can I just take what I've got, enjoy what I've got, and move on with my life, letting the reading return or not as it will?

I don't know.

I should note that mostly I'm thinking of fiction reading, usually fantasy or sci fi. I've been reading a bit more in terms of articles and blog posts. So maybe my interest is returning, just not in the manner that I expect.

Now there's an interesting thought to ponder.

In which I try to understand Dan Fincke's empowerment ethics

In recent weeks I've been reading the work of Dr. Dan Fincke, who blogs at "Camels with Hammers," specifically some of his work regarding his views on what makes for an ethical life. I've been doing this because I respect Dan as a very nuanced, critical thinker, and I want to see if his specific meta-ethics are something I would agree with. I've frequently been flying by the seat of my pants when it comes to moral issues, trying to use basic empathy as a starting point when things seemed murky (and then a bunch of thinking), and it's occurred  to me that I don't necessarily have a solid meta-ethical system to work with.

I've long thought that some form of objective morality, that would be appropriate in all times and cultures, exists and is discoverable by reason. I am somewhat familiar with other attempts to do this, for example, utilitarianism, but the ones I'm aware of all seem to fall flat for one reason or another. I thought Sam Harris had something going for him by claiming that the moral good is whatever allows for the greatest well-being (in The Moral Landscape), but while there are some good things in that book, the basic premise I describe was never properly argued for, and criticisms seemed spot on.  I would still recommend reading the book.

I don't want to get bogged down in discussing the other ethical systems at this point, so let's just take it as given that the ones I know of have not been compellingly argued to me, and get right to looking at this empowerment ethics. I'm going to try and explain, as best I can right now, the premise and argument behind empowerment ethics, using my own words where possible, and then some applications of it that have occurred to me. How easy or difficult that is will give me some idea of how well I'm understanding Dan's work -- or perhaps just an idea of how carefully he chose his own words.

Warning: given how much he's written on this subject, this will only be a summary, at best. I very highly recommend reading the source material, multiple times if needed (I've reread more than one his posts more than once in this effort). You can start here, or if you just want to read one thing, read My Systematic, Naturalistic Empowerment Ethics, With Applications to Tyrants, the Differently Abled, and LGBT People

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First off, everything (and everyone, obviously) that exists does so through, or rather as, it's various functions, or the things that it does. Water is water because it has water functions and properties. This is simply an objective fact. Fire is because it functions as fire, with sub-functions at the chemical level adding up to, well, fire. When you start getting various functions together, more complex functions will emerge, creating new things. So, water plus sufficient sunlight gets water vapor, which combines with the atmosphere to create clouds, which are clouds because they function as clouds. In a similar (though generally more complex manner), water can combine with other things to function as bacteria, insects, plants, dogs, and humans. We are human because we function in a human fashion, composed of numerous sub-functions. To function well as humans means to function effectively as humans.

When we speak of something being good, we're actually talking about it being effective. If a car is a good car, that means it's effective at being a car, and performing the various sub-functions that make up a car, such as providing power to the wheels, protecting passengers in crashes, efficient use of gas, etc (and you can break all those down into further sub-functions). If it gets good gas mileage, that means it's effective at using the gas it has efficiently. If it has good tires, that means it has effective tires that contribute to the overall effectiveness of the car (effective/good traction in various weather conditions, no leaking of air, etc). And so on. Obviously, something can be more or less effective at being what it is (good car vs bad car vs it's-ok car).

So, in other words, goodness = effectiveness. The more effective something is at being it's function (in other words, just being itself), the better it is. To be a good person then, would be to be an effective person. That seems a weird way to speak of it when we're referring to a morally good person. Translating though, that becomes "morally effective person," which doesn't seem so strange. In fact, it seems downright accurate. Someone who is effective in their morals would be the same as a "good person" in the moral or ethical sense. The more effective someone is at being moral, the better person we consider them to be.

