A Farewell to typing

There are many different views out in the world and opposites aren't as clear cut as they may appear. Over the last twelve weeks I've been enhancing my understanding of these views to help make me a better person. I enjoyed these topics as I love thinking analytically and philosophically, however this style of learning views and being open minded has made me question my own views and convictions. A famous psychologist named Karen Horney said "Fortunately analysis is not the only way to resolve conflict. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist."

As time goes on I'm learning that life is the best teacher. I've been let down by my efforts to understand other view points since I see problems in all of them. I end up unable to adequately take a side that I agree with fully. When pertaining to Democrat or Republican I can't call myself either but I have found myself at a cross between the constitutionalist and Libertarian Parties.  

Democrats and Republicans both have valid arguments for gun control, gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia, and taxes. The problem is both sides have exceptionally great flaws within them that lead to a lacking in a dominant firm belief to me and most likely other independents and moderates. I don't know if this makes me open minded or close minded to both there side. 

As my last post pointed out intelligence is not measurable by  a test. For a while I wanted to learn my IQ but then I realized how little it matters. In life I have learned more outside of school than I have in school. One quote that I have come to agree with over the years is one by the famous writer, Mark Twain,"Don't let schooling interfere with your education." While famous german scientist, Albert Einstein said "Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school." 

Aristotle Once said "It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it."He also stated that "the roots of education are bitter but the fruits are sweet." Basically education is found in life and according to American philosopher, John Dewey  "education isn't preparation for life, education is life itself." 

The key to all of this is simply that I need to educate myself in ways other than the traditional schooling style of studying. Although I need this for my degree and to accomplish certain tasks and career requirements, the majority of what I will learn about people and the world is from going out and experiencing it. It doesn't matter how many people tell you about wind, lightning,rain, or snow until you personally experience it you don't understand it. 

So I am putting an end to my blog posts on this website, at least for now. I have a new journey to embark upon and hopefully end up successfully understanding others in a new light. I have decided this research and goal is way too elaborate to make posts that fully cover or explain a complete thought or idea. I'm quite positive I've inaccurately portrayed some individuals ideals in the course of my posts and for those I'm sorry. I will end my final post with a quote from Mark Twain "All generalizations are dangerous, especially this one."

Intelligence

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word genius? Maybe it's Einstein, or maybe someone with glasses, or a lab coat. Whatever it is  most likely would be stereotypical and have something to do with an academic genius. A genius as defined by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is "extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activities."  Now intellectual is based on intelligence which has multiple levels associated with it.

Howard Gardner, a famous modern psychologist, concluded a theory of multiple intelligences and states that not all kinds can be tested with paper and pencil. The types are bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, verbal linguistic, logical-mathematical, naturalistic, intrapersonal, visual spatial, and musical. These types of intelligence have become popular in the psychological community since the theory came out in the mid 80s. It was designed to help with the many styles of learning produced by people. Most people don't belong to one specific type only.

The bodily-kinesthetic type of intelligence is an athletic kind of intelligence and is typically more hands on. This is using a physical movement to help memorize or learn something. Most athletes become good through repetition due to this kind of intelligence.

Interpersonal intelligence is in layman's terms a people skills trait. This is a type of intelligence revolved around understanding how to effectively communicate with others. People that are good at this are successful teachers, politicians, managers, salespeople, or religious leaders.

The next type of intelligence is for rhetoricians, writers, poets, and some teachers and is called verbal linguistics. This is for those who are sensitive to spoken and written language along with being able to debate very well. They can be philosophical and looked upon as highly intelligent by there ability to use superb sentence structure. 

Intelligence is typically categorized under this grouping of logical mathematical. This is the most self explanatory kind of intelligence as it is the one found on IQ tests and it is used for mathematical and scientific type people. These people may looked upon as geniuses but anyone who fits any category strongly is actually a genius. 

The added in form of intelligence by Gardner in 1997 was naturalistic. This kind of intelligence is used for farmers and people that are big on nature and weather without any technology. They can tell by the sky what the weather will be and what time of day it is along with being able to care for livestock. They typically learn through being outdoors. This intelligence is criticized as not be an intelligence type but an interest. 

