Exciting times ahead

I love waiting. Not all kinds of waiting, but waiting for fun things to happen. And 2007 brings plenty of these. Main reason for this is my new job, where I’ll be working only part-time, which gives (or, should give) me plenty of free time to do stuff that is really interesting. And not do it after 8 hours of exhausting working day but maybe one whole week.

Here’s a list of things that I will do, or want to do from beginning of 2007:

• Finish tube headphone amp I’m building right now and build a second one
• Start sleeping biphasically
• Do a trial period of 30 days with no-meat diet
• Finish my options simulator project
• Do one useful project in lisp to learn the language (or redo some older project(s)), maybe my wedding photography site and finish the lisp books I have acquired.
• Start training for next marathon (Tallinn or Stockholm?). This time seriously – 4-5 times a week, 60+ km per week
• Build a PIC (type of microcontroller) based nixie tube clock
• Build PIC based learning remote controller with timer functions (it could be programmed to ‘push’ Play on CD-player in the morning so I don’t have to wake up on disgusting beeping alarms)
• Finish investing course and start investing

I know this sounds like a lot of things to do, but when I get at least 4 extra ‘free’ hours in one day (only 50% of working load plus some extra from biphasic sleep) it means I have to use them well and not just sleep and play “Heroes of Might and Magic V” all the time, which would be very easy thing for me. The more free time I have, the more self-discipline I must have.

There is only now

It’s very interesting experience when some realization comes to you just ‘out of the blue’. You walk around, minding your own business, and suddenly “Ding!”, you understand something more about this world. It is just one, very simple and clear thought. This thought might not mean anything to other people, it might make no sense to them at all, but to you it’s like you’ve got rid of sunglasses you didn’t know you were wearing, and now can see the world more like it really is (or, might be), or you’ll see that there are more ways to think about the world and how it works.

I know these ideas might make no sense to other people at all, but I still like share them. I’ve got these ‘light bulb moments’ twice, first time was around 5 years ago and last one was about a week ago.

1. ‘There is only me‘. I think this one can be described as an understanding the ideas behind ‘brain in a jar‘ and ‘subjective reality‘ philosophies. Basically this ‘brain in a jar’ theory asks: “What if you are only brain in a jar?”. You have no physical body, all you are is a brain, which sits in one jar and is connected to computer, which creates your world. All you ever experienced, saw, touched and felt was computer generated. And the thing is, there is no way you can prove otherwise. You can’t prove that your physical body does actually exist. Actually everything you see, hear, touch, feel and smell is computer generated on the fly. So actually when you don’t see something it doesn’t exist, when I turn my head towards something it is created, just for me to see and make me believe that this world actually does exist. Same thing goes to all people – they are just computer generated bots, nothing more.

While this thought wasn’t much use to me, it was still fun to ponder about it. Also, through this I understood that there is so much that I can’t prove. Even the most basic things, like does my body actually exist, or is it just generated data fed into me.

2. ‘There is only now‘. This idea might prove even useful in everyday life, I can’t say this about first idea. I came to this thought when I wanted to define for myself what is happiness. Maybe not even define what it really is, but to understand why so many people are not happy with their lives (this goes for me too). I think most people have seen this depressed grey mass of people that goes to work every morning and comes to home every evening. Sometimes, if I didn’t know the context of all of it, I would think they all are going to their execution; people are just seem so depressed and stressed out all the time.  You know it – stuffed morning buses with not-quite-waken-up people with their dark brown coats, black jackets and dodgy attitudes struggling to get into to the bus, racing madly to get seating places and then struggling to get out of the bus.

But the thing is – there is only this moment, the now, that we have, and I think we should try to enjoy it. Not to live in the past and think what good has been, though this is very useful in itself and creates thankfulness, not to live in the future and think that soon there’ll be Friday night and I’ll party like there’s no tomorrow (interestingly, this attitude sometimes does create ‘gaps’; Carpe Cerevisi – seize the beer), but live in the now and enjoy it.

Ditch your materialialism, things will never make you happy or content, leave grudge against people and try to take fresh look at the world as it is now. When you look at world as a bystander, not as a victim in the system, you’ll actually see how funny all this is. There is no need to have expensive car, big house, 42″ plasma TV, cool cadgets. Most importantly, this might come as a shock to many, there is no need to be better than you neighbour, by having more ’stuff’, and usually more loans to pay off. Really. I mean it. All this expensive stuff that we gather will just create more worries than they solve. When I have my ’sober’ moments, I do realize that actually all this is quite meaningless (Ecclesiastes), all that media ads force upon us is just plain stupid (all they offer is to cure your symptoms, not to deal with problems), but it still is constant struggle to keep myself above it, because majority of people still believe, that winner is who dies the richest. When Bible said that ‘godliness with content is a great gain‘, I think that just ‘content is a great gain‘ is.