"Empowerment ethics" then comes into play when you get a bunch of functions that combine and interact to become super-functions, or what Dr. Fincke refers to as "powers" (yes, I know, I thought of comic books, too). Human beings are beings with a whole variety of powers: intellectual powers, social powers, sexual powers, artistic powers, and so on. However, since everything --including us-- exists as its functions (as opposed to having functions), then that means that we don't have these powers, we are these powers. And if we are our functions/powers, and if goodness=effectiveness, then it follows that to be good is to maximize our powers, or functions, and be the best we can be. Morality is just one of the ways we do this.

Now, an instant objection is that seems very self-centered, and to an extent perhaps it is. But, intrinsically the only way we can fully empower ourselves and flourish to the max that our abilities allow is by helping to empower others, helping them be the best themselves they can be. When a teacher teaches, passing on their skills and knowledge, she is adding to the power of her students, which in turn increases her own power. Aiding others empowers ourselves, as well as those we aid.

I'm not going to rehash what Dan has written about how this relates to dictators, or the "disabled." I want to get to the applications that have come to mind as I've been going over his work. Those applications include health care, immigration, charity work, and even voting. However, I'll only briefly discuss a couple of them, as this post is already getting long.

Health Care.
People cannot flourish to their best if they are not healthy. This is obvious. As such, adequate or better health care may be one of the most important things people need in life, beyond basic survival items. Helping others to achieve better health raises our own power, our own effectiveness. As those others flourish, they will help others to flourish more, and some of that may even come back to ourself, enabling us to flourish or maximize our power/effectiveness even further. We don't all have to be doctors to do this, or any other kind of medical professional. There are plenty of things that we can do to either avoid harming other's health, or to help improve it. Get vaccinated if you're able, in order to avoid being a carrier of illness, and maximize herd immunity. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze ("vampire sneeze!"). Have health insurance if you're able, in order to incentivize yourself more to go to the doctor, and not worry about going broke because of it. Help others to have insurance by supporting political measures that aim to bring insurance and it's benefits to more people (The Affordable Care Act is not the best solution, but it sort of heads in the right direction).

Immigration.
People are people, no matter what part of the world they come from. Morality and ethics do not change merely because someone is from another country. Thus, if it's wrong to murder a fellow American, it's wrong to murder a Mexican, Ireland native, or someone from Japan. If empowering fellow Americans to help them flourish also empowers ourselves, then empowering someone from another country would do the same, regardless of how they got here. Ideally, they got here legally. However, as best I understand it, most people who come here illegally do so because they are looking for a better life. They already could not fully flourish in their home country, and so they are seeking someplace they can. What possible reason could we have for not helping to empower them? I suppose one could say they are draining resources from the law-abiding, but if we simply kick them to the curb, then their suffering and lack of flourishing is on us. On the other hand, if we provide certain basic assistance (at a minimum), then their future flourishing will help society as a whole flourish. 

I realize that I've simplified these issues, and there are plenty of connected issues to complicate the problems involved, but I think it's a good starting point.

I make no claim to properly and fully understanding empowerment ethics. That'll take more study. So far, I haven't found any obvious weaknesses to the argument. The more I understand it, the more it seems to be a rational way of looking at ethics. Of course, I have to be careful. Much of it seems to agree with my own ideas, which means it is likely to be more seductive to me. Thus, I need to be even more diligent in my studies, try to find and understand objections, and make sure I'm not accepting it just because I like it.

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Partial Bibliography:
My Systematic, Naturalistic Empowerment Ethics, With Applications to Tyrants, the Differently Abled, and LGBT People

Effectiveness Is The Primary Goal In Itself, Not Merely A Means

Pleasure And Pain As Intrinsic Instrumental Goods

Goodness Is A Factual Matter (Goodness=Effectiveness)

Thoughts on death

Death.

It's not really an easy topic for me. My reaction to the idea of oblivion, of no longer existing, of there no longer being a me, has always been one of fear. No, not fear. Terror. I avoided thinking about it as a result. But in the last few years I've been trying off and on to work on coming to grips with the idea. With death.