This next type of intelligence is for the loners that like to be alone and concentrate on there interests. They are deep thinkers and pretty philosophical or scientific individuals. They prefer to analyze themselves and study the human mind through there own eyes.

If you are good with Sudokus, Rubik's Cubes, Tetris, or any other puzzle solving logic you are a part of the visual spatial intelligence. You would most likely have a high correlation with the mathematical and logical intelligence. This intelligence can be looked upon as a useless talent unless in the right field.

The last intelligence type is musical which explains itself. If you have a good sense of  rhythm, beats, tones and other basic musical skills to write, compose, or play music you have this intelligence. The term musical or lyrical genius has been used to describe people belonging to this group of Gardner's view. 

Out of all of these intelligence groupings it should become prominent that mostly everyone holds multiple levels of intelligence and just because someone doesn't have a high IQ doesn't mean they aren't intelligent or even exempt from being a genius. People are different but if everyone had one type of intelligence or every type the world would be a boring place with no new ideas or views.

 

Value of money

While growing up there was a point in time where I was doing chores and the reason for it was to learn the value of a dollar. When I got older I realized there is no set value for the dollar and much of it's value is perspective. If you grew up on the streets the value of the dollar was either underhandedly get it illegally, a way to buy things to help deal with the pain or take on an exceptionally poor appearance and beg for money. If you had a home but were in lower class you saw the dollar as a way of not ending up on the street and getting by. Middle class views the value of a dollar as a way to get stuff you want and you save up for it. Then there is the upper class that holds the value of a dollar as being able to get you anything you want and a way of replacing anything as desired. 

With all these views of the value of a dollar it is not possible to create simply one truth of it. Now the foundational principle of economics is that money only holds value because it is widely accepted and our government makes sure it is. Now in a nation where even the president feels the need to continually remind us we are in an economic crisis there is much concern about the direction of the nation. I'm a junior in college studying economics and have been gathering whatever information I can. 

I have met liberal and conservative views and seen that most economists are neither. They apply both parties applications when needed and it appears that many factors are hitting us all at once to create this economic turmoil. When looking into the value of money many people differer in opinion and some may seem less moral but ultimately they all hold truth. 

Now to begin the economics of this we need to understand this is all macroeconomics based upon a free market, capitalistic, economy. The classical model is from the 1700s and it is the most conservative view possible. It mentions that supply creates its own demand and that minimum wage, salary caps, and other government interventions raise the unemployment level and create higher inflation. they hurt the long run and if the government doesn't restrict the economy in the long run it will reach equilibrium on it's own.

The opposing view came into play in the 1930s and is known as the Keynesian  Model. This states that Demand creates its own supply and it is all about the government stepping in to fix the money supply to help stimulate the economy. This Economist was around under the great depression administration and was after the establishment of the U.S. Treasury. 

In the 1970s under the energy crisis the inflation rate and unemployment rate sky rocketed and as a result a new theory called supply side economics came into play. It was a theory of the government manipulating the money supply while believing supply creates its own demand. This theory would become known as Trickle-down economics or Reaganomics. It set a president of the neo-conservative view that has split the conservatives.

Another popular belief for our economic problem is the housing boom, in the 1920s people could buy stocks fully on a loan from a bank and it spiked the price in stocks causing the spike to come to an end and decline rapidly into the great depression. The housing market approved loans without any proof of income. This has lead to the housing spike that just hit its peek in 2007. Now the government is trying to fix the problem and the traditional conservatives that follow the classical model were concerned.

 The government has actually not fixed much and spent over 2 trillion dollars since the beginning of 2008. This will cause high inflation and a high unemployment rate. supply side is the system that had the quick fix from the 70s to the 80s but now we are following a Keynesian model which is the opposite. Will it also work? Only time can truly tell and it will be obvious in history books as everything else is.

All of these views have been proven to work at times and now our nation is viewing our crisis as something their way can easily fix because it worked in the past. These might have worked in the past but just in the last 100 years our nation has been working on new methods to fix the economy in trying to keep up with technology. Now our technology is on a new level, the housing boom ended, and we are about to see what our economy will do under our new leader.

