Still No Answers!

I've been writing in this blog for more than 2 years.  At lot has happened in that time.  Thankfully I'm almost done with my degree, and then I can finally leave behind BYU with the accompanying rut I've dug myself into.

Still, I don't know that things are clearer now than they were, then.  Life still seems without meaning much of the time, an unwanted burden thrust upon me be either an uncaring universe or some perversely-cruel "supreme being."

I don't think there's a higher intelligence responsible for everything, but far be it from me to claim any more than that.  I know almost nothing, and I dare say I'm smarter than the average bear.  I don't find comfort in even the remote possibility that there is a god, though... if there is, he's the wanker who decided to bestow consciousness on the chunk of dirt that happens to be me.  Who knows what else this diabolical monster is capable of?  Making me continue to live after death, perhaps!?  Perish the thought.

I am reminded of Tantalus... the poor sucker from Greek mythology who angered the gods and was therefore trapped forever in a pond with luscious fruit hanging on branches above him, only to have the fruit or water withdraw beyond his reach every time he went for either one.  Human beings are given inquisitive minds capable of asking deeply abstract questions about our own existence, then the answers to said questions are always apparently just out of reach.  Even religion doesn't have answers, it only promises more later.  Case in point, how many times in Sunday School have you asked a question and been told that maybe we'll have to wait until the Celestial Kingdom to know about that?


So, I know I sound like I'm super-depressed.  And yeah, I am.  But it occurs to me over and over... does that make anything I say less valid?
 People imply that my view and conclusions are affected by my depression, and therefore are wrong.   Now, the first one I'll give them, they are.  But the second?
For all we know, optimism or happiness are results of a healthy human mind drugging itself enough to ignore the void of meaning and impending ruin and decay that loom over them all the time.
Doesn't that sound like something that might evolve in a keenly self-aware species?
What if those with depression see the world as it is, and a healthy mind is the mind more deluded?  What then?  Which would you rather have???


This isn't even red/blue pill, because in The Matrix there was a tiny bit of hope that outside the matrix there was still something to work for.  What if knowing is accepting that there never was and never will be meaning?  Which would you choose?
Happiness or awareness?

Without awareness, what are you?  A rat with its pleasure centers wired to a machine, oblivious of that actual logic behind its ecstasy?
With awareness, what are you?  A mind trapped in a fleshy little jar, able to see just long enough to glimpse the universe slowly devouring itself with entropy, where good and evil end up rusted together in a pile of dust with no one to even observe it?

No wonder there are lots of people out there who claim to have the answers, and even more people who flock to them at any expense.
Damn those charlatans, though.  Damn them for promising answers and then telling cute stories to distract from the fact that they have none!!! 


Sometimes I don't feel like there is an adequate way to express the rage I feel at this, our beloved human condition.  It makes me wish I could believe in a creator, so I could then try to find a way to get revenge on him/her/it.
Heh, so basically, I wish for a living god just so I can go kill him.  Maybe I'm just insane after all.

Skepticism

I need to get a rant off my chest:  I used to love the History channel.  I watched it whenever I stayed home sick from school.  Yeah, yeah, I'm a nerd, I know.

Now... the stuff they show on there!  It's sad!

What used to be a channel where I was sure to find something like "The Sinking of the Bismark!" is now a non-stop parade of shit like "Why Aliens Built the Pyramids!!!"

Aliens built the pyramids?  Really?

I am all for considering every viable option, but this one seems to need a bare minimum of consideration before it's up for complete rejection.

The whole argument seems to go as follows:
1. The pyramids are big and huge and awesome.
2. It would have been tricky for ancient people to build things that we think are big and huge and awesome.
3. Therefore, aliens!

The first thing I would like to point out is that the pyramids, and yes, Stonehenge and the Easter Island heads  too, are not that incredible in composition or form.  I mean, the pyramids were made out of mud.  Mud!  And they are nice geometric forms, yes, but pretty simple ones.
Sure, they would have been hard to build, but I think some people underestimate the potential of megalomaniac kings unafraid to bankrupt their kingdoms in order to erect some monument to themselves.

So, if we go with the alien explanation, aliens came and did what?  Decided to impress future generations of humans by building some big monument?
And they decide, instead of building some giant monolith covered in their strange writing, made of space-age ceramics or something of a nature we can't reproduce, hovering 200 feet in the air.... they build some angular piles of dirt?
...a circle of rocks?
...a big, handsome head carved out of a stone?

If these aliens have crossed interstellar distances to get to Earth and build big stuff to mess with our heads, seems like they could have built some more impressive stuff.  We could right now!

Furthermore, it seems like a real slap at our ancestors to say "the rocks from Stonehenge originated really far away from the site!  there's no way our ancestors could have moved them, because they were too dumb!"
Just because we don't have ready solutions of how to move lots of big rocks with bronze-age technology doesn't mean they didn't come up with something.


So basically, I'm angry that the History Channel spends all its time on either reality shows about foul-mouthed people operating heavy machinery or an utter horseshit interpretation of history.