I'm not so sure that I'm succeeding.

I'm going to spend some time going through some of the various philosophies concerning death that I've come across in the time I've spent looking at atheist blogs, and pointing to my objections, and see if anything comes out of that. Maybe organizing all these thoughts into a written form for myself will spark some thought that allows me to accept mortality.

One of the most common ideas I've encountered is an idea that is sometimes attributed to Mark Twain. You can also hear it in some versions of Monty Python's song "Always look on the bright side of life" (at about minute 2:40 in that link, if you just want to hear the line). "We come from nothing, and we go back to nothing. What have we lost? Nothing." or "I wasn't bothered by the several billion years before I was born when I didn't exist, I won't be bothered by the years after I cease existing."

For some reason, this idea not only doesn't bother some atheists, it actually seems to give them some peace. On the other hand, I think there is a great deal lost when someone dies. Consider this analogy: suppose you win a car in a drawing, a brand new, nice car of whatever kind you care to imagine. This car is free to you, with the exception of maintenance and insurance of course, so in a sense it's coming from nothing. But it's yours now! It's all yours, until a month later when a freak mechanical problem causes a semi-truck to lose control and plow into your new car, totaling it beyond repair (we'll stipulate the driver is fine, and the semi probably wasn't damaged much either). Have you lost anything?

Well, it's only been a month in this version, so maybe not. On the other hand, in that month you may have taken the car to a mechanic to get it checked out, and had some minor issue taken care of. You may have gone on a long road trip with a significant other. Perhaps you took it to a track, and had some fun going well over the legal speed limit. Maybe you lovingly hand washed it for the first time, with two coats of wax. Maybe you totally rocked out to tunes on the radio while waiting on a red light, not caring who saw you. There are any number of things that may have happened in that month.

But now, it's gone. You have the memories of course, but memories fade, details are forgotten, and things get fuzzy after a while. Not only that, but you've lost everything that could have been. All the drives, all the back seat sex, all the oil changes, everything. And this is just a car, a mechanical contraption where the only conscious being affected is you. Let's take this out of the mechanical analogy realm.

I'm married. And it's awesome. My life was good before I met the woman that became my wife, but it's been even better since meeting her, dating her, and marrying her. If I had never met her, I would never have experienced such awesomeness, but I wouldn't know what I was missing, so I wouldn't care that I hadn't met her and married her. Now of course, I would absolutely care if, for some reason, she decided to leave me (not died, just left), and cut me out of her life completely. Should I say "well, it didn't bother me not having her around before I met her, so it shouldn't bother me now"?  Should she? I don't think so.

Now, obviously that analogy doesn't work perfectly compared to death. In death, the dead have no consciousness with which to care, while in this case, she and I continue to live and feel. But the point here is that something is lost. And it's that loss that bothers me. It's that loss that I care about, both in the abstract (mortality in general), and in the specific (actual individuals dying, like my wife, or me, or you).

It bothers me that when someone dies, everything they are, were, or could be is lost -- forever. All that's left are fading memories of the living, and maybe some changes to the world that they were able to cause before dying. And while the effects we have on the world are not nothing, by any measure, that person is gone.

Forever.

Now, Greta Christina has a post Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing To Do With God in which she points out that death is a part of change, and everything changes. We can't experience life without change. And she's right. We can't get to Point B without leaving Point A. We can't reach 5pm in the afternoon without first saying "hello" to 4pm in the afternoon (or maybe not, because fuck 4pm, the bastard). This seems to me a trivial point however, as when we're dead we don't experience change anymore. We experience nothing. Not nothingness, but nothing.

When I wish that people didn't die, I'm not seeking stagnation. It's that entire experience of life, the universe, and everything that I want to see continue. It's that entire experience that an individual loses when they die. And I am not certain that death is a change that is necessary for us to experience life.

