My name is Ben. Wearing my engineer’s hat, I did electronic hardware design for many years, video-game machines and other microprocessor-based designs, plus some RF and analog design here and there… and then switched to software. I have been writing image and signal processing software primarily, though I’ve done other things when the circumstances appealed. I’ve been doing this long enough that I have some ability to pick and choose, which is nice.
I began my musical career by picking up guitar in the early 1960′s. Since then I’ve basically focused on blues, rock and roll, and metal, with the occasional excursions into folk and classical. I’ve also been involved with martial arts since the 1960′s — I’ve owned and run my own schools and taught hundreds of students over the years. Some of my current passions include software defined radio, photography, working on our home, which was a church before we started building an interior into it, and last, but first, my sweetheart Deb and our family of cats.
We — Deb and I — enjoy a wide cross-section of common interests. We live in northeast Montana, we’ve both been here since the 1980′s, and we’ve been a couple since 1997. We have a great deal in common, philosophically speaking. We’re both freethinkers, both atheist, and both charitable givers. We also share many day to day interests, from video games to cats to the kinds of recreational reading materials we prefer.
As I mentioned above, we live in an old church, basically a big, empty cube, which we moved into in July of 2006. We’ve been working on it continuously ever since. We’ve built a somewhat eclectic interior into the building over the years. We’ve been doing almost all the work ourselves; consequently the project as a whole has been both relatively inexpensive and at the same time, very long-term. Overall, the rewards have been worth it, but I don’t think either of us would undertake a job this large again. Even though we love the results, so far as we’ve gotten. It’s just… a big job.
I edit science fiction professionally. This came about at least partially because my family has been very much writing-centric; my father was a science fiction author, my mother a literary agent specializing in F&SF, and one of my sisters a translator. Eventually, I came into the position of running the literary agency, which adds another level of complexity to my daily life. Although I do write quite a bit, my own output has been primarily technical documents such as manuals. There are exceptions such as a book on martial arts, one on reading and writing Korean, and several essays on AI/ML intended for the general public.
On my work LAN live two Linux machines, a windows box, and a 12/24-core Mac pro incorporating a broad range of VMWARE virtual machines. The latter machine is my daily driver. The Linux boxes are servers presenting various web sites to the net. The Windows machine is there for testing Windows ports of my own software on actual hardware. For a portable, I drag around a Macbook pro, which also runs Parallels and VMWARE under which I have again, Linux and Windows available to me. This lets me get out of town and still have a full toolbox in the event that I need to work on our IT systems from a remote location.
Visitors here may notice that some posts are my writings that have been moved or copied from other locations on the net; my intent is to put all my various postings into one stream where people — including myself — can look through them as a single body of work. Everything here is content I wrote or otherwise created (images, recordings, etc.) At times, where a post was originally a response of mine to someone else’s remarks, I’ll rewrite it to integrate the questions or issues being addressed. I may also update the content to some degree if I think that is called for.
So that covers some of the basics; thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the site.
#1 by Dino Chiti on June 23, 2008 - 9:33 am
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Ben (if I may),
I’ve read just a few postings here, but I thought I’d comment because your site is striking for one notable quality: your writing is excellent.
Composition of all forms across this World Wide Web, especially the amateur but often and increasingly the professional as well, seems pretty poor to me. I am surprised and pleased to find someone who not only writes well but seems to have the ability to communicate through that writing plainly and succinctly.
I consider myself a writer, although I’ve never been published or even finished anything of scale. My day job is as a software engineer, so your story sounds familiar in a few ways.
I enjoyed your post about Eestor; it’s how I found my way here, via my daily Google search on blogs, news and the wider Web about that company.
I actually shook Richard Weir’s hand a few months back. Let me know if you’d like to hear the story.
Thanks,
–Dino
#2 by fyngyrz on June 23, 2008 - 10:42 am
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Dino, thank you for your very kind words; those were lovely remarks to encounter first thing in the morning.
Regarding your Weir story, yes, absolutely, love to hear it. You can initiate private email to me using fyngyrz and an ISP of gmail, of course with a .com TLD. I apologize for the indirection; always trying to keep the spambots down to a dull roar.
Ben
#3 by mrjerry on July 2, 2008 - 8:09 am
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Ben
I have been following eestor since mar of 2006 and I must say of all the articles, patents etc, I’ve read your information on how the essu would work and for a non engineer, it was easy to understand and informative. I here soon that we will be getting permittivity results back from the independent testing, 3 sources that have talked to dick weirs all saying the same thing. As I read and understood what we have here, this would change the world as we know it.
There are ideas from the ones in the know, not know to us yet but I’ve heard a couple of things like ships being converted with eestor hundreds of essu inside, with wind trubines on deck going out to sea, and collecting clean energy and dispensing it into eestor storage facilities at electical speeds and returning back to sea. Not only will we not need new electical power plants, one day we could be removing the ones we have today.
You see storage really changes everything..
#4 by fyngyrz on July 3, 2008 - 2:42 pm
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hi mrjerry,
Thank you, I appreciate that.
I agree with you, long-lived, maintainance free, high energy storage would change everything. Plus, I’m sure that once the basic design is out there, incremental improvements, economies of scale, and increasingly integrated energy conversion electronics will drive the usefulness of these further into every aspect of our society. It’s very difficult not to get my hopes up!
#5 by Graham on August 8, 2008 - 2:02 pm
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Ben-
I too, came here by way of EEstor research. I have also been rooting for them for quite some time. I find we are very like-minded as I read through many of your posts. I think the current government system is broken. I would love to get off the grid. I root daily for Nanosolar to finally make solar panels so ubiquitous that we can all stop perpetuating the current batch of elitist born parasites in charge of the energy sector. I want an electric car. I even liked the new calendar. (Though I wonder about the extra days at the end of the year and how would a non-salaried employee receive compensation at a time of year when extra $ is needed most?)
I am, however, also a firm believer in the soul. (As are the composers who write the lyrics to most of the music to which you listen, though they can be very misleading).
None-the-less, your being an atheist makes your article on the New Testament, textual criticism and the Big Bang even more exceptional. May I recommend a book? C.S. Lewis was a great Christian apologist and he wrote a book titled Mere Christianity and I would be very interested in hearing your reaction to it. I know most unsolicited proselytizing is unwelcome but I only write because you seemed like someone who would not just write me off because I have arrived at a different conclusion.
