Einstein on religion

Published on June 16, 2008 in Religion and Science. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

I have always known that Einstein had some pretty cool and unique views on religion, but I haven’t looked into it much until today. I regret not having done so sooner! Found some really great quotes.

Religion without science is blind.

Some people really need some of this sense talked into them!

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive.

I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility.

I do not try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.

I too agree that the idea of a personal, personified God is silly. These quotes precisely illustrate how I like to look at the world myself. Maybe that means I’m a genius too! (ha)

One thing that sets us apart, though, is his definition of “religion,” which is a little too broad for my taste. Take a look at these quotes:

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.

(An extension of the first quote of the post:)

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Clearly, when he said “religion,” he wasn’t referring to your classic ones. I think he meant something like a more personal religion or belief system – which I would hesitate to call “religion,” because I find myself in the same boat, and I don’t like to call myself “religious.” Meh, it’s all good!

There’s a nicely related NY Times excerpt from the book The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins that I highly recommend. He seems to share my view on the words “God” and “religion.” (I wanted to excerpt some of it here, but it said I needed the publisher’s permission. Too messy.)

Don’t miss my previous discussion of how religions are simply just tools of cultivation/self-improvement.

Religion vs. reality: moot?

Published on June 16, 2008 in Philosophy, Religion, Videos and 道 (Dao). 9 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

thegodmovie.comI don’t know if any of you have seen the video The God Who Wasn’t There. It makes a pretty good case against the foundations of Christianity. You can find select clips of the video on YouTube. I don’t think I would be legally allowed to share the video here, since they want you to buy their DVD for $25.

Basically, they say that the story of Jesus is nothing more than a myth, not unlike the stories of such other characters as Hercules, Osiris, Dionysus, or Mithra. In fact, Jesus’ storyline pretty much matches the classic outline of a mythical hero. The way the video presented this segment was actually quite entertaining and convincing.

This Jesus- and Christianity-bashing seems to be the trend these days. Very hip, very revolutionary. These “renaissance” people, if you will, have their noses up against Christian extremists, who defend their faith religiously, believing that Jesus is their M/messiah, their S/savior, and that H/he will come again sometime in their lifetimes. So you’ve got these two teams on two sides of the dodgeball field, duking it out.

But what if it doesn’t actually matter whether or not the portrayed Jesus ever existed? Continue reading ‘Religion vs. reality: moot?’

Psychic abilities?!

Published on May 4, 2008 in Life and Personal. 17 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Do psychic powers exist? (Yikes!)

About five summers ago, I was at a red light waiting impatiently to make a left turn from LaSalle Street onto Erwin Road (Duke University campus, NC). When the light turned green and the straight traffic from the opposite side cleared, I was ready to go. But at the very last minute, just as I eased off the brakes, a thought crossed my mind.

“Nah, I shouldn’t go just yet. I’m going to sit here just a bit longer.” This made no sense. The light was green, the coast was clear, and I was a teenage driver. Why would such a thought ever even cross my mind?

lasalle accidentSo after a few seconds had passed, I shrugged it off and put my foot on the gas. I immediately slammed on the brakes as I saw a woman run through the red light at 35-45 mph (see figure). If I hadn’t been delayed those couple of seconds by that peculiar thought, she would have crashed right into my driver’s door, and things would have gone to hell for both of us. If I was lucky, I would have broken a couple of bones. But I don’t think I would have walked away.

The chances for any of this to have happened by mere chance were incredibly slim. For one, I never have weird, out-of-the-blue thoughts like this. The schematic is also vastly oversimplified – Erwin has about 3 lanes in the right direction (as shown) where it crosses LaSalle. At the time, all the other lanes had stopped cars. The only lane that was empty happened to be the lane in the middle, which also happened to be the lane in which the woman on her phone was driving. So there was no way for me to see it coming – I had no visual, since all the other vehicles in the other lanes were blocking my view.

Do I have psychic abilities? (That got your attention.) Well, it probably depends on what you define as a “psychic ability.” Society and the media have made psychics out to be quacks. But are they, really? Maybe we all have some kind of innate psychic abilities, kind of like a sixth sense, that most of us just haven’t been able to put our fingers on.