In that same post, she also says

Imagine, for a moment, stepping away from time, the way you’d step back from a physical place, to get a better perspective on it. Imagine being outside of time, looking at all of it as a whole — history, the present, the future — the way the astronauts stepped back from the Earth and saw it whole.

Keep that image in your mind. Like a timeline in a history class, but going infinitely forward and infinitely back. And now think of a life, a segment of that timeline, one that starts in, say, 1961, and ends in, say, 2037. Does that life go away when 2037 turns into 2038? Do the years 1961 through 2037 disappear from time simply because we move on from them and into a new time, any more than Chicago disappears when we leave it behind and go to California?

She says it doesn't, I say I don't know, and I'm not sure it matters. As she pointed out earlier, everything changes. We don't experience time in the fashion she describes. We experience time as change, as she pointed out already. Even if her view of time is true and accurate in any sort of real or "just" philosophical manner, the fact that our segment is so short, so limited, is just . . . depressing. I want to experience the rest of the timeline.

It's strange. In some ways, I'm content with how my life has turned out, such that if I died at this keyboard right now, it would be ok. I've made the lives of some people better, helped bring laughter and happiness to some people, and generally, on net, I think I've more good than bad. Hopefully. My wife has her boyfriend, friends, a strong family, and a great deal of inner strength that would help her deal with my death. I can't think of a single friend or family member that wouldn't be able to deal, somehow, with me dying.

And I think I could probably --though I'm less certain here-- deal with her death, or the death of other friends and family. But I would hate it. I would hate the absence, complete and entire, of a person that I cared about deeply. There would be my memories, the keepsakes, photos, and whatnot, but those things are not the person. Not even close.

(and when it comes down to it, my memory sucks; I don't even have clear memories of my wedding day, one of the best days of my life)

And content with my life or not, I still fear death. I've been wrapping it up in all these philosophical ramblings, but it's so damn visceral. I have found nothing about it that I can be comfortable with, nothing to make me think it's not so bad, or not terrifying. It's frustrating.

..... Fuck death. Just . . . fuck it. I don't know.

Why I'm an atheist, redux

I want to lay out my specific reasons for being an atheist. There are a variety of issues that people bring up when objecting to atheism, and I'm going to lay out my objections to the objections. I doubt I'll hit on all the ideas out there, but I'll try to hit on most of the ones I've encountered. I'll also lay out my own specific reasoning. I won't bother going into the history of me becoming an atheist, as I've already done so on this site (it's not all that dramatic anyway).

Meaning of Life. 
I think this was the very first objection I ever got to atheism: "But if there's no god, then what's the meaning of life?" I have to say, I was honestly confused (I was young). My response was "Who says there has to be a meaning?" The question was, and is, a genuine one. We may want there to be a meaning to our life, one that some force greater than ourselves recognizes, but I see no reason to think that the universe is obliged to grant our desire. It genuinely puzzles me that anyone thinks that just because we want a particular thing, it therefore must exist.

Meaning, if it exists, is something that we provide to our lives. It's not something that is assigned to us from on high, but rather something that we must find or choose for ourselves. I suspect that the "meaning of life" will always be somewhat individual and subjective. One person may find meaning in being a father who raises ethical children, while another finds it in philanthropy, and so on, and so forth. But even if we cannot find something to give our lives meaning on our own, or with the help of other people, that does nothing to prove the existence of a god or gods, or any sort of afterlife.

Comfort/Hope.

There isn't much here that I can say that I didn't say under the "Meaning of Life" section. Whatever hope or comfort one believes is provided by a belief in god (or the afterlife) is no argument for the actual existence of a god (or an afterlife). I will note, however, that I do believe there are plenty of things for us to be hopeful about. As I said in another post

I have hope. I know there are many reasons that I have to be cynical, untrusting, and angry. But I also see people who work hard to make a world in which those reasons will be minimized, and that gives me hope. When I write about the things that I'm against, and that I don't believe, it is because of my hope that I do so, and not because of my anger. I have hope that those writings, and the actions and writings of others, will move us toward a brighter world. Science continues to advance our knowledge, and as such I have hope that the children of the world will have longer, healthier, and better lives than my generation, and the generations that have come before me. I do not know or believe that any of these things will happen, I have no faith in the future, but I most assuredly have hope.