I feel I would be remiss if I did not offer one piece of advice on finding God. Start at the end of the logic chain and work your way backwards. Assume for a moment that God exists. Then assume that He loves you in a way so profound a human being cannot even fully comprehend it. Then assume He is alive and well and at work in the world. Then assume that if He is real He will reveal that to you in a way you will understand to be Him, and not someone else. The New Testament promises if you seek you will find. So seek Him, and see what develops. If nothing develops, you are still an atheist, nothing lost. If you find Him, you have gained what matters most in life.
May the God of your home smile on you and show Himself.
Graham
#6 by fyngyrz on August 8, 2008 - 3:12 pm
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Hi, Graham. Thanks for writing.
That may well be; still, belief, either quantity or quality, is not a factor that relates to the reality of a thing. Reality is that thing which undergoes no change regardless of any degree or facet of belief.
Thank you.
Are you sure? I’ve read it, and my opinion is not complementary by any means. I’m not entertained by inflicting contrary opinions on Christians. My only real beefs with Christianity are the legal and social impositions inflicted upon others not of like mind, and the attitude that it is moral to tell unsubstantiated stories to innocents who do not have the developed reasoning skills to deal with mythology if they were able to make that choice. When a free adult makes the choice to believe in a god or gods, I say, fine. I’m not looking for a fight here.
Having said that, odds are (based on past experience) that you would not enjoy or appreciate my take with regard to Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Also, a thorough critique of the work would take a considerable amount of space, and time, so I’m not certain by any means I’d be able to give more than a disemboweling of some of the more obvious failures of rationality therein. With all that in mind, should you have specific questions, I will attempt to answer them.
For the sake of discussion, I’ll take it as a given.
I see absolutely no evidence of this. Nor of a god or gods loving anyone else, either profoundly, or in some lesser way. On the contrary, I see enormous and uniformly indefensible evidence that indicates profound neglect given the existence of such a being.
Again, I see absolutely no evidence of this. I see natural processes ongoing, continuous streams of events which fall squarely into coincident, random, or mundane human, animal and physical causality, all of which have every indicator of being natural in the sense that they do not require or even hint at the intervention of a being who is willing, much less able, to change the course of events for the benefit of individuals or groups of individuals. With the original assumption in mind, from the evidence at hand and that taken from history, I would conclude that the presumptive god or gods is the worst possible guardian, mentor, and friend. As a “worker in the world”, I’d fire him for cause.
That would actually rule a god or gods existence out, then, for such has definitely not been the case. This, after a great deal of introspection over fifty-plus years.
That promise has been broken. Along with many others, I might add.
Graham, I’m not an accidental atheist. I have come to this position after half a century of careful observation, extensive study of multiple religions, and through a continuing interest in, and analysis of, human behavior. I appreciate your good intent; but like belief, intent does not alter the basic facts of reality around us.
Thank you for your kind wishes. In like sentiment, may you realize that all good works depend upon your proactive interaction with the world around you while you are alive, may you realize that no supernatural force is going to assist you with anything, and may you then act accordingly in order to help nudge the world towards being a more pleasant place for all beings to live, work and play in. Change is the prerogative of the active agent; decay and entropy are the fruits reaped by those who passively expect imaginary friends to intervene, smooth, or otherwise prepare the world for their benefit.
#7 by Graham on August 9, 2008 - 7:40 am
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Ben-
Thanks for replying. Again, I am only impressed that you have actually looked into most of these things. The most specific question I would have regarding Mere Christianity would be what was Jesus then if not God, a Liar or a Lunatic?
Also, the attack on Christians for ‘indoctrinating’ their children is unfair. The Bible is the most complete and accuate ancient historical document ever compiled, and it has been validated as such many times over, I think you already know that. Should I wait to teach my children history until they can realize it is written by the winners? I tell my Son Jesus loves him because I believe Jesus is good for him, and I love my son. It is a responsibility I do not take lightly.
I did not check my brain at the door in order to accept the truth of this place being an extaordinary feat of engineering and no accident. For whatever reason, I have seen the truth of the spirituality of existence. (And it is independent of me, not something I am experiencing only internally). That is what led me to start looking for deeper meaning. At this point, you may dismiss me as a lunatic, but I would like to ask again that for the sake of argument you assume that I am not.
I think perhaps I mis-communicated the steps detailed above. I understand that the assumptions are leaps of faith, and it is not rational to make them. What I am suggesting is that you let God prove He exists. What I meant was IF we take the God of the Bible at His word, THEN those assumptions are valid. IF those assumptions are valid, THEN God is dying (literally) to reach you. IF an all-powerful being is dying to reach you, THEN it should be no problem for Him. I will ask Him to show you His love today.
Best Wishes, I appreciate your reply. I understand that this format is not likely the best venue for this conversation, and I will understand completely if you move or remove it. I have never regretted letting God into my life.
Best Wishes,
Graham
#8 by fyngyrz on August 11, 2008 - 2:54 pm
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This question assumes facts not in evidence (a very common rhetorical device used by C.S. Lewis.) Here we go:
Jesus — if he existed at all, an issue which I will address in a moment — appears to have been a carpenter who took up an evangelistic, roving lifestyle. As to his motivations (compulsive liar, lunatic, seeker after order, architect of peace, etc.) I could not possibly know, and neither can anyone else, including both C.S. Lewis and you. Presuming the man existed, I’m sure he had sufficient reason or reasons of his own to wander and preach, just as preachers of innumerable old and new faiths do today. It doesn’t take divinity to stand up in front of a crowd and speak; nor is it required in order to be deluded, inspired, or outright crazed. These are normal human states; so if Christ was a man, I am not in the least impressed that he demonstrated that he too was subject to them.
You have fallen prey to a cognitive error. Allow me to demonstrate.
There is a writer, Tom Clancy, who writes about a man, Jack Ryan, who is a member of the CIA and who, during the cold war period, engaged in various operations against the Soviets, the Chinese, and the South American drug cartels. In these books, historically accurate portrayals of the CIA, the USA, the Soviet Union, South America, many US naval and Army elements, the US presidency, the senate and congress, US sports teams, personal computer systems, US weapons systems, newspapers, styles of clothing, marriage traditions, secret service operations, and much, much more are all written into the series of books in an extremely accurate and engaging manner.