Irresolvable conflicts

The world is full of hostility and in reviewing disagreements such as Atheism vs. Christianity, Republican vs. Democrat, and Capitalism vs. Communism it is painfully clear that there is no possible way to resolve our differences for more than a moment. The only way that there can be temporary peace is when there is a force threatening greater than the issue. 

On September 11th Democrats and Republicans worked together to keep the United States strong. This moment came and went and we are back to a nation of Democrats vs. Republicans. 

The battle of Atheism and Christianity will probably wage on until the end of humanity. Christians want to save atheists from Hell while atheists find Hell to be imaginary. Atheists try to disprove God by attempting to disprove the Bible and Christians try to prove God by trying to prove Intelligent design through science. The problem is even if atheists disprove the Bible or intelligent design is found true it doesn't have a baring on the existence of God. It might destroy Christianity and Darwinism but the existence of God on a whole is not possible to be touched.

Mark I. Vuletic, an atheist writer that published an article in "The Free Mind" claims that atheists hold a higher moral code than Christians. He claims that some Christians hold their moral values contingent upon God and if God is disproven they believe they have the right to stop being moral while atheists are moral regardless of God. There is also the 101 contradictions of the Bible.

Now as I posted in an earlier blog some Christians go for science to show their case against atheism. They explain how the Bible is scientifically accurate with websites such as clarifying Christianity.com. Marilyn Adamson along with other greats in history take the approach of making a list of six proofs of God.

Communism and Capitalism are both economic ideologies and neither can fully exist on Earth. Human behavior makes it that people won't work to their full potential if they get treated the exact same regardless. Also people don't approve of a purely capitalistic system where the government allows a golden parachute and other corrupt business tactics that make the wealthy and the poor the only classes. In pure capitalism there is no middle class while in pure communism there is only one class with no potential benefit or reward for hard work. 

Laissez-faire is an approach many capitalists believe in but is impossible to exist in practice. The opposing economic system is communism which has a very unclear approach to how to fully operate.

Each of these opposite sided views will never fully get along, because side the individual doesn't believe is the ignorant unenlightened side that is easy to find flaws in. Since that is the mentality of a select group of people on each side it creates hostility. No one wants to hear they are wrong and ignorant and the opposite of what they follow is right. 

So Democrats and Republicans will oppose each other  since they find the other side to be immoral, Christians and Atheists  will oppose each other for being immoral, and capitalists and communists will oppose each other for being immoral when the problem is they just hold different values based upon different beliefs and clear cut if you stand firm on one side of any of these issues you will look at the opposite in a negative light and if not publicly then secretly find the opposing side to be blinded to the truth and not understand it. 

In my opinion if you are an atheist and you are sick of Christians because they hinder scientific progress then rather than fight them in a battle you can't win, just fundraise and support the cures for cancer, aids, and other scientific studies that will benefit mankind. If you are a Christian and you want to see people believe in Christ then practice what you preach and help the poor, be like Jesus and go out to meet all groups of the world while having accountability, and just bless people because God has shown you how to truly love. At the very least we will have a better quality of life due to the benefitting of others.

Democrats and Republicans along with capitalists and communists just need to show patriotism and accept that some people have an opposite  view from yours that has nothing to do with intelligence level. There are intelligent democrats and intelligent republicans along with there being complete idiots on both sides also. 

The point is attempting to discredit the opposing side is not a wise idea and will only cause there to be more tension and division between both sides. In talking down to the opponent they feel threatened and must defend there side and at that point trying to make them see your side as anything but corrupt and horrible is not going to happen from you.

what is reality?

Have you ever seen someone get their head cut off? Or someone set them self on fire? Or see the Eiffel tower?Maybe in movies but most people haven't sen the actual things.We also see in movies aliens, ghosts, wizards, and monsters. What makes these things not real when we only see them typically transmitted from the same form of communication? To do this we have to determine what is real? Why is it real? Can I make it not real? If I think its real but it can potentially be not real does that fit my view of real?These form what is known as reality.