Justice/Fairness.

The world isn't fair. Good things happen to the worst people, bad things happen to the best people, and innocents suffer while evil people prosper. And of course, sometimes the good people get all the best things, the evil get to suffer, and innocents are happy.

Many people want to believe that somehow there's a cosmic balance sheet, and the evil are punished and the good rewarded. It's an understandable desire, I suppose. I can sympathize. But I see no reason to actually believe it. I have yet to see anything in my life, in the news, in magazines, or anywhere, that suggests there are karmic forces at work. And before I can believe in any sort of afterlife, I'm going to need some evidence (other than the imaginings of oxygen starved brains, such as with near death experiences). That evidence has yet to make an appearance. Other than that, see what I said about hope and meaning. 

Pascal's Wager.

This is an argument put forth by a French philosopher named Blaise Pascal. To quote Wikipedia, 

It posits that humans all bet with their lives either that God exists or does not exist. Given the possibility that God actually does exist and assuming the infinite gain or loss associated with belief in God or with unbelief, a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.)

First off, this is an argument for belief, not for the actual existence of God. Second, which god? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of gods that have been worshiped throughout human history. Get it wrong, and you could be in as much trouble as an atheist. Thirdly, and most compellingly to me, if the god you choose makes certain demands that are contrary to good morals (like, sacrificing your kids, killing homosexuals, keeping slaves, etc), then by following that god you could end being responsible for a great deal of pointless suffering and immorality.

I would rather try to understand what morality is, why specific things are immoral, and act accordingly, even if I risk an eternal hell by doing so. Any god that would send me to hell for that (and for not believing in them) doesn't deserve my worship, but rather my condemnation.

Objective Morality.

While I do highly suspect that objective morality exists, it is not objective in the sense that the speed of light or the gravitational constant is. It is not a fundamental law of the universe. Rather, it is something that can be discovered through the exercise of reason, much like mathematics. Consider that if I take one electron, and put it by another electron, I now have two electrons. It doesn't matter what one and one you're adding, you'll always get two. This is simply the nature of 1+1. It is simply the nature of numbers. It would be the same in any universe, with or without a god. Human minds are capable of discovering, through the exercise of reason and rigorous testing, further facts about numbers, developing systems of algebra, trigonometry, calculus, and other things I have no names for. Morality is likely the same way: something that is determined/discovered through the exercise of reason, and would, at a fundamental level, be the same regardless of the universe we find ourselves in (for one attempt at such an exercise of reason, please see the excellent work of Dan Fincke, especially this piece -- I've been studying his work, and am so far finding it compelling).

As regards morality coming from God, or God somehow being the source of morals, this seems incoherent to me. Presumably, an omniscient god would understand morality, but that's not the same as morality coming from God. That's more like figuring out what morality is, in the manner I've described, and perhaps then passing on what he/she/it/other figured out to those with less awareness and wisdom. If, on the other hand, morality is simply something he decides in a manner that cannot be explained reasonably, such that we could then say "oh, yea, that makes sense, you're right," then God's rules would merely be arbitrary, with no reason for us to listen other than, well, he's bigger than us. 

However, even if I'm wrong about objective morality, and it doesn't exist in any form, even if it's purely subjective and arbitrary, that is neither an argument for, nor against, the existence of God. Whether God exists or not simply has nothing to do with the nature of morality, and the nature of morality has nothing to do with God's existence.

Fine-tuning argument.
This is the idea that the universe is ideal for the existence of life, specifically human life. The argument goes that since the universe and the earth are so ideally suited to the existence of human life (ideal distance from the sun, right amount of gravity, nuclear forces just right for the formation of the chemical building blocks life etc), it must therefore have been created specifically for humanity.