The catch is that the Jack Ryan books are fiction; Clancy uses the tapestry of history to place his character into a believable substrate in order to engage the reader, to lull them into the suspension of disbelief that is the underlying state of mind required for reading fiction for anything other than critique (and even then, it has its uses.)
This isn’t by any means a “new” approach to writing fiction; the Greeks were using it centuries before the times described in the bible.
Which brings me to the bible itself, and what we actually know about it.
We don’t have any originals of the books of the bible; the earliest versions are copies, and may in fact be copies of copies, given the best dates we can figure out for them. We can date the times that the stories apply to by the events and venues related in the stories; but like a novel written today about the cold war, we can’t actually date the novel to the time it describes; only to then, or later. We have to ask, are there any mundane reasons we can imagine for putting together a book, and a religion, like the bible and Christianity? And of course we can find many: Control, power, peace, stability, transmission of social mores, etc. These are common to almost every religion, no matter how contradictory they are from one to another.
So to sum up, the bible is a book containing many historical facts that are mundane and verifiable, about a central figure who is described as performing supernatural actions that we know to be scientifically impossible (unlike Jack Ryan.) That’s fact number one, and it does not lead me to the idea that “I ought to sell this to my kids as truth.”
Fact number two is that although the region, kingdoms, social lives and so forth are accurately described, there is no contemporaneous validation of the existence of Jesus the Christ. This often comes as a shock to Christians, who have had it drummed into them that Christ was a real historical figure, but to date, there is no evidence of this except in the bible — which puts Christ into the same set of criteria as a story about Jack Ryan, read by someone 2000 years from now. This also does not lead me to the idea that “I ought to sell this to my kids as truth.”
Just FYI, the earliest historical mentions that even come close to the subject are letters that describe the cult of Christianity to the Roman authorities from a man born after Christ’s death, about AD 45 if memory serves. Then, in the years between AD 60 and AD 100, Christianity is mentioned again in various letters and histories. Not Christ as a historical figure other than as reported by Christians, mind you, just Christians and their claims of Christ in general. As the years go by, and Christianity makes more and more inroads, the level of reporting of Christianity in history continually rises. But of its actual genesis, history remains entirely mute. That’s troubling, to say the least, for a story about a figure that history literally pivots about.
Again, I’d like to call your attention to modern events. Do you recall Marshall Applewhites’ and Bonnie Nettles’ “Heaven’s Gate” religion? I think you are likely to agree with me that these people, though obviously convinced of their ideology as demonstrated by their ultimate commitment, were following something that did not, by any indicator except their own faith, exist. It was nothing to anyone else; everything to them.
What I would like you to take away from this is the fact that faith is an enormously powerful motivator, and it is not by any means an indicator of truth. The fact is, humans like to follow ideas, and they can get very worked up about them, develop convictions (and pursue related courses of action) to any degree you care to name, regardless of the underlying truth or falsehood of the idea at hand.
The reason I bring Heaven’s Gate up is to lay the possibility on the table that the Christians, as reported in the years after the years that the biblical stories cover, may have been following a person they called the Christ, or they may have been following a figment of the imagination on the order of the central tenets of the Heaven’s Gaters. Either possibility lies open because there is no contemporaneous evidence to show the Christ was real, any more than there is to show the UFOs the Heaven’s Gaters were fixated upon were real.
Now, were Christ demonstrated to be a real figure by some future discovery (a bill for his crucifixion, a letter to the Romans about his destruction of the temple, etc.) then he would rise to the status of actual historical figure; at which point the question of why he did what he did becomes a reasonable one to ask (but no more likely to succumb to a definitive answer.)
Yet the presumption that he was a supernatural figure would not be justified even then, for we have no evidence or indication of any kind that indicates that any supernatural event, figure, or realm exists.
You tell him this based on a belief that you hold which has no evidence behind it; only your internal faith, convictions, opinion. He hasn’t got the critical facilities to evaluate what you’re telling him, nor has he enough information to do so even if he was able to make such an evaluation, cognitively speaking. Most normally intelligent people can’t really deal with the subject matter effectively until they are in their twenties or thirties, or even later. This has a great bearing on why religion in general continues to manifest; it is applied to people who cannot deal with the complexities of the idea along with great social pressure; it is no surprise that they will often adopt it under such conditions.
The appropriate course — in my view, mind you — is to tell one’s youthful offspring that these matters are complicated and involve great intellectual, spiritual and emotional sophistication. This, in order to make a decision one can understand and use as a notional foundation for life; in order to facilitate this, such decisions are to be made only after long and careful study of related issues to the maximum extent possible.
It is perfectly fair to say that you, as an adult, have made your decision, what it is, and to demonstrate by example how that has affected your life and your actions; but to relate supernatural stories as if they were uncontested fact to unsophisticated minds is disingenuous at best, and outright deceptive at worst.
So I think it is entirely fair to castigate the religious for inculcating these beliefs into those who are too inexperienced to evaluate them. Just as with any other kind of overreach or abuse of authority, children cannot effectively resist the parent or parentally authorized figure such as a priest when instructed to “go here”, “do this”, “believe that”; hence the critical responsibility of the parent to not misuse that authority.
I’m quite sure you did not. However — like intelligent people everywhere — this does not mean that you have all the information on the subject, are utilizing that information in the best manner, or have drawn the right conclusions.
I maintain an abstract metaphor for the mind as a 3D “pie.” Each slice covers cognitive ability in a different area, where each slice can affect other slices to some degree.
For instance, an artist has a high powered creative slice. A mathematician has a high powered abstraction slice. An athlete has a high-powered body control slice. A spiritual person has a high powered “sense of wonder” slice. And so on, for many things. Some of us have more than one high power slice. Some have none. Some are afflicted with fear of death, some with the presumption that people won’t lie to them (we call this “gullibility” in a pejorative manner.) None of this is an indicator of “stupidity.”
Various combinations of such factors lead to religious outlooks; other combinations lead to rational outlooks. Yet others lead to those who just don’t (or cannot) care. It is far too simplistic to say “they’re stupid” when someone disagrees with you; it takes discussion, such as we are having right here, to even obtain a hint of why someone takes the positions they do on any matter more complex than what foods they prefer. And even then…
First, if the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God Christianity describes were real and for any reason whatsoever were to want to prove its existence, I’m sure it could do so without any help from me. I am also sure it would do so, for I am both an effective communicator and a highly ethical and moral person. The fact that such has not already occurred is a huge strike against the entire set of supernatural suppositions put forth by Christians.