I have a friend in California who has a similar story. Continue reading ‘Psychic abilities?!’

If a tree falls in the forest…

Published on April 11, 2008 in Philosophy and Science. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , .

treeIf a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

I remember this question from elementary school. But only just now, in the shower, did I finally come to my own terms with this seemingly paradoxical question.

It’s pretty simple. The way I see it, it all depends on how you define sound. Do you define it as the simple molecular vibrations that happen at certain amplitudes and frequencies? Or do you define it as the electrical stimuli that occur in our nervous systems when our eardrums pick up such vibrations?

If you define it as the former, then by the laws of physics, sound always occurs when a tree falls. If you define it as the latter, then no, there isn’t any sound, because no eardrums or nervous systems are around to detect the vibrations!

I guess epiphanies aren’t always what people make them out to be. The best part is, I’m sure someone else has already come up with this interpretation already.

Discuss this in the community forums.

Life cannot be taken personally or too seriously

Published on March 31, 2008 in Life. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

Duke Medicine logoI was at the Duke Medical Center today and I saw a poster entitled “10 things to do while having a heart attack.” Something like that definitely catches your eye. Didn’t have a camera on me, but I managed to copy down the text. I think most of it is only mediocre, but #2 definitely stands out to me.

  1. Relax. (Panic depletes your oxygen supply.)

  2. Remember life or its lack cannot be taken personally or too seriously.

  3. Think how surprised all the people who accused you of not having one are going to be.
  4. Call up your happiest memory, whether a desert sunset of shimmering turquoise skies shot with flickers of scorched gold, or how much you gypped the IRS out of.
  5. Tell the rescue squad how angelic they look even without wings.
  6. Be glad you have on clean underwear.
  7. Congratulate yourself on convincing the Life Flight helicopter pilot not to cut your Nikita Koloff tee-shirt off.
  8. Wish you had paid closer attention when the American Heart Association began preaching the cholesterol gospel.
  9. Arrange for a sibling to feed your Siamese cats and to call your supervisor at work conveying profound regrets for unavoidable nonattendence.
  10. Pray.

— Virginia Love Long, DUMC patient
Poetry in the Halls project, Cultural Services Program, DUMC

Life is simply a natural creation that has a beginning and an end. So like nature, it is impartial — generous, yet unforgiving. How, then, can we take it personally? “Life or its lack cannot be taken personally or too seriously.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Inner life of a cell

Published on March 24, 2008 in Science and Videos. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

A group at Harvard came up with this incredible, realistic animation of the inner workings of a cell. There are two versions. One is a 3-minute animation with (good!) music; the other is an 8-minute animation with narration.

The “story” is about leukocyte extravasation, or the movement of a white blood cell out of the bloodstream and into infected tissue. A fairly decent background in science will be necessary for anyone to get a good grasp of what’s going on in the video, but even the common person will be impressed or even amazed by how intricate our bodies are, down to the very molecules. (I would recommend the 3-minute version if you find yourself short on science background.)

We live in an amazing world, we are amazing worlds, and, in light of this video, each one of our cells is an amazing world. Who knows, molecules and atoms could also be worlds of their own, far more complex than we could ever imagine. Nature works in astounding ways.

3-minute version

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The only thing scientists, partially including myself, might have against this is that the animations of the molecular movements are too “perfect.” In reality, molecules wiggle against each other randomly (Brownian motion) until these things happen naturally – more of a chaos really. Of course, if they were to show that in the video, it would probably greatly confuse the viewer, so I can see why they decided against it.

If you’re skeptical about the kinesin motor “walking” protein (and you have every right to be), there’s also a video that breaks down the process of how it “walks,” courtesy of the Milligan lab:

If you would like me to remove this video for legitimate reasons, please email me.

Continue reading ‘Inner life of a cell’

The Universe, yourself included

Published on April 12, 2007 in Life and 道 (Dao). 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

universeA while back, I wrote about this idea of becoming “one” with the universe. Before I go on, I need to first establish the idea that, throughout time, the basic principles of the Universe, as a whole, have never changed. Even when the world undergoes cycles of big bangs and shrinkages, even when solar systems collapse and reform, even when seasons change, the Universe, as a whole, remains unmoved.

