The past two weeks have been an interesting set of weeks and ended in ways I really wish it wouldn’t have. But in retrospect maybe I would have wanted it to? I dunno.
Writing for Pixel Dynamo has been a lot of fun, even if it’s been simple news reporting. It’s not too time consuming although the beginning was a little rough. I mean, this is literally the first time I ever really wrote anything in the format and now that I’m doing it as a trend it’s been interesting.
I’d have been able to blog more if it wasn’t for the fact that wifi at home has seriously been an issue, slowing down the process of writing articles down a lot. Plus, since I want to write on media like anime and cartoons, if I can’t even load the page I doubt I’ll ever be able to progress in the ways that I want to, which sucks. But such is life and I’m coping.
Coping could be the alternate title, actually. My dad just discovered I’m an atheist, though I’m certain that it wasn’t too hard to guess over the past month. The conversation started off with asking about why I don’t see design in the world. I said I didn’t even know how you can see design, given that most of what we call design is “designed” because we know who designed it. I’m planning to write out my take on design later, but that’s a conversation I really enjoy thinking about, whatever the conclusion.
The other point was, of course, morality. I can say I did a bad job on making my point on it when we talked, and the whole “authority” thing irked me. It’d take a lot more than I think I’d be able to articulate in person in order to settle why I disagree with the premise of authority so much. But I never did get to point out the biggest point: Morality in itself can’t lead people to believe that a god exists. The statement “You can’t have morality without god” fails before it’s uttered if it’s being used when we’re still talking about god and his existence. It’s like saying “You can’t have crop circles without aliens” Both statements are contingent on the existence of god or aliens and this point must be proven first to make the statement “You can’t have X without Y”
Essentially, we live in a world where people have morals. IF god exists, then he was the cause of it. (well, specifically, if the christian god exists or any god purported to be the cause of morals exist) If he doesn’t, then we necessarily got our morals elsewhere. My dad also briefly mentioned that faith precedes belief. While it’s finally nice to stop wondering about how my parents would apply faith, this point isn’t to hard to address the problems to. Of course, this depends on his definition of faith. He can’t say faith means belief, unfortunately that much is clear. If he means trust, I have a post about why trust cannot precede belief coming up that would clear things up. Though the point is kind of obvious; how often do we ever trust something without first having evidence or at least believing that something is real? Well, at least, how can we do so and not understand how susceptible to delusion and confirmation bias we would be. Just because I trust something doesn’t mean it’s true no matter the conviction.
The larger point is that religion is the only place where faith then applies. I mean really, no one has faith that their car will run if they haven’t seen it run before. Or at least trust the people building it, which would also be based on even more evidence through the experiences of previous cars made by the same company. It’s totally justified to assume/have faith that the car will run. And even if you don’t have faith, the car’s running is neither guaranteed or at all affected by my having faith. Instead of worrying about conviction, try it out. Drive it around. Use the “test drive” option before you buy. Anything but put yourself in a position where you must have faith without evidence when you don’t need to.
Another concern is that my dad has an issue with me cursing, and I could write an essay about my views on cursing. Though the point he made still stood; I really ought to work on leaving the cussing out of the really thoughtful posts, as it may not be the place. Especially if my audience is people who do not like to read cursing.
So yeah, I have a lot to write on and hopefully I can use the weekend to knock some of these issues of the table. Hopefully I can express where I stand with all these things well enough so I don’t end up circumlocuting and dancing around points, because man I think I sounded more unsure about morality than I honestly am.
And The Keys Go Tick 
If you’re having trouble saying what you want to say, why not write it out and read it a few times? That’s helped me in the past. And it’s your dad, so you should be able to guess what will come up well enough to address most of his points before he says them.
Yeah, this is true. I’ve been trying to do so and it’s much easier to write out than talk through. And I have a bunch of things I think he’d go to but this will be the first time I think he’d really be addressing so we’ll see. Thanks for the advice, though!