Second, you are addressing a person whose entire life is based around the concept that the world is rational, and asking them to discard that concept in order to follow your prescribed steps.
I can do it in an ad hoc, simulated manner and apply my rational outlook to what you describe, but I find the exercise to be exactly parallel to being asked to presume that steel will melt in my mouth. Faith is required; but that faith is literally impossible based upon the objective facts of reality.
The presumptions you ask for are wholly contraindicated by the facts they encounter along the way: The world is a cruel, harsh place for those who wander it without knowledge. People have been alone in it save themselves and animals, victims to everything from self-inflicted infections to social curbs on behaviors that would have helped them survive (bans on eating shellfish, for instance) without anyone writing with what is laughably described as omnipotent foreknowledge in the bible or any other book something as simple as “wash your hands with soap before placing them inside another’s body” or “You can eat shellfish if you cook them.”
No God or gods has ever written down or otherwise handed down one word that would indicate a knowledge deeper than that of the culture the stories arose in. As an engineer, my opinion of the systems I find on this planet is that they are extremely fragile, barely functional and highly failure-prone (I’m speaking of everything from sexual reproduction to weather) and there is not even the slightest whiff of indication that they were “designed” by anything, much less by something that had the best interests of its nominal wards in mind.
Looking at things the other way, there is every indication that these processes are simply proceeding, at every scale, in precisely the way that very simple processes at the atomic and quantum levels dictate they should, without any regard for anyone, anything, or any nod to “design”, and that these processes themselves are consequences of only the most basic facts of mundane reality.
All of this makes taking the steps you ask for — honestly, without reservation or application of ameliorating reason — utterly impossible for me. Precisely the same sense of rationality that kept me from following the Heaven’s Gaters into death in order to reap the presumptive benefits of being picked up by that UFO keeps me from diving into the Christian storyline, with its often offensive (by my lights) moral and ethical error paths, and entirely unsubstantiated stories about an all-powerful loving God.
Not at all. I am wholly comfortable with both the format and the conversation. The subject matter is of interest, and of course, there’s always the possibility that one of us or an observer will benefit from something one or the other of us says.
My position is, and has been for decades, that since all we have are each other, then we had better work for understanding, even when agreement is not likely or possible. That, at least as far as I have been able to determine, is the most fertile ground for peace and posterity.
#9 by Graham on August 11, 2008 - 8:32 pm
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Well, it certainly seems that your mind is already made up. I hope that you do not feel I have wasted your time. I also hope you do not mind if I express my own conclusions as bluntly as you have expressed your own. While I am not going to prepare a response to everything written (I have a day job
there are a few points I would like to address.
As far as things proceeding as they should, and the entire notion that somehow ‘life will find a way,’ has no basis, either. In our current collective experience, there is absolutely no evidence of evolution. What is typically given as examples is actually speciation, which actually de-evolution. Species only ever lose complexity. For a species to spontaneously gain complexity is unprecedented. Certainly what you would call ”scientifically impossible.’ That entire theory would take far greater faith than to believe in a designer. Add to that the conspicuous absence of proof in the fossil record (which should certainly be ubiquitous), and denying a creator is like looking at a brand new Corvette and stating that it was the result of an explosion at a steel mill. (And yes, there is more know-how in a one-celled amoeba than a Corvette, so this is a valid analogy).
Also, to doubt the existence of Christ or that he said He is the only way to God is to not have done your homework well enough. I mistook some of what you said to have indicated you had studied it more. I could deny that anyone existed before me at all, but as you said, that would not make it true. There evidence of Christ’s existence and teaching outweighs the proof of the likes of Plato or Aristotle by a factor of 500, nor are we in possession of their originals. Somehow, though, their authorship and the integrity of their prose are never questioned. Lewis’ facts are valid. Jesus lived, no historian disputes that. Jesus taught that he was the only way to God. That is not disputed anymore than the thesis of Aristotle’s works is disputed. Given those facts, you are left with God, Liar, or Lunatic. He was certainly not a good man. If He was anything but the way to salvation He was the worst and most diabolical villain to have ever existed.
I respect your mind, and I respect your ability to engage a random person like myself, and I respect someone who does not believe in God and yet still finds enough of the nature of God within to avoid becoming Nihilistic. All that being said, again I feel that I would be remiss if I did not frankly address what I perceive to be your problem with finding God. It appears to me that perhaps you are too proud? I may be wrong, but it seems like you are at least as interested in future readers as you are in seriously considering letting God show you God. And it is blinding you to the obvious. Of course, I once was blind myself, and it is because of that I feel like I have some insight. Christianity is one beggar showing another where to find bread, so please provide me the benefit of the doubt and believe my motivation is not hubris, nor have I taken offense at our dialogue.
There are an abundance of Christian apologeticists readily available, many people more capable than I of defending the faith who have done so over the centuries. Perhaps you are even familiar with some of their arguments. But to spend so much time arguing your position and not be willing to ask a God who you believe does not exist to show you that He does, seems a little close-minded to me. I am not trying to bait or insult you, I am just curious why you would rather spend hours formulating an excuse than to perform a 2 second task and wait on Him a bit. It is actually a more scientific approach than summarily dismissing His existence. Hypothesis, test, reformulate hypothesis. The hypothesis I present you with is that if you ask Him to, God will show you He lives and loves you. Give that a try. If He does not respond, you are only vindicated. Anyway, in not so long an interval we will know I was right, or we will know nothing at all. Seems unfair to you, I know.
Again, like you, I am not really asking you if God exists, I am trying to tell you that He does. I have spent a decade experiencing the truth of it. (I am 36, I know you were curious). This is not something I wonder about, or lie awake in bed and think maybe I could be wrong. A pastor friend of mine once said that if anyone ever tried to tell you they were an atheist, feel free to look them in the eye and say as kindly as you could, ‘Liar.’ According to the Bible, God has placed the knowledge of Himself in you, and because of that we will be without excuse when we meet Him. (Romans Chapter 1).
