by Marty Coleman | Dec 7, 2012 | Where's The Evidence? - 2012 |
Under the circumstances, you need no proof to know today is day #4 of Evidence Week!
The question is, what does this evidence prove?
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Drawing and question by Marty Coleman, for whom trout is his favorite meal.
Quote by Henry David Thoreau, who knows what this means but is dead.
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Trivia of the day
‘Fishes’ is a proper word. If you are referring to multiple fish from more than one species, you say ‘fishes’. If they are all from the same species, you say ‘fish’. I know this because I looked it up after my friend, Danielle Smith, posted a photo of the Missouri Department of Conservation’s publication titled ‘Introduction to Missouri’s Fishes’ and sort of made fun of Missouri’s English usage. Turns out it is correct usage but who cares, it looks dumb anywayses.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 5, 2012 | Where's The Evidence? - 2012 |
I am feeling day #3 of Evidence Week bubbling up from the primordial ooze!
Rational/Irrational
My wife, Linda, once told me of a certain fear she had. I tried to explain rationally and logically why she shouldn’t have that fear. She looked at me in exasperation and said, ‘Marty, it’s not a RATIONAL fear, you can’t talk me out of it using rational ideas.’ And I was done. There was only one thing to do and that was to let her know I felt for her in that situation and give her assurance I would help her deal with the fear when I could.
Sailing on the Ship of Illogic
Whether it’s big issues about God & heaven or small issues about fear of bugs, we all have areas where our thinking and the actions that come from those feelings are not rational or logical. They aren’t based on evidence. We all need to be empathetic in understanding how universal it is to behave irrationally.
The Wrong Brag
But knowing that we sometimes aren’t Mr. Spock doesn’t mean we should revel in our irrationality. At least for me, I work hard to minimize that irrationality in my life. I don’t brag about or declare how proud I am of my ignorance of science, mechanics and engineering. I am humbled by it and want to learn more about it. And I make a concerted effort to do so. I make better and wiser choices as a result and I am safer and happier as well.
The List Within
But the main problem with willfully ignoring evidence isn’t that we might not comprehend how electricity works (which I barely understand to this day). It means we are very likely to be held hostage by superstition and fear in many, many areas of our lives. And those can lead to danger and violence, discrimination and bigotry. The list is so long.
Are you afraid of the evidence? Why so?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who is not.
Quote by Sam Harris, who also is not.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 4, 2012 | Where's The Evidence? - 2012 |
I know it’s extraordinary, but today is only day #2 of Evidence Week!
Three Scandinavian Women
Have you ever proclaimed something has happened for which you have no evidence to back it up? It can be pretty disconcerting since you know it happened you just can’t prove it. I have story from high school about 3 Scandinavian women on a boat in a cove where we were water skiing that is pretty darn extraordinary. But the climax of the story happened with no one else around, no one else to corroborate the events (except the Scandinavian Women and they were long gone the next day). So, I can tell the story and I know it’s true, but listeners have no way of verifying it. There is no evidence.
The Religious Moment
This is especially true of religious moments. Where is the evidence that what it is you have gone through came from God, Satan or some other spirit being or force? How do you prove such a thing? The truth is you can’t prove it. You take it on faith that it came from that source and people choose to believe your story on faith as well. If they don’t believe whatever it is you went through came from God then they are still most likely going to believe that YOU believe it came from God.
The Pudding
There really is only one way to even get close to proving something like that is real. If you say your mind has been illuminated by God and as a result you have a new way of thinking about something, then your behavior is the proof. The key is to realize that SAYING you have made the change is not the proof. All the talk in the world about a conversion to a new way of thinking and understanding is not the conversion. That is just a description of the conversion. The true conversion is in the action. As a matter of fact, the real conversion doesn’t even start until the action starts. True change takes place and becomes permanent when it is practiced. Talking about it isn’t practice. Practice is practice.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman, who wonders what ever happened to them
Quote by Carl Sagan, who was a billion time smarter than I am.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 3, 2012 | Where's The Evidence? - 2012 |
Don’t fear, it’s only day #1 of Evidence Week!
Evidence-based Fear
What do you fear? Is it based on evidence? For example, I fear getting shot in the heart by a bullet because the evidence shows that people getting shot in the heart will almost certainly die. If I am in a situation where that looks like it might happen, you can damn well be sure I will be both afraid and will do everything I can to not let it occur. However, I do not fear Friday the 13th, black cats, walking under ladders, breaking mirrors or spilling salt. Why? Because there is no evidence that those things hurt anyone in any more proportion than any other day, color of cat, walking anywhere else, breaking or spilling anything else. Those who believe they are dangerous are believing a superstition, meaning something that has a tradition, but no evidence, as being a bad thing.
Superstition-based Fear
Yesterday at the church we attend the Pastor asked a woman to come up to the alter and read an email she had sent him a few months prior. The woman had written it in response to a sermon he had given. In the email she told the story of living a fear-based life. Her fear was directly connected to her overhearing a conversation when she was very young between her father and her pastor. A man in the church who had voiced his disagreement with the Pastor’s direction for the congregation had been in a terrible automobile accident. He was mortally injured but suffered greatly before he actually died. The pastor was overheard by the young woman telling her father that it was probably a good thing that he had died, and it was also a good thing he had suffered before his death because it indicated he was being punished for being outside the will of God. This led the young girl to live her entire life with that fear of God punishing and hurting her or others if she did not obey exactly what the church told her to do and be. She had written the email to our church’s pastor to let him know how liberating it was to hear him rebut that idea and instead replace it with a vision of God being loving and caring and not out to crush and hurt her or others over theological or any other differences.
This is a perfect example of the acronym of fear. She was captive to False Evidence Appearing Real because she listened to an authority whom she trusted and she wasn’t old enough to understand cause and effect, science, biology, and other evidence-based areas of life that argue against that vicious, superstitious and self-serving way of seeing the events in life.
What do you fear?
Is there good evidence that makes the fear valid?
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
Quote by Neale Donald Walsch, American Author of a book series, ‘Conversations with God’.
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