 Reality according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary is "the quality or state of being real." This makes us ask then what is real? The dictionary states real as "of or relating to fixed, permanent, or immovable things" So this makes reality  the quality or state of or relating to being fixed, permanent, or immovable things. 

Plato believes there are two worlds of reality also known as the two-tired metaphysics. The world that we see and the world of the enlightened which is summed up in the cave analogy. Plato believes that we are all metaphorically in a cave trapped staring at a wall of shadows and sounds and one day one person broke free and found the way out of the cave thus reaching a new form of reality. 

Aristotle disagrees with a two-tired world and believes everything is connected yet separate. He looked at humans as each being a separate primary substance and stated that primary substances have no opposites yet can have attributes that are opposite. An example would be Bush and Obama are both primary substances and have no opposite although their political views, speech, and backgrounds are opposite in almost every way. 

Some people such as Christine Scivicque believe that reality is perspective and emphasize the perspective of things. They take what your view point is forms your reality and thus everyone has different realities since no two people have the exact same life experiences. Your fears,doubts, knowledge, desires and environment also play a part in how you perceive the world.

This goes completely against the dictionary since if it is based upon what's fixed, permanent and immovable there can't be many different views of that. Although this vague definition gives room to fight over if God is or isn't real. It also states that most of reality isn't what we seem to believe it is.

There is a church of reality that is a group of darwinists stating that there is only one reality and it is as the dictionary states based upon what is real. Simply if it isn't able to be seen it isn't real. On the section about religion they state that rather than being faith based they are doubt based. 

This is throwing out the whole theory of perspective and discredits the ability to create your own reality. The problem with this belief of being the only reality is it makes you exceptionally closed minded. To disbelieve God and claim the world needs to is very dangerous, since Christians, Muslims, and Hindus all focus on God and make up 67.5% of the world population. 

With all the facts the confusion of reality is pretty strong. So real objects are fixed, permanent or immovable. The truth is that by this definition the stars, planets and moon aren't real, they are movable and constantly not fixed and can be obliterated at anytime. This is the case for everything we see, the problem with this definition is the more you know the less real everything would be by the definition. So real is not properly defined by the dictionary.

Now we come to a psychological principle known as mind over matter. This belief is that you control what is real, some have been able to walk across burning hot coals without a scar or pain, others have sat in subzero weather in just a cloth and not been cold, and infact they have determined that the human mind can cause an individual to get sick or healed. 

This brings us back to the beginning.I will close with these questions. What is real? Why is it real? Can I make it not real? If I think its real but can potentially make it not real then does that fit my view of real?

If you don't have anything nice to say, your just like everyone else

In our nature or maybe how we are nurtured there is something embedded within us to be negative. When we listen to the weather its what's the chance of rain? When it comes to grading its this is the grade you get because I took off points for... in a court case we need to prove the individual guilty, and when it comes to taking sides it's easier to tare apart the other side than support your own. 

Examples of groups going after there opponents are the Red sox  having a Yankee hater club,the yankees having a Red sox haters club, the Obama campaign targeting everything Bush did wrong,The McCain campaign calling Obama a communist, The atheist targeting contradictions in the Bible, the Christian pointing out science against evolution, the liberal calling conservatives war mongers, and the conservatives calling the liberals baby killers. 

The mentality I believe is "If the opposing side is an injustice than my side is a justice." So by demonizing or making the other side look stupid your side feels better and like they are superior. This bully tactic is used by almost every human being on the planet in some way. 

Alternatively since it is within every human being the capacity to not use this tactic in a debate, politics, or religion you almost say that the other side is just as if not more valid than you because now they appear flawless. It isn't exactly true and the logic isn't there but for some reason there is something programmed in the subconscious mind of most of us that in the above situations that logic takes place.

One quote by Jason Pitz-Waters that is so true is "If I could outlaw one rhetorical and stylistic device I think it would be comparing your ideological opponent to Hitler, Nazis, and fascists. It cheapens the true horrors of WWII and the Holocaust, and instantly destroys any chance for a civilized debate. The political left and right both employs this "scorched earth" tactic of demonizing the other side, and some religious leaders aren't much better."