I got ‘Red-Ringed’ on my 360 and it came back today so I will have to bid you goodnight, but I just want you to know I hold you in the highest regard. If you ever find yourself in Paradise City, look me up. K1ll3r Dad.
May God grant you the greatest blessing, drawing you to Himself.
Best Wishes,
Graham
#10 by fyngyrz on August 11, 2008 - 9:56 pm
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Not at all.
This is wholly incorrect. I can easily demonstrate evolution as a fully functional mechanism; this is established fact. I’ve personally written commercial software that uses evolutionary techniques to develop solutions to problems. Evolution is a process that requires no more than some selection pressure and a population that varies in its response to that pressure, from which the most successful at dealing with the extant pressures are better survivors and breeders. It is extremely simple, and has been observed at many scales. There’s no reason to assume it doesn’t work at a particular scale because it has not yet been observed, unless a reason can be found to apply only at that scale.
The fossil record is (a) continuously returning additional information, and (b) has already returned a number of candidates for transitional forms. I’m afraid you’ve not been keeping up in this area.
You can prove me wrong very easily. Simply show me the data. What is your contemporaneous evidence that Christ existed?
They didn’t claim to be supernatural beings, on the one hand, and on the other, there is contemporaneous verification that they existed as described; they are mentioned by their peers. Christ is not. Unless, as I said above, you have evidence to the contrary. Which I would very much like to hear about, by the way.
On the contrary; the debate about Christ’s existence is very much alive among historians and scholars. On this one, you’re simply wrong. As to your assertion there is proof, again, where’s your data?
Really? Well, at least you have a sense of humor. You have a good day now. Remember, if you can dig up that data on contemporaneous validation for the existence of Christ, please let me know. That would be fascinating, and huge news to a large number of scholars.
#11 by Graham on August 12, 2008 - 6:04 am
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Josephus was a secular historian, to name only one. And as to the data, there is literally 500 times more data than for Plato. There are over 50,000 pieces of ancient evidence that Christ existed, and about 12 for Plato. There is also an abundance of third party verification of the timeline presented in the Old and New Testament. Again, it is readily available, just Google Biblical Textual Criticism, or Bible proof, etc.
If evolutiuon were the mechanism, the fossil record would be chock full of transition forms. To date, there are exactly none. Yes, I know there are claims, but none that are incontrovertible. If thousands of specicies evolved over billions of years, there should be literally nothing but transitional forms in the fossil record. This is simply not the case. To assert otherwise is to ignore the fact of the fossil record.
It is nice to see you have finally ceded the point that in His teaching Jesus Christ claimed to be a supernatural being. So was he a liar or a lunatic?
I have asked a friend of mine to pray for you also. I truly believe that based on what I know of His character, God would love for you to take your questions to Him.
Graham
#12 by Graham on August 12, 2008 - 2:19 pm
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Hey Ben-
Got this from a friend of mine, not all that exists, but certainly enough to validate my claim of comtemporaneous validation. There is plenty more out there, but I believe these are the most conspicuous examples.
The works of Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Pliny the Younger, and a few other classical writers include numerous references to Jesus. Polemic references to Jesus in the Talmud are accepted as genuine by certain scholars only. On the other hand, references to Jesus by Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, and at least one by Flavius Josephus, are generally accepted as proof of the historical existence of Jesus.
Tacitus, born about 55 C.E. and considered one of the world’s greatest
historians, mentioned the Christians in his Annals. In the account about Neros blaming the great fire of Rome in 64 C.E. on them, he wrote: Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”
Flavius Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian who was a Pharisee referred to Jesus Christ in the book Jewish Antiquities. Although some doubt the authenticity of the first reference where Josephus mentioned Jesus as the Messiah, Professor Louis H. Feldman of Yeshiva University says that few have doubted the genuineness of the second reference. There Josephus said: Ananus the high priest convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ
#13 by fyngyrz on August 12, 2008 - 6:51 pm
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Hello again Graham.
Let me begin my response with the definition of contemporaneous, for judging from your responses, you may misunderstand it:
contemporaneous |k?n?temp??r?n??s| adjective existing or occurring in the SAME period of time :
Now, if you’ll recall, I said: “there is no contemporaneous validation of the existence of Jesus the Christ.”
To which you responded: “Also, to doubt the existence of Christ or that he said He is the only way to God is to not have done your homework well enough.”, which you followed up with: “There evidence of Christ’s existence and teaching outweighs the proof of the likes of Plato or Aristotle by a factor of 500″
I had made the point that all of the reports of Christ were either in the bible, which from all the evidence we have, could be a product of considerably later times, or were a product of the Christians themselves, what Christians did, said, and so forth.
Now, from your current post, in an attempt to discredit my statement that there is no contemporaneous evidence of Christ’s existence (ca. AD 0~33), you brought up:
….Cornelius Tacitus ca. A.D. 56-120. Not at all contemporaneous with the time Christ was reported (by the bible) to have lived.
…Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus ca. A.D. 71-135. Not at all contemporaneous with the time Christ was reported (by the bible) to have lived.
…Josephus, AKA Yosef Ben Matityahu A.D. (37 ~100+. Not at all contemporaneous with the time Christ was reported (by the bible) to have lived.
…Pliny the Younger ca. A.D. 61-112. Not at all contemporaneous with the time Christ was reported (by the bible) to have lived.
Well, bring them to the table. Perhaps one of them can account for the “500 times” evidence you cited as compared to the existence of Plato and Aristotle. who, by the way, are mentioned many times both by contemporaneous peers and in the public records of the civilization they lived in. Not to mention in documents they themselves are credited with having written (and documents, I might add, that any man of that time would have taken great pride in having written both for their rigor and their usefulness, and so are exceedingly unlikely to be attributed to the wrong person.) A brief overview (and I do mean brief… the amount of records and writings regarding those two is enormous) may be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato
In remaining portions of your post, you continue to quote people and writings that came long after AD 33. These are not contemporaneous: And that was my point. There are no reports of Christ from Christ’s time. None at all.
Claiming that the bible, or Christian beliefs, are “proof” of Christ is not sufficient to make the case. Nor is the fact that the bible reports on other matters such as kingdoms, governors, etc. What I told you, and what I am still telling you, is that at present, the bible and the reports of Christians themselves, direct and indirect, is literally all there is. Some writings (Tacitus for example) are even highly doubtful in and of themselves. This is why I find room for uncertainty with regard to whether Christ was an actual historical figure. It certainly does not help that the stories about Christ contain supernatural, scientifically unsound events, contradictions, misogyny and other issues. From a human writer, I expect no less; from the very son of a loving, all-powerful God, I’d expect a great deal more.