All in all, step away from this ratrace for a minute, look at the world and have a good laugh.

So long, and Thanks for All the Fish

So, now it is done. As of last week I’m officially no longer a Christian anymore. I don’t read Bible, I don’t pray, I don’t evangelize, I don’t pay tithe and I don’t do lots of things anymore, which I used to do for 5 years. To use churchspeak – my name has been erased from the Book of Heaven.

I know this comes as a shock to many who know me and have thought of me as a ’strong disciple’, whatever that may mean.

But please, let me explain reasons behind this decision and thought processes that led me to this point. First of all let me say that this is not because of some unpardonable sin that I’ve committed – no, I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t rob a bank, I’m still faithful to my dear wife, and lo, even my moral standards are the same. This same question has been asked quite a few times – did you do something awful? Reason for this is that uncountable people have left church because of some serious sin in their life. But let me repeat that again – I didn’t do anything such. I’d like that to be carved in your skull, so to speak.

Now, this has been cleared.

The reason for my leaving is very simple – total absence of faith in Bible and in the God it portrays. Simple, isn’t it? I previously wrote some posts about the questions that were unanswered for me about God. They still remain. There aren’t any responses that might answer them satisfyingly. When we had these ‘emergency talks’ to save my soul with church clergy people one of them even said that I’m never going to find answers to these questions, that somehow I’d have to get over them and live happily ever after. Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. God of the Bible should be God of Order, God of Reason etc, how come there aren’t any answers to my questions?

Just for reference I write some questions that I think remain unanswered, no matter which mental gymnastics apologetics are trying to do. They are in no particular order.

• Problem of people. Supposedly God is absolutely perfect. Definition of absolute perfectness means that it doesn’t lack anything. Nada. Nothing. So, why does someone perfect need to create extra entities? Apologetics answer to this that He might love someone, offer His endless love to someone. (Critics think for His entertainment). But this raises further questions like, why then most people are sent to hell to suffer indescribable pain for ever and ever (this is the popular view of hell)? OK, leaving the reason of our creation behind. Here comes next problem. How can absolutely perfect being create something imperfect, like humans? Out of perfect can’t come anything imperfect. Impossible.
• Problem of evil. This has been, and still is, very hot topic for many-many discussions between believers and non-believers. Basically the question is – how come there is so much evil in the world, why doesn’t God prevent all of it? The answer usually has something to do with His unmeasurable love and giving us free will, which creates all this evil. Yes, this view might answer why there are so much wars, killings etc, but there is no way this can explain so called non-human evil. Sufferings that are not caused by people themselves, but by other forces. What has free will to do with natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or even birth defects? And please don’t tell me these things are that we could learn something… What do you learn from disaster where 200000 people die?
• Problem of Old Testament. It’s just unbelievable what God ordered his people to do, and what He did Himself. I won’t go into this very deeply, but if you’d really read OT without prejudice that ‘this must somehow be correct and who am I to question God’ you’d see very troubling things.
• Problem of many religions/movements. If God really is all-powerful, one and only, how in the world even two Christian movements can’t agree with their theology/behavior/view of God? What about Muslims, Hindus, Krishnas and other million religions out there? Everyone has their view of God. Shouldn’t there be at least some common points? Yes, it’s easy to say that other are religions made by people but ours is correct. Everyone says that. That doesn’t mean anything at all.
• Argument from design. So, I think now many want to say that, hey, look at this wonderful world. Don’t you think this is marvelous design by some supreme Creator (God of Bible, of course, who else)? Actually, no, I don’t think that way anymore. Think this way. If you were absolutely perfect and had infinite time in your hands, would you really create such ‘perfect’ world? I think there are countless things to improve.
• Nothing fails like prayer. Honestly, how many prayers have been answered that you’re sure can’t be coincidences? Actually, to think about it seriously then prayers are totally pointless, but I won’t go into this, I understand that this gives people hope.

But I’m sure I can write here 18 reasons, believers still believe and non-believers still… well, non-believe. Thing is – seeing is not believing, but believing is seeing. I fit the world to my world view, not vice versa. There is no way to prove that God exists, just as there is no way to prove he doesn’t exist. Why you don’t believe in elves, tooth-fairies, Santa Clause and all that gang? Because they’re not probable, they’re fantasy. But you can’t prove with certainty that wood-elves don’t exists. So I can make my wood-elf worship religion and nobody can tell me it’s wrong – I tell them to prove it!

So, this is shortly.

Please also understand that I have absolutely nothing against any of the people that are in church. I still consider them as my friends, and I hope it’s mutual. I also don’t think Christianity, at least in my ex-church, of course there are many bad examples too, is something stupid. I merely think this is, um, merely unreasonable.