There are also rhetoric fallacies such as The Genetic fallacy ,which points out that sometimes when an individual tries to show there side as valid they make a claim that may or may not be true and support it with something that actually doesn't support the original claim.

A book titled Journal for The Theory of Social Behavior points out that this behavioral process has practically remained untouched in the psychological community yet it plays a great role in the U.S. Intellectual debates try to avoid this tactic but I don't know how avoidable it is. 

Is there a way for society to stop verbally bullying each other? Can you find places in your life that you disagree strongly with the opposing side and quietly think of it as inferior? Is there a hope for these problems to be resolved? The first question is probably is a no, the third question is more or less for the second question which is the part you can decide on. 

So the differences in viewpoints is valid but the demonizing and bullying is not. I find myself having a hard time trying not to mentally look down upon the opposing side regardless of what the issue is. It is impossible not to chose a side, but to defend your side without attacking the other side is an obstacle.

creation vs evolution

Imagine being a born again Christian and being told born again people are feeble minded and need to believe the past can be forgiven to cope with a bad childhood or just follow what there parents teach them. Now imagine being an atheist and hearing from a born again believer that you would have to be so ignorant to not believe in a God, just look at the Earth and you know there has to be a creator with how systematic everything is. 

If you were in either one of those positions you would feel personally attacked because they just bluntly called you stupid for believing what you believe. This is one of the many reasons why Christians and atheists have one of the greatest divides in the United States. Since both sides view each other as dumb or incapable of using truth they are both close minded and prejudice. Now neither side is this true for all since I know plenty of atheists and Christians that get along but it should be pretty prevalent that a Darwin fish or a Jesus fish eating a Darwin fish isn't portraying a positive message to the opposing view.

Evolution verse Creationism is a concept that is still being battled in the school system. Since public schools are owned by the government and the first Amendment to the Constitution says "Congress will pass no law establishing religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof." This has been taken to mean separation of church and state which would date back to the Scopes trial, a trial over if evolution could be taught in schools.

Those that follow creationism would be the ones who find there beliefs dating back to Jewish roots. This would include Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All of these faiths base God as creating the universe in six days (the seventh day of rest is not believed by Muslims). In that time God spoke everything into existence.

 This is creationism summed up. The first day He made light to separate night from day, the second day He made an expanse to separate the waters He hovered over before the first day. The third day He made land and put plants and trees on it, the fourth day He made the sun, the moon and the stars to be a way of keeping track of time. The fifth day He created water creatures and birds, and told them to multiply. The sixth day He made land animals and then humans as the only creature in God's likeness. Then Christians and jewish people believe God rested on the seventh day.

Evolution is a bit more perplexed as there are two forms of it, small-scale and large scale evolution. The small scale is just stating that over time a species adapts like leaves falling off a tree or a human going through puberty. This is scientific fact, however large-scale evolution makes a claim that defies creationism completely in stating that every species have a common ancestor that over time turned into many diverse species. The claim is that fossils support the theory along with DNA and other science. It doesn't say there isn't a God, just not the one mentioned in creationism. 

According to a site based on the works of Harun Yahya the theory of evolution is a philsophy and not a science. In fact he claims that science and fossils show the same animals of today millions of years ago.  These claims are disputable yet he throws that DNA has 3.5 billion digits in it. According to David Dewitt there is a misleading 98% similarity between humans and chimps in DNA which is actually only 95%. That is a total of 150,000,ooo DNA pairs different or even two percent would be 70,000,000.

Now evolutionists just go with the facts such as Henry Gee, Rory Howlett, and Phillip Campbell state on bringing up 15 proofs of evolution they call "evolutionary gems".  They use fossils, teeth, skeletons, natural selection in nature, and several other points found in the scientific world. 

Personally I don't see how we can claim the past when we weren't there. A lot is left up to interpretation and outside of religion and science it doesn't even play as a thought process. Both sides will take the same pieces of information to prove there side and which side presents themselves better is typically on a bias that you already form. 

I believe that biology has every right to teach evolution but creationism should be taught also inside of literature or history so both sides are presented in school curriculum in the same grade level.