Over to you.
#14 by Graham on August 13, 2008 - 6:12 am
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Hmmm. Well I see that could be valid, though I don’t think you are allowing for the way that history was written. Church history IS history for most of the time period you are describing. To disallow it is like saying you want a report on Martin Luther King, but won’t allow the use of any biographies or historical documents. The apostles WERE contemporaneous citation, they lived with Him. Also, I am not sure that the references of which you speak regarding the ancient Greek philosophers were not somehow connected to their faith at the time. (The Greeks were very religious). There IS 500 times more proof of the existence of Christ, but it is in the proof you have decided must be part of some grand conspiracy that spanned many lifetimes and occurred simultaneously across an ancient world. Also, remember Christ died at 33, and many of his disciples were younger than he (John was believed to have been 16). If you died tomorrow and I waited 20 years to write a story about about our discussion, it does not mean that my documentation is any less valid, since I was here. Add to that the fact that a concensus of secular historians do not doubt the existence of Jesus Christ, and that is certainly evidence enough.
All that being said, I still believe there may be something of a point to your statement. I will get back to you when I have done more digging.
In Christ
Graham
#15 by fyngyrz on August 13, 2008 - 6:23 pm
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Church history? Do you mean the NT? If so, remember, we don’t have any originals, just copies. There’s no certainty that the bible itself dates from any earlier than 150-200 AD. The stories in the bible are of those times, but the one cannot be taken as proof of the other.
But Graham, this is content of the story. You can’t take content of the story as confirmation of the story; that provides no authentication whatsoever. On the one hand we have the NT; on the other, we look for confirmation of the events that comprise the point of the work, which is certainly the life, teachings, and nature of Jesus Christ.
The Greeks are really irrelevant here. Let’s say I stipulate to the fact that Plato et al either existed or did not, as you please. It neither affects the reality or non-reality of the NT; there is a huge difference in consequences between knowing for certain who wrote Plato’s dialogues, and knowing for certain if the son of a God walked the earth. The one is a matter of triviality – the dialogues are of equal value if Plato wrote them or if his illegitimate son Leroy Jenkins did; whereas the acceptance of the NT as fact is the very foundation of Christian belief, behavior, and so on.
What exactly are you referring to here? There are about 5,000 historical (old enough to be used as source references) manuscript copies of the New Testament; these are all almost the same. There’s nothing about them that “multiplies proof”, all they represent are the fact that someone copied a book – No more impact than the modern day equivalent of another copy of a book coming off a printing press.
If that’s not what you’re talking about, please elaborate: I really don’t get the reference.
If the NT is what you’re talking about, then you’re talking about either one piece of evidence (the NT as a unit) or 27 (if you want to count each book as its own source, which seems perfectly fair to me. I’ll certainly grant you that the misogynist writer who wrote Paul’s portion doesn’t appear to have authored the other chapters.)
Either way, the question comes back to what is the bible — story or history? And that’s the actual problem, because as history, there’s nothing else around to validate it, which poses some very serious problems.
This is an excellent point. So to this, we look to trying to validate the books themselves, each on their own merits. And here too we run into multiple issues; contradictions, no clear identification of the authors in some cases, some of Jesus’ teachings are in conflict with the times (for instance, in the NT, he spoke on the subject of women of Palestine divorcing their husbands, but only men were allowed to divorce.)
Also remember that Peter and Paul were supposed to be martyred in AD 64, so the window for them to write was very narrow. Reading each of the four gospels, it immediately becomes apparent that the order that Jesus said and did things is not reported in a uniform manner; some of those reports have to be wrong; Matthew and Luke’s genealogies of Jesus don’t agree; there is a lot of material like this that puts one part or another of the NT into “story” status without any doubt at all.
This in turn removes the aegis of truth from the book as a whole even if I accepted the supernatural portion of the stories (I certainly don’t), and at that point, I really start to want outside corroboration in order to take the mundane portion of the contents seriously.
We’re back to the Greeks, though. Our discussion is mundane, and no one’s life turns upon it as a fulcrum. The NT is something else altogether. It is the entire rationale behind Christianity. In our conversation here, I only offer the rationale behind my own outlook, which, by the way, I am not trying to convert you to. What I am doing here is responding to your attempt to try to convert me. Some of my outlook is derived from the observations of others; more is based upon my own conclusions, from my own research.
I don’t think the consensus is as broad as you are indicating. For instance, Dan Barker (a former evangelical minister), G.A. Wells, Ian Wilson (a Christian), Earl Doherty, Charles Templeton (another ex-minister), Keith M. Parsons, William Edelen… all of these people have written extensively and in very scholarly modes on the lack of historical confirmation (and outright contradiction) of Jesus as an historical figure. Remember, when 80% of the population is Christian, a large number of historians are going to fall in line with Christian presumptions of truth. This isn’t a matter of fact; history is a foggy veil on its best day, getting thicker and more difficult to lift with greater distance in time. 2000 years is a lot of distance.
And again, let me come back to the original point: If Christ was an historical figure, we still have no way to know why he did what he did. Lewis asks, “Lord, liar or lunatic?” Lunatic does not preclude untruth; liar does not preclude lord; lord does not preclude lunatic. We see these mixes across history all the time, and Lewis’ unspoken, but implied, presumption that it must be either A, B or C does not hold water. Science indicates no evidence for anyone, anywhere, having any power or powers that would qualify them as lord, and so I am comfortable with reducing it to Liar or Lunatic; but it is still a poorly formulated question that assumes facts not in evidence. It is designed to steer the reader into a false triumvirate of answers, when the reality is considerably more complex.
You could ask, “Lord, liar, lunatic, psychic, alien, scientist, being from another dimension” and still not run out of variations that might account for some, perhaps all, of the stories in the bible. And again, one of those does not necessarily preclude others.
Furthermore, the question itself doesn’t speak to motivation at all. From my point of view, if I presume Jesus was real, I’ve still not learned one single additional thing about the validity of his teachings, the truth or fiction of the stories in the bible (though I am quite certain the ones that contain supernatural elements are sheer hand-waving), it doesn’t help me discriminate between which birth story is true (if either of them), and so on.