In my case, this reminds me of a quote from Douglas Adams, author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

In other words, we evolved to fit the universe (and the planet) that's here. Had it been different, we would be different. 

Many argue that even the basics of any kind of life couldn't exist without the natural laws being exactly as they are. This seems a potentially good argument, but even this may not be true. Scientific American has an article discussing some work that's been done that suggests that life of some kind (just not "as we know it") could exist if not one, but more than one natural law were altered in certain key ways. It's been too long since I read it for me to attempt a proper summation, and it's sadly behind a paywall, but follow the link if you care to give it a gander. 

But even if that work is wrong (and it can't be proven or disproven at this point, and perhaps never can be), fine-tuning still fails as an argument for a creator (and by the way, if one accepts the fine-tuning argument, it still only gets you as far as a creator of some sort, not as far as any particular religion). It fails because . . . we could've just gotten lucky. Plain and simple.

Lack of Evidence.

I've been talking about a bunch of philosophical arguments, but none of them are the primary reason that I'm an atheist. It's even fair to say that they have nothing to do with me being an atheist, when it comes right down to it. The primary reason that I'm an atheist is very simply a lack of evidence for any sort of god. 

The most common type of god that I hear about is the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving god. But here's the thing: this world would not be the way it is if there were truly a god of that description in existence. An omniscient, omnipotent god could readily remove the suffering in the world, i.e., natural disasters, cancer, missing limbs, dementia, mental illness, food poisoning, and any other ailments both minor and major. An all-loving god that was also omnipotent and omniscient would have already done so, with no need for prayer or requests. 

But what about free will? Putting aside the argument about whether free will exists, and assuming, for the sake of argument, that it does, what the hell do earthquakes have to do with free will? And even in cases where suffering is caused directly by human action, like, say murder or rape, are you saying that the murderer or rapist's free will is more important than the free will of their victim(s) (who most certainly did not will these things to happen to them)? I'm going with "No" on this one. If we don't object to a cop or such stopping a crime, I don't think we can object to God doing so.

Some claim that God does interfere in these things, by guiding the cop or whomever to be in the right place and right time to prevent these things, or that he guides the doctors who are working on cancer, etc. There's at least two problems with these scenarios. One, this looks exactly the way it would look if God wasn't interfering, so . . . why posit that God is involved at all? There's no reason to. And two, where is God in all the situations where cancer doesn't go into remission, or a crime like murder isn't prevented? Simplest explanation is that God doesn't exist. 

In other words, I treat the existence of a personal god of the sort commonly described as a hypothesis about the universe. And a good hypothesis is one that can be disproven (not proven, but disproven). So, if any sort of personal god of the sort commonly described existed, the world would not look the way it does. The world as we observe it seems to appear just as it would be expected to look if there were no omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving being interfering in it. Thus, I conclude that there is most likely no god.

Since I probably can't leave this subject without talking about evolution, I'll mention a few thoughts on the matter. When Darwin first proposed his idea of natural selection, it was not immediately accepted by the scientific community. It had to go through the same rigorous testing as Newton's hypotheses and Einstein's hypotheses. Evolution has been observed in the wild, in the lab, and has even included the observation of new species evolving. For an excellent treatment of just what the evidence for evolution consists of, I can recommend the book The Greatest Show on Earth, by Richard Dawkins. It's well written, and makes no assumptions about the reader's level of knowledge about biology. If you prefer video, there's a series on YouTube by thunderf00t called "Why do people laugh at creationists?" Yes, there's some snark, but the explanations are nonetheless well done. 

Just a point or two you might find in those resources. I, and many others, have back problems (lower back, in my case). Back problems in general can be traced back to the fact that humans only relatively recently evolved the ability to stand and walk upright. Our skeleton did not originally evolve for it, but rather for four-legged locomotion, and our pains are the legacy of it not being fully adapted to uprightness. Sadly, it will probably remain that way, since there doesn't seem to be any pressure causing those with back problems to procreate less successfully than others. You can find similar things in humans and other creatures: structures in the body that have adapted from a previous function to either include a second function or to an entirely different function. In some cases, structures no longer do a damn thing for the species as it currently is, and have become vestigial (occasionally causing problems--tonsillitis, anyone?). 

