An Abundance of Eagles

At home I live near a wetlands preserve, we often take walks there and picnic nearby. It is home to several nesting bald eagles, which I see one or two of on a fairly regular basis. I had thought I was blessed to be near such amazing animals, but I have come to realize that what I thought was wealth is just a pittance. I am in Kodiak Alaska today and one of the first sights to greet me were Eagles filling the sky like gulls. Several bald eagles and as many or more golden eagles, circling above the harbor, landing in the trees and on rooftops, I even took a photo of two bald eagles and a golden standing in the road like crows. I was in awe, soon I am going to go back out just to watch them and walk along the bay.

My hotel is right on the water which thrills me, I love the ocean and this is the first time since being in Alaska I have had the opportunity to visit it. Now finally I get to see the North end of my ocean. I have now visited the south in Hawaii the north here in Alaska and many points in between. It makes me feel connected somehow with the ocean that I have loved since I was just little.

Alaska really is a paradise for nature lovers, I have done some hiking already, and soon I will be going to Juneau. My colleagues who have made this trip before said there are many great hikes there, including a glacier all very near the hotel. I will be sure to report about it when I am done.

Thoughts on science

I am in Anchorage at the moment and was not in the mood for sightseeing or partying so I spend a quiet evening playing cards with friends. My collegues are fellow atheists and science buffs. We ended up having a discussion about Sephen Hawkings new series on the discovery channel. This was interesting because there has been some talk recently about proffessor Hawkings on Ray Comforts creationist blog. Ray has been mocking Dr. Hawkings for speculating that aliens probably exist. This seems perfectly reasonable to me what with septillions of potential planets it would be incredibly unlikely that there would be only life on one. To creationists however the idea is very threatening.

My friends and I were generally positive about the shows but we had one of the same complaints as the creationists. It was far too much speculation. Now Stephen Hawkings is speculating based on vast knowledge and intelligence but he was speculating and made that very clear. We all agreed that we would have preferred more hard science and math. Of course for most viewers that would have made for dry television which is probably why they didn't do it. Cool hypothesis with flashy graphics are more likely to draw ratings.

I think that is part of the problem with creationists. They are a lot like TV viewers they don't care about facts or Data they want it simple and dumbed down. Of course there are a few creationists with degrees in biology but they are few and far between and most of the most ardent supporters are preachers and other lay folk without even a basic scientific education. I find this strange. I am not a biologist but I have a good scientific background and a few years of college biology. I wouldn't even begin to try to defend the theory of evolution if I did not have a clear understanding of what it said and why. People who oppose it on internet forums however know nothing at all except for sound bites, regurgitated talking points, and obvious quote mines. Myself and many people far more qualified give patient explanations of why they are mistaken in their scientific knowledge and get in return inanities like "So you think nothing created everything" or "You can't prove God didn't do it" not only are both statements logical fallacies they have nothing to do with biology.

I have talked before about a good Christian friend of mine who is both a believer and has a great deal of scientific knowledge. His belief is that the theory of evolution, just like the theory of gravity is the best explanation for observed evidence and acurately reflect the physical world. He acknowledges that the theory of evolution and big bang cosmology both contradict his religion. He is not concerned and is not engaging in cognative dissonance. He believes he can understand the world through science and faith through scripture but can not know the mind and power of his god in this life. He believes that any discrepencies reflect his inability to understand the power of God not a weakness of either God or science. He believes that in the afterlife he will either know because his deity will tell him or it won't matter to him because it won't be relevant in heaven. I don't share his belief or even find it reasonable but I respect that he holds it with honesty and conviction. His attitude shows that one does not need creationism and other denialistic excuses to be a Christian. So I must ask why do creationists exist. I think it is because developing both a knowledge of science and a consistent philosophy require both dedication and intelligence. I think many of those drawn to creationist cults like Way of the Master do not possess either. There are surely exceptions. My most frequent commenter Tracy seems to be a creationist and has expressed empathy with Comforts cult yet nothing about how she describes her faith seems dependant on creationism or justification. That is one reason I enjoy talking to her. As with my friend I see no reason to share her beliefs but since she can hold them without lies and distortions I can respect that. If more Christians relied on faith instead of creationism and other man made constructs they would not need to be threatened by real science even if it seems to contradict their faith.

Visit to the North Pole

Well not the actual north pole but North Pole Alaska. It is just a little town but it is very cook. They have Santas House which is really just a huge gift shop but there are reindeer and a sleigh and all sorts of Christmasy things. I played dorky tourist and took pictures of everything and bought presents for my wife and kids. I also sent post cards from there to my children so they would have the North Pole postmark. Also there is an actual "North Pole" at this park in town. Apparently in the 50's a pole was made to mark the top of the earth. At some point it was lost in route and ended up in a junkyard, to be discovered tears later. Eventually on the bicentenial it was erected in North Pole Alaska. I got this great picture of two of my lady friends pole dancing on it.

Also this week I visited a wildlife conservation park with moose, bears, wolves, buffalo, musk ox, bald eagles and all sorts of other wildlife. I also went for a trip to hike Portage Glacier but it was not accesable due to heavy snow. Stil we took pictures and played in the snow so all in all a good trip.

I can't get over the beauty of this state. I still maintain as I have in earlier posts that my home in Oregon is the prettiest place in the world but still I have fallen in love with Alaska. The mountains are everpresent and gorgeous. The wildlife is abundant, and everything looks and smells wonderful.

Today I am in Fairbanks tommorow I fly back to Anchorage for the weekend then I am off to Kodiak. I will post again soon.