Pi can always be described as the ratio 3.14. A circle’s circumference will always, just helplessly, be a little greater than three times its diameter. An equilateral triangle will always have equal sides and three angles of 60º. The three angles of all triangles will always add up to 180º. A wave’s frequency will always be inversely proportional to its wavelength. Gravity will always be proportional to the masses of the two objects. A physicist would be able to give you a whole slew of constants and physical relationships that most people haven’t even heard of. These are all bits and pieces of what I like to call the “definition” of nature.

Of course, these numbers are only mere representations of nature. I hope my main idea isn’t obscured by this. The important thing is that there exist (∃) features in the universe that are constant and everlasting. Continue reading ‘The Universe, yourself included’

Above the realm of good and evil

Published on April 3, 2007 in 道 (Dao). 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

A quote from the second chapter of the 道德經 (Dao de jing):

天下皆知美之爲美。斯惡已。皆知善之爲善。斯不善已。故有無相生、難易相成、長短相較、高下相傾、音聲相和、前後相隨。是以聖人處無爲之事、行不言之教。萬物作焉而不辭、生而不有、爲而不侍、功成而弗居。夫唯弗居、是以不去。

All in the world recognize the beautiful as beautiful; herein lies ugliness.
All recognize the good as good; herein lies evil.

Therefore:
Being and non-being produce each other;
Difficulty and ease bring about each other;
Long and short delimit each other;
High and low rest on each other;
Sound and voice harmonize each other;
Front and back follow each other.

Therefore the sage abides in the condition of wu-wei (無為, unattached action),
And carries out the wordless teaching.
Here, the myriad things are made, yet not separated.

Therefore the sage produces without possessing,
Acts without expectations,
And accomplishes without abiding in his accomplishments.

It is precisely because he does not abide in them that they never leave him.

Translation was modified from Charles Muller‘s original work. (BTW, look how concise ancient Chinese can be! Love it.)

In the True world, there is no good or bad. Everything is relative. What’s good to one person may be bad to the next. What’s to say flunking out of high school is bad, if it helps you find you who you really are? Who says all millionaires are happy? If it rains, you can’t have your picnic, but the plants will flourish, and you’ll have water to drink. And so, there’s an intricate balance of yin and yang that we can all truly come to appreciate when we stop making ourselves the center of the universe, and start thinking of the self as just a tiny bit of it.

Lena Maria: an inspiration

Published on March 25, 2007 in Life and Videos. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Lena Maria Klingvall was born with uneven legs and without arms. With this condition, she has been able to accomplish much more than ordinary commonfolk — such as setting two Swedish swimming records, for example. (So that means she swims better than most of us that do have hands.)

Now at the age of 40, she has learned how to do almost everything without hands (including using chopsticks with almost as much finesse as an oriental), and she is quite possibly many times happier than any 10 random people on the street combined. Narrations in the 30-minute video are in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles, and Lena herself speaks fluent English.

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I think there’s just a great deal we can learn from Lena. A good inspiration for the rest of us!

Life a pointless race?

Published on March 18, 2007 in Life and Videos. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .
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Birth. Life. Death. A meaningless cycle, really. But you can give life a meaning if you want to. From my standpoint, a life is only meaningful if you take the time to learn the essence of the universe and become “one” with it. It is the only way that your essence won’t be isolated from everything else when it becomes unchained from your physical body. It is only then that you can vanish from all existence and become the universe itself.

That put a really poetic twist on an actually very simple idea. Who are we as individuals? Nothing. We are simple manifestations of our surroundings. I don’t care what about us you think is “individual,” it ultimately came from somewhere around us. Our appearances, thoughts, ideas, bodies – they all came from our surroundings and lineage, be it our ancestors, food, or the simple reaction to outside stimuli. Therefore, in truth, there really is no “I” distinguishable from everything else. Individuality is an illusion – how can we break from that?