August 21, 2017 - part 2
Finished up my classes for the day, and then some. Turns out my professor for my Diplomacy, Security and Governance class was of the jumping right into it variety. Apparently we were supposed to have read some things he had put up on Canvas along with the syllabus but something went screwy with his Canvas page and it wasn't posted so no one did the readings. He made due, though, started up a discussion on the Syrian Conflict based on what we just knew about it from the news and the like. It was a good debate, lasted the whole class and would have gone on longer if he hadn't stopped it so he could talk about a few logistical things and finish up the lesson.
Usually I love debates and I have a ton to say about whatever topic that's being discussed. I'm a very opinionated person and I'm not afraid to speak my mind, but I only like doing so when I'm confident about what I'm saying. I don't like it when people talk about things they don't know anything about and try to sound like they do. I don't know anything about the Syrian Conflict beyond the fact that it involves the Middle East, the United States, Russia, probably Europe and the UN and a terrorist group called ISIS that we are partially guilty of allowing to happen. The way I've come to understand it we were part of bringing down some dictator that left a power vacuum and led to ISIS. It isn't much, actually it's kind of pitiful, I don't know anything about Syria so I didn't have anything to contribute. For the first time, ever, I didn't participate in a class discussion. It was a weird feeling and I didn't like it, hated it actually. I'm hoping that with Canvas fixed and the readings finally up I'll be able to correct this in the next class on Wednesday. If not then I'm going to have fix some things because I refuse to be one of those silent people who never say anything unless the teacher or professor directly asks them and even then it's awkward and obvious that they have no idea what to say or even really what the discussion is about beyond the surface level. I've seen it plenty of times and it infuriates me, it comes across like a waste of time and that just isn't me.
In any case the class was alright and after I had to rush to make it to my Direct Admit Seminar which turned out to be pretty interesting. I'm actually looking forward to it, no so much to the walk between SGIS and going across campus to the law building and back again, fortunately that's just once a week. I did get to spend a pleasant time sitting out on the pretty SGIS building's lawn watching the solar eclipse. That was really cool to see through my glasses, I tried to get a picture but that did't work, they just looked like regular pictures of the sun. I was a little disappointed to find that it didn't get totally dark, it definitely got a little darker and blocked the heat, but not in the way I was expecting. In a way that's actually kind of impressive, though, the sun is so powerful that even with only 5% being seen, everything is almost just as bright as usual. I am interested in learning whether or not it did get dark like I was hoping for in any of the locations in the right angle to see the eclipse at its peak, the sun completely covered by the moon.
So, after the seminar I headed back to my dorm and these two girls stopped me, they were part of some Christian Fellowship thing that was gathered at Teter Quad playing volleyball and looking for recruits. They asked me if I was interested in a deeper connection to God, or something along those lines. It was a little surreal, honestly, I've never actually met someone advertising God like they were, heard about them, of course, just never dealt with it personally. I refused, of course, I'm an atheist, I get the feeling it wouldn't really work. They asked me why and whether or not something had happened in my life to turn me away from God. It was so bizarre, I'd heard that people tended to think atheists were only those who'd had some traumatic event to make them lose faith but, like before, it was never something I'd dealt with personally. There wasn't any big tragic event in my life, no sudden loss of faith or anything like that. Honestly, I'm not sure I ever had faith, I certainly can't remember ever actually believing in God though there probably was a time that I did, I was baptized had my First Communion, went to Sunday School and occasionally church up until I was in fifth grade. Attended a sermon at my summer camp whenever I stayed for two weeks, a requirement for campers staying over the weekend, it was a YMCA camp. Even so, the idea of God, of an intelligent force of any kind whether just one deity or several, just doesn't make sense to me. I can't wrap my head around the concept of any of it. God, religion, prayer, heaven and hell, life after death, none of it makes absolutely any kind of sense to me.
Objectively speaking I can understand religion in that before there was science as we know it humans needed answers for how things were, so they created their respective religions. Even now I can sort of get that people are uncomfortable with the idea that this life is all there is, that there's nothing more. It's not something I've ever felt necessary, this is our life, we live it and then we die. There is no afterlife, there is no great meaning for why each of us exists, we just are. We don't have all the answers right now and we probably never will, but we have enough information for me to pretty confidently say that humans are lucky genetic accidents just like all life, we come from a series of events occurring at the right time in the right way to lead to us and in some alternate dimension humans don't exist because that series of events occurred differently there. There is no reason for us to be here, no purpose, there is no reincarnation based on what we did with our lives our even Karma. The Universe doesn't give a shit about us, it can't, it isn't sentient, at least, not in the way we understand sentience to be. Our life is made up of events, some caused by our actions, some caused by actions of those around us, some just entirely unassociated with our lives that we happen to end up knowing about and maybe being affected by. My life is my own, that's all there is to it, eventually I'll die and that life will be over and that will also be all there is to it.