The problem is, and has been all along, that there’s nothing outside the bible itself that talks about these events, while the bible has so many problems it is difficult to know where to start in a casual context. You could write a scholarly work on it — and in fact, all of the people I mentioned above have done so: Christians and atheists alike.
There is no question in my mind right now that the historicity of Jesus is doubtful at best. But Christianity’s validity would not be confirmed by his existence. We all exist. It’s not confirmation of anything. What Jesus was reputed to do, and be, is quite different from you and I on every level that I can think of. Yet for these things, there is no history outside the bible, plus science stands in opposition to the (considerable) magical event reporting. That’s a lot to overcome, and actually raises the question of why one would even try.
When you (good heartedly, I have no doubt) offer Christianity to me with the idea that it is a good thing for me to adopt, I look at it and I see acceptance as a failure to recognize and account for what I consider to be a huge body of conflicting information, starting with the bible and its stories, and continuing with my observations of human history, science, and even my own daily life. Nothing — and I mean literally nothing — leads me to think that Christianity is a religion based upon a supernatural truth. Morals, ethics, proverbs and stories it certainly has, and these are not without considerable value on their own, but as truth, Christianity is literally in the same class with every other mythology I have ever been exposed to; magical stories.
#16 by Graham on August 14, 2008 - 7:20 am
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Ben-
Did not expect such a detailed answer, but I am out of my depth on history. I have spoken to some people and asked them to weigh in, but whether or not that happens remains to be seen. Either way, I am not going to try and prove Christ existed anymore, I have read too many posts where people pretend to be experts who simply are not.
However, that is not to admit defeat, only to invite those with a more complete education into the fray.
Also, I am struck by the oddity that while you argue the historical existence of Christ, you actually do not doubt that Jesus existed. I think I understand now. What you are really doubting is that He actually said He is the Way the Truth, and the Light, and that no man goes to the Father but by Him. You believe His message was somehow changed by people after His death to make him into more than He really was? So what you are really after, and where we would eventually get once we agree that Jesus Christ existed 2000 years ago, was what did He really teach? What really happened to His apostles? etc.? Because if He claimed to be God, then Lewis proposition is still valid, as he claimed neither to be a scientist nor an alien. (Though alien is likely pretty accurrate).
So the foundation for your argument, and correct me if I am wrong, is that Jesus likely existed, but the stories of Him are exaggerated, being only detailed in the Bible, which is a book full of contradictions and written well after His death?
If this is incorrect or incomplete, please clarify.
#17 by fyngyrz on August 14, 2008 - 10:30 am
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Graham,
I think you misinterpreted something I wrote; I do indeed have doubts. To recap:
(a) there is no contemporaneous evidence of his existence;
(b) the bible itself is low on credibility in general because it casts him as a magical figure and it has other problems with accuracy. It isn’t definitely a question of what the figure of Jesus said; the authors of the NT, not Jesus, are the ones reporting supernatural events — so the authors discredit their own reporting in that regard;
(c) the origin of the bible (and the identity of some of the key authors) is unknown due to our only having copies, not originals in the case of the former, and due to little or no attribution in the case of the latter.
I see no evidence for any “father”, Graham. The world as far as I know it appears to be a perfectly natural place, with neither any evidence for a god or gods, nor any need for one to explain anything we have ever found. If Jesus existed, and if he said those things, then he discredits himself.
If he was a historical figure, and not a made-up story element, then yes, the story makes him into more than a man, and this I find impossible to reconcile with reality. Is this his fault or the authors fault? I don’t know. But someone is definitely telling tall tales.
Lewis’s proposition is based on the assumption that the stories are true; I don’t accept that presumption because there are obvious contradictions that squarely point out untruths (for example, Luke says Mary was being purified in Jerusalem at the same time that Matthew says Mary was hiding in Egypt, waiting for Herod to die — one or the other of those statements is an untruth) and also because the story contains supernatural elements. Also, the question of what I think Jesus was isn’t naturally limited to what Jesus claimed he was, or wasn’t, in the stories. So Lewis’ proposition is not complete by any means; he is artificially limiting choices so as to guide the argument. Intentionally or not. Given Lewis’ overall level of intelligence and sophistication, I’m inclined to go with intentionally.
Presuming he existed at all, Jesus might have been a purely good man who never lied or did anything supernatural; whereas the authors of the NT were responsible for attributing supernatural nonsense to him.
Remember, Jesus isn’t credited with writing the NT; that is attributed to others. So to discredit the NT may not discredit Jesus at all, it may only discredit the authors (but in doing so, Jesus is revealed as no more than a human being like the rest of us.) To put it another way, perhaps he never claimed to be god or the son of god at all. Perhaps that status is merely a liberty taken by the authors.
In a nutshell:
Jesus may or may not have existed.
The NT, which came after his time, says he did; nothing else in history backs the NT up. If that were the end of it, I’d just take that as unconfirmed reporting. But the quality/veracity of the NT isn’t very high (it definitely contains untruths and supernatural nonsense) and this means that in order to verify any issue reported as fact, such as the reality of specific story characters like Jesus, I want some high quality independent corroboration.
Obviously, if Jesus did not exist, the stories are simply fiction.
If Jesus did exist, the stories of him are definitely exaggerated and contain untruths. Evidence of this exaggeration is made concrete by elaboration of supernatural claims within the stories. Evidence of supernatural claims is made concrete by specific story elements such as feeding multitudes from one loaf of bread. Evidence of untruths is made concrete by the presence of unresolvable contradictions such as the Matthew/Luke issue described above.
Going back to supernatural issues, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. However, there is no evidence at all; just anecdotes. If miracles are possible, and God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent (all issues taken as basic tenets of Christianity, nothing unreasonable there) then my standard of proof is that God perform a miracle for me. I would accept nothing less as proof of Christianity’s claims for the existence of God. The miracle does not have to benefit me or anyone else; it simply has to be clearly supernatural in nature, and of a character and a magnitude that I can attribute it to none other but the Christian god.
#18 by Graham on August 14, 2008 - 12:39 pm
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Then that is my prayer for you, Ben. I believe He will go to great lengths for us, His children. May He reach out to you in love in a way undeniably from Him.