Sore Knees and Beauty Queens

I just finished a 5K heart run to benefit the heart association. My company joined the team for the Alaska Childrens Heart Center and we all participated. It was a lot of fun and for a good cause. Our team also took first in the open team category. There were prize drawings, bands, great harvest bakery was giving away bread. It was just a great day all around. Best of all I got my picture taken with Miss Alaska and Miss Teen Alaska. There is a memento to go in a frame. Sadly I don't have my menory card reader with me or I would be posting pictures. When I get home I think I will make a gallery of the trip and post them all at once.

What For Beauty?

One argument that I have heard in favor of believing religion is the "argument from aesthetics". In short it is simply that the universe is beautiful, and random chance could not make beauty. Ignoring for the moment that physics, at least beyond the quantum level, does not propose the possibility of random chance, the argument is still weak. It assumes that beauty is an objective property of things and we simply have the ability to percieve it. This is obviously false. Beauty is purely subjective, personally I see beauty in things like crumbling buildings and wilted flowers that other people find ugly. Beauty is more likely a product of human nature, slightly different for everyone but with enough commonalities that most can agree. An object does not have a property of beauty we simply percieve it as beautiful or not.

The question now is why do we percieve beauty? What evolutionary purpose if any does a conception of beauty hold? In some cases it is obvious. Flowers and green fields are good signs of a rich area and we would naturaly be drawn to them. Symmetrical features are signs of health and potential for good mates. Streams and lakes are appealing because humans need to live near water. All of these make sense but other things less so. Currently I am surrounded by great icy peaks, a few months ago I was in a barren desert like area. I found both places gorgeous. Why?

I think it is due to our intelligence, emotions and love of symbols, all of which are evolutionary traits. An icy mountain range is dangerous and awe inspiring, this activates emotions in us, as symbol lovers those emotions inspire memories and association with symbols and stories. These peaks inspire in us a desire for accomplishment, they challenge us and give us a sense of romance therefore we find them beauitiful. The same can be true of a crumbling old building, the decay associates not only with visions of what the structure would have been like when whole but also a sense of melencholy and grief over it's fallen state. These feelings inspire a perception of beauty.

It seems that beauty is not a property of the world but a property of man. It is our nature to see beauty. There is no created beauty, icy peaks are nothing but rocks and frozen water. It is my aesthetic sensibilities that make them beautiful.

On that note I am surrounded by beauty here on my visit to Alaska. Yesterday, in the middle of the day in April it began snowing madly. I was simply in a parking lot, yet when the snow came it was transformed into a glorious wonderland. Right outside my hotel is a ring of snow covered mountains there are streams and flood plains every time I take a drive. Mighty stands of trees abound. I revel in this beauty, but I need not assign any magical creator to them. In fact the truth that they arise through millions of years of precise and inevitable natural processes enhances the majesty of them. Soil erosion, vulcanism, and evolution strike me as far more awesome and majestic than some magical creator. In truth belief in a creator strikes me as a limited and unimagitive way of looking at the world. Something that tries to encapsulate the majesty of our univers in a small and primitive myth, unworthy of the world assigned to its creation.

YES! There is snow.

I just landed in Anchorage Alaska, I will be working and playing here for about a week before moving on to Fairbanks, Kodiak and other cities. I will be in Alaska for a little over three weeks. I was so happy that there was snow on the ground when we got off the plane. Not much but some, I had heard that it had all melted off and it would have been sad for my first experience in this state to be snow free.

I am in a lovely suite, It is an extended stay so there is a kitchen and a seperate bedroom. I just got all moved in and it is very comfortable. I work tomorrow night but I have all day to explore and then have the next day off as well before working again.

The flight was a little dissapointing. I love to fly, no matter how many times I do it I get exc ited and filled with wonder just like a little kid. This was my first night flight and I was hoping it would be impressive. I had imagined a great field of stars once we were over the ocean and above the clouds, but the light in the cabin made it hard to see. City lights were very pretty though, leaving Portland and entering Anchorage I could see the lights stretch on seemingly forever.

I had a co=worker who was terribly afraid to fly and we were talking at length about the possibility of crashing. She was somewhat taken aback that I was completely unafraid of dying. I explained to her that death was nothing, why be worried, if you don't exist anymore what is to be afraid of. She is a Christian lady and it struck me as strange once again that Christians fear death. It seems very common among those I know. I would think that if I believed I had a paradise waiting I would be positively eager to die, and certainly not scared. That doesn't seem to be the case however. Fear of death seems to be ingrained into the Christian religion, in many ways it seems to be the entire point of the faith.

As an atheist on the other hand death is literaly nothing. Certainly I regret the prospect of dying, leaving things unfinished, the sadness of my loved ones, but for myself it doesn't bother me at all. As Epicurus said, If you exist then death has not come and for the dead they no longer exist and death can not harm them. So death hurts niether the living nor the dead.

I will be posting regularly while I am here, that should be a change for those of you who have been paying attention. I have been very lazy about blogging for a while. Family and business have been monopolizing my time. Now however I am on a bussmans holiday to a beautiful part of the world and hopefuly will be waxing philosophic for the duration.

Night at the Symphony

Last night was a very special performance. My ten year old daughter had her first concert with the youth symphony. My wife is a viola player and my daughter has been playing as well for about a year. It was her idea to play. My hopelessly sleepyheaded little girl asked to wake up an hour early three days a week to go take strings class before school in the mornings. My notoriously lazy little angel has devoted countless hours to practicing a difficult instrument. I am very proud.

The performance was very good. Nothing overly complicated, the key piece was a selection of variations on twinkle twinkle little star. However the kids performed it very well and some of the variations were somewhat intricate.

I am always pleased when my children acomplish something but even moreso when they surprise me. I know my girl is smart and talented but I am not joking when I say she is a bit lazy and I would have sworn she was at her limit with the activities she was already committed to. She exceded my expectations. She decided she wanted this, applied herself, made sacrifices and succeded. Now if she will do the same with her math homework I will be really impressed.