And, on that happy note, I've got homework to do, so, thanks for reading!
Usually I love debates and I have a ton to say about whatever topic that's being discussed. I'm a very opinionated person and I'm not afraid to speak my mind, but I only like doing so when I'm confident about what I'm saying. I don't like it when people talk about things they don't know anything about and try to sound like they do. I don't know anything about the Syrian Conflict beyond the fact that it involves the Middle East, the United States, Russia, probably Europe and the UN and a terrorist group called ISIS that we are partially guilty of allowing to happen. The way I've come to understand it we were part of bringing down some dictator that left a power vacuum and led to ISIS. It isn't much, actually it's kind of pitiful, I don't know anything about Syria so I didn't have anything to contribute. For the first time, ever, I didn't participate in a class discussion. It was a weird feeling and I didn't like it, hated it actually. I'm hoping that with Canvas fixed and the readings finally up I'll be able to correct this in the next class on Wednesday. If not then I'm going to have fix some things because I refuse to be one of those silent people who never say anything unless the teacher or professor directly asks them and even then it's awkward and obvious that they have no idea what to say or even really what the discussion is about beyond the surface level. I've seen it plenty of times and it infuriates me, it comes across like a waste of time and that just isn't me.
In any case the class was alright and after I had to rush to make it to my Direct Admit Seminar which turned out to be pretty interesting. I'm actually looking forward to it, no so much to the walk between SGIS and going across campus to the law building and back again, fortunately that's just once a week. I did get to spend a pleasant time sitting out on the pretty SGIS building's lawn watching the solar eclipse. That was really cool to see through my glasses, I tried to get a picture but that did't work, they just looked like regular pictures of the sun. I was a little disappointed to find that it didn't get totally dark, it definitely got a little darker and blocked the heat, but not in the way I was expecting. In a way that's actually kind of impressive, though, the sun is so powerful that even with only 5% being seen, everything is almost just as bright as usual. I am interested in learning whether or not it did get dark like I was hoping for in any of the locations in the right angle to see the eclipse at its peak, the sun completely covered by the moon.
So, after the seminar I headed back to my dorm and these two girls stopped me, they were part of some Christian Fellowship thing that was gathered at Teter Quad playing volleyball and looking for recruits. They asked me if I was interested in a deeper connection to God, or something along those lines. It was a little surreal, honestly, I've never actually met someone advertising God like they were, heard about them, of course, just never dealt with it personally. I refused, of course, I'm an atheist, I get the feeling it wouldn't really work. They asked me why and whether or not something had happened in my life to turn me away from God. It was so bizarre, I'd heard that people tended to think atheists were only those who'd had some traumatic event to make them lose faith but, like before, it was never something I'd dealt with personally. There wasn't any big tragic event in my life, no sudden loss of faith or anything like that. Honestly, I'm not sure I ever had faith, I certainly can't remember ever actually believing in God though there probably was a time that I did, I was baptized had my First Communion, went to Sunday School and occasionally church up until I was in fifth grade. Attended a sermon at my summer camp whenever I stayed for two weeks, a requirement for campers staying over the weekend, it was a YMCA camp. Even so, the idea of God, of an intelligent force of any kind whether just one deity or several, just doesn't make sense to me. I can't wrap my head around the concept of any of it. God, religion, prayer, heaven and hell, life after death, none of it makes absolutely any kind of sense to me.
Objectively speaking I can understand religion in that before there was science as we know it humans needed answers for how things were, so they created their respective religions. Even now I can sort of get that people are uncomfortable with the idea that this life is all there is, that there's nothing more. It's not something I've ever felt necessary, this is our life, we live it and then we die. There is no afterlife, there is no great meaning for why each of us exists, we just are. We don't have all the answers right now and we probably never will, but we have enough information for me to pretty confidently say that humans are lucky genetic accidents just like all life, we come from a series of events occurring at the right time in the right way to lead to us and in some alternate dimension humans don't exist because that series of events occurred differently there. There is no reason for us to be here, no purpose, there is no reincarnation based on what we did with our lives our even Karma. The Universe doesn't give a shit about us, it can't, it isn't sentient, at least, not in the way we understand sentience to be. Our life is made up of events, some caused by our actions, some caused by actions of those around us, some just entirely unassociated with our lives that we happen to end up knowing about and maybe being affected by. My life is my own, that's all there is to it, eventually I'll die and that life will be over and that will also be all there is to it.
And, on that happy note, I've got homework to do, so, thanks for reading!
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