Basically, if God had designed us 6,000 years ago, we would not expect creatures to look like they developed via short term solutions that worked just well enough to manage for now, but without long term planning. But that is what we'd expect if evolution's a fact. And it is what we see. While that doesn't prove evolution, it does provide evidence against the God Hypothesis. 

Here's the thing. If someone comes to me, claiming to have evidence that a god exists, then I'll want to see this evidence examined under the same rigorous applications of critical thinking that epitomizes good science. I will treat the claim as a hypothesis, which means I will first look for evidence to disprove it. Positive claims are the ones that hold the burden of proof, not the negative claims (i.e., "Bigfoot exists" is a claim that requires supporting evidence, while "Bigfoot probably does not exist" is simply the default, simplest position to take -- and Bigfoot is more plausible by far than God is).

Our strength

So I came across this article recently in one of my news feeds, and it bugged me. And then I saw it on Facebook, and I saw some other things (like a quote from Dan Fincke on Facebook), and it's all congealed into some impressions and thoughts that I want to get out there. Note that I'm not necessarily making a direct rebuttal to that article, nor am I intending to.

We are better, we are stronger, than we often seem to think. That's the main thought that I have. It's a thought I've had before, and it's doubtless one I'll have again. That article seemed to be to be talking down to the homeless, the poor, the starving, and the addicted. It implies that without a faith in God, those of us in the worst places and situations would have no hope, and that we're incapable of dealing with a universe that allows such unfairness.

I've been homeless, poor, and starving/food insecure (I've avoided addiction, except for tobacco). And I've lacked faith that entire time. I was and remain completely capable of dealing with it. So can the people that article talks down to, whether they realize it or not.

God almost certainly doesn't exist. Yet people who have faith routinely claim that it was the strength God gave them that let them get through the worst times of their lives. To which I routinely respond in my head, "No! Don't denigrate yourself! That strength was in you the entire time. You are stronger than you think!" Of course, it's not just from within the person that such strength emerges. The support of friends, family, and others who care can lift us up when we find ourselves struggling. Recently, scientific research actually found a statistical correlation to the idea that when believers pray (and even some non-believers), there's an imagined social interaction taking place that can act in a similar manner to having the support of a friend.

...the authors had an elegant methodological question: will people who pray be able to avoid the depleting effects of emotion suppression and not show a deficit on the stroop task? In other words, will prayer give them the cognitive strength to perform well on both these challenging tasks?

Indeed it did. Participants who were asked to pray about a topic of their choosing for five minutes showed significantly better performance on the stroop task after emotion suppression, compared to participants who were simply asked to think about a topic of their choosing. And this effect held regardless of whether participants identified as religious (70 percent) or not.

Why? The authors tested several possible explanations, but found statistical support for only one: people interpret prayer as a social interaction with God, and social interactions are what give us the cognitive resources necessary to avoid temptation.Past research has found that even brief social interactions with others can promote cognitive functioning, and the same seems to hold true for brief social interactions with deities.

This does not rule out the possibility that prayer has other effects on resisting temptation, and the spiritually inclined could see the hand of God as another causal factor here. But as the holidays approach, it reminds us all of where we derive so much of our day-to-day strength. Interacting and connecting with the people around us.

Social interaction. People around us. Connection. And our own inner strength. That is how we survive. That is how we get better. That is how humanity improves, as individuals, and as a species.

I got off the streets because of other people, other humans, giving me a helping hand when I needed it most. God had nothing to do with this. I've survived depression multiple times (including recently) for the same reason. They added their strength to mine, and it was enough.

And to everyone who thinks they only improved because of God? Stop denigrating yourself (and your supportive loved ones).