I know there are answers to all the points you made in the preceeding, I remember hearing them in Bible College, and they were reasonable explanations. I learned long ago if you want to hear about the faults of something, go to the opposition, and if you want to hear the merits go to the supporters. If you really want answers to all you have said look for them among the Christian scholars. No, do not parrot them blindly, but do not completely ignore them, either. To ignore either group entirely is intellectually dishonest.
A friend of mine said today that most Atheists do not have an intellectual problem with God, they are either trying to rationalize a behavior they know is unacceptable or had a bad experience with God or Christians in the past. Does not seem to be the case based on what you have said, but I am sure there are many layers to your position we have not touched upon. I will pray that God will heal those scars if they exist as well.
Best Wishes, I have enjoyed this conversation, and I look forward to continuing to read your posts.
Graham
#19 by Chris on September 22, 2012 - 11:26 pm
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I think your software looks quite good, I found this page while searching for “sdrdx” and “rtl-sdr” so I guess you probably know why I came here. But there is a lot of useful stuff. I agree that too many Christians seem to use their Christianity as a way to detach from responsibility for engaging with the world and living life here now. (which is what I suspect jesus, if he(she?) (just kidding) would have told them too.
I am basically an agnostic. I think we should do the right thing for its own sake and whether or not a God exists is largely irrelevant. I do think we may be “immortal” someday – if we can survive this century, which is a big if..
but it wont be by dying and going to heaven, it will just be by living and self repairing until something destroys our body.. which might be hundreds or even thousands of years..
If we can’t make the transition to self repairing within the next 50-100 years, I think its probable that we will invent our own successors, some kind of self-aware machines.. They will just remember longer than we do so they will be able to learn much more.. Our brains start shrinking at age 35, and although we can check it somewhat by various methods, that is a serious problem..
So, if we don’t blow ourselves up, and if we treat intelligent machines with dignity and compassion when they arrive, I think we will all go merrily into the future, together and the day is not far off when we will be able to prevent death indefinitely. I am certain that people who are alive today will see it happen in their lifetimes.
#20 by Paul Ortmann on September 4, 2013 - 11:34 pm
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Hi! I like your photography and am particularly interested in your WinImages software. Where can I learn more about it? Take care.
#21 by admin on September 5, 2013 - 4:06 am
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Thank you, Paul, for your kind words about my photography.
You can obtain WinImages and access the documentation here.
#22 by Han on4mm on July 6, 2014 - 12:17 pm
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Ben,
Started reading your site when looking for SDR & OSX (thank you); also found lots of other interesting item, presented in a very nice way, and got lost reading and reading…
Imho you made a very nice, interesting site, thank you.
73
Han
#23 by admin on July 6, 2014 - 10:03 pm
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Thank you, Han, I appreciate your kind words. Wish I had a little more time to write, but life has been busy, busy. Oh well!
–Ben
#24 by Arjay on October 21, 2014 - 12:30 am
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Hi Ben,
I liked your recent (10/15/14) Slashdot posts on Apple’s blithe disregard for supporting its customers. Bravo! As blistering a critique of a company’s ethos of greedy disposability as I have seen in some time. I had been coming to a similar conclusion and your evangelizing crystallized it: no more new Apple machines for me, either.
Regards,
Arjay
#25 by Avital on March 20, 2016 - 7:05 am
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This probably sounds nuts, but I promise I’m not a weirdo. At least not a dangerous stalker type weirdo.
Just read your comment on Amazon about the kitten and felt compelled to tell you it had me close to tears, and I don’t even like cats. (I was reading the reviews trying to figure out if the cat shampoo would work on my dogs, because the one intended for dogs has lower ratings. Fascinating story, I know. It seems to logical to share however, after my admitting that I don’t like cats, which would make cat shampoo ratings cruising totally weird.)
Anyway…You are good people. I hope that kitten has many healthy years with its awesome people parents.
G-d bless.
#26 by admin on March 20, 2016 - 9:15 am
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Thanks. From one “weirdo” to another.
#27 by Pieter Van Hiel on February 8, 2017 - 9:39 am
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I just want you to know that I stumbled across your GitHub while doing an image search for “Bargle.” And that led me here and to your Flickr. And I realized, “Hey! [deduction redacted]”
But I didn’t find out anything about “Bargle.”
#28 by admin on February 8, 2017 - 9:55 am
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I used it in “argle-bargle.”
Here’s a reasonably definitive, and concise, take on it.
#29 by Robb [Redacted] on February 17, 2020 - 1:41 pm
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Hi Ben,
[personal stuff redacted]
Robb
#30 by admin on February 17, 2020 - 5:54 pm
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Robb, I’ve answered you via email. Watch for one from fyngyrz at the same ISP you’re using now.
Great to hear from you!
–Ben
#31 by Juha on November 3, 2020 - 1:53 pm
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I love the articles on this site discussing future ramifications of AI and consciousness, and always come back here after significant news like GPT-3. It seems to me that two essential subsystems of the human brain have now been implemented with a sufficiently powerful abstraction: DCNN for low-level visual processing and Transformers for low-level natural language processing, even the mechanical parts of a mind’s “inner voice”.
How many subsystems are left to figure out and what might they be? If I try to think of the purpose of existence on the most fundamental level, I keep returning to the wonderful scifi story “The Last Question” by Asimov. The purpose of life (itself, not any given organism) seems to be to resist the increase of entropy in an open system and indefinitely adapt to conditions as needed to do so, perhaps ultimately figuring out why the universe exists but until then, at least survive.
I can’t see humans outliving our sun in any shape or form, so spreading artificial sentience seems like the only purpose this planet could possibly have. I hope that will happen before the necessary resources are wasted in other things. It’s exciting and scary how progress seems to be exponential in both directions: AI is advancing so fast while the oceans are filling with plastic and the climate is changing. It’s almost like a game that will reach some conclusion within this millennium.
#32 by Greg on March 23, 2021 - 9:01 am
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Hey Ben, I ran across your comments here: community.mycroft.ai/t/question-about-the-required-account/5446/10
(along with the Mycroft employee’s weird responses). Anyway, did you ever have success with Mycroft? As far as I can tell, Rhasspy is the only truly local voice assistant. (note: I haven’t tried it yet, so I don’t have an opinion on its usefulness).
Any thoughts or updates?
-Greg