Thoughts on choice

Today I hit the snooze button several times before fully waking up. In that last cycle before waking up, I was, as one does, dreaming. I'll spare you the full details, partly because they don't matter, and partly because I don't remember them.

In this dream a young woman was passing through a lobby or something of her workplace, when she passed one of her superiors having coffee with what was apparently potential clients. Her superior (Allan Harper from Two and A Half Men, though don't ask me why) stopped her, and proceeded to verbally berate her in a rather cold, bully like manner regarding her hair and outfit.

She was wearing a purple striped outfit, and her short cut blond hair had purple tips arranged so as to form spiky little stripes circling her head. This was apparently normal for her, and had been totally fine until now. As Allan said, "that sort of thing may have been ok when Carolyn was here..." The young lady was shocked, and looked like she'd been hit in the gut.

At which point, one of the potential clients steps in, and gives a verbal beat down to Allan, pointing out that her hair is irrelevant to her work, that he admires her independence, and "never forget that her choice to be independent represents a sacrifice of being normal, and the benefits that she might get by conforming to society's notions of normal," and if Allan wanted their business, he'd shut up and let her work.

My snooze alarm woke me up at that point, but this time I was thinking, so I stayed awake. That idea of choice representing sacrifice was running through my head. I think there's something to it. Any time we make a choice A, we block ourselves from choice B, sacrificing what might have been. Sometimes it's pretty damn minor, like last night for me. I chose to go to my local Freethought group's happy hour, instead of staying home. I got good conversation, good pizza, decent wine, and gave up a few more hours playing Skyrim. Not a bad sacrifice.

Other times, it can be more consequential. What job do you take? How do you spend limited amounts of money? Do you try getting time off from work during the holidays to see family, or not? But it's always a choice (though it doesn't always feel like one), and it's rare that we can get both A and B.

Just a thought for the day, I guess. You folks have any thoughts on this?

A few thoughts

I think I'm getting better.

Not in the sense of no longer being depressed, but in the sense that some of my symptoms are improving. My mood is better, at least on most days. No longer am I so irritable everyday that I want to snap at people for the smallest of things. I seem to be having more, if not good, than at least not-bad days.

My apathy currently seems to be lifting a little. For a while I was so apathetic I couldn't get excited about news like Illinois voting in same-sex marriage, something that would have had me ecstatic a couple years ago. Now, I care... at least a little. I've been sharing things on Facebook, and I've been tempted to write things again (like, say, this post).

Those may seem like small things to most people (you just click the share button, right? What's the big deal?), but that's where I was at for a bit. I didn't care enough to click a couple times to share a meme or an article. So to me, that little thing is a big victory. It might not last, but for now it's a good thing.

Part of this can be attributed to the continuing therapy sessions, and part of it can be attributed to the meds I'm on. I'm currently on three that help my depression: Wellbutrin, Abilify, and Lunesta to help with insomnia. Not tossing and turning for several hours while I try to sleep, not waking up multiple times in a night, and thus not being exhausted so much, is an indirect but major help.

I've socialized more lately, which is both good and bad. It's good because I've enjoyed it and it shows that I'm improving. It's sort of bad because I have to watch how much I socialize, lest I rebound too far the other way. I need time to myself in order to recharge and stay balanced, and if I socialize too much without giving myself that recharge time, that alone time, I'll end up resenting the social demands, and thus resenting the people I socialize with.

When I'm around others too much, regardless of how much I enjoy the time, I start to feel like there's not enough air in my life, like I can't breath right. I get more tired, and not the good kind of tired that has you feeling satisfied with what you've accomplished, but the kind that makes you irritated and frustrated with life. Recognizing this about myself, I've given myself permission of late to say "no" or "maybe just for a bit" when asked to socialize.

I've done this all along of course, but this time it's a deliberate, conscious decision, and I'm not sure it was before. And I think that's important, and will help me manage my symptoms and myself better in the long run.