42

Marathon – Mission accomplished

For the impatient who want only info – I did finish the marathon with time 4:15:55 and it was just unbelievably hard.

This was my first marathon to run in my life. I prepared and trained for this around 10 months and during this period I ran over 600km in training sessions. True, it wasn’t nearly as much as I wanted, but it still was better than nothing.

Pre-Race

We had to get up at 5.45 in the morning so that we could arrive to start place with enough time to prepare normally, start was at 9.00. I also needed to ‘fuel up’ with breakfast enough liquids (1 litre of energy drinks in my case) and give them enough time to absorb into body. We arrived at start area around 8.00 and weather was just gorgeous, with 14 degrees of Celsius in the morning. It took me around 30 minutes to give away personal belongings with warm-up dress, after that they gave to all runners plastic ´warm-up dress´ which we could ditch at start. Only problem I encountered was that there weren’t enough toilets. So from 8.30 to 8.50 I waited to relieve my natural desires. That left me with only 10 minutes to go to start, which was 1km away from where I was, and do some warm-up and stretching. I arrived at start corridor just some minutes before elite group started. All people were divided into 3 starting groups based on previous run times, because I didn’t have time I was in the last group with first-timers and people whose marathon time was more than 4:15.

Start and first 25 km

From start to 25km was quite uneventful. Our group started 9.15 and I went under start-line at around 9.20, so it took quite a while just to arrive there. During this distance my usual pace was around 5 min/km and I had to constantly slalom around slower people. It’s just incredible how many people there were running. They estimated around 40000 people in start and most of them were in front of me and slower than me, so I had to invent some creative methods to go past them. I guess that this constant speeding up and slowing down because of people caused me to spend quite a lot much needed energy. But it felt very good to pass hundreds and hundreds of people. During this distance I also realised to my surprise that 5 min/km was too fast for me and I was already getting little bit tired (I still my remembered half-marathon race where I ran at 4.10 min/km with no problems).

Until 25km my split times were:

5 km: 00:28:08
10 km: 00:54:50 / 0:26:42
15 km: 01:19:40 / 0:24:50
20 km: 01:44:58 / 0:25:18
25 km: 02:12:32 / 0:27:34

From 25k to 40k

Split times were:

30 km: 02:41:59 / 0:29:28
35 km: 03:14:46 / 0:32:47
40 km: 03:55:29 / 0:40:44

As seen from times they gradually increased, which meant that my tempo lowered. From around 35km until finish-line it was just incredibly hard to keep on moving. The only thing I wanted to do was to stop and lay down, even walking was painful. And I did stop few times just to stretch muscles, rest a tiny bit, gather whatever strength was left in me, think real hard whether to keep on going or quite, and then keep on moving again after finding answers to life, universe, everything and point of starting the race (point of staring is to finish, of course). Water and snack stops were real bless during last 15 km because energy was running real low, dehydration was huge because 3 hours of running and air temperature has risen to around 25-26 degrees, for most of the time there weren’t any shadows, so we ran under hot midday sun. Few times when I stopped I almost collapsed… These stops were ‘interesting’, because when I ran I felt that the only thing I wanted to do was to stop and rest, but I also knew that after I stop it would be even harder to start running again. During last 12 km I think I walked around 3km, and I’m not ashamed, it just was that hard.

From 40km to 42,195m

This 2195 meters took me 20 minutes. No, I wasn’t walking all the time. Just that right after 40km one poor fellow collapsed screaming and it turned out that both of his legs were in cramps, probably because he didn’t drink enough during the course and weather was also very hot, which caused dehydration. So I and one other German guy dragged him to sideways and stretched his shins. I’ve no idea how much time I spent there and honestly, I didn´t care too, at that time my finish time wasn´t important, I just wanted to finish and also that everyone who has gotten this far will also get to finish. Fortunately the other guy knew what he was doing, so after a while I saw that I couldn’t help anymore and I continued my painful trip to finish. I think it was 1.5km or so to finish when I started to run again and this time it was until the glorious finish.

Finish

Net time: 04:15:55

Honestly, I was just too tired to be even happy about it. It took about 10 minutes after finish when I got the medal, took some refreshments and found a place to sit down. I must admit that if there weren’t so many people around I’d probably cried, I really felt like it. It just seemed so unreal that I actually finished a marathon. It was physically most hard thing I’ve done to date, even to 40km+ trips with 15kg equipment done in army can´t compare to marathon. My personal belonging were some 1km away from finish and I had to make three 5 minute stops before I could walk there.

Afterwards everything went quite smoothly, I got my stuff, dressed, met with my extremely patient and lovely wife, who had to wait about 6 hours from my prestart to postfinish. Yea, it was even tough day for her. After I met her we went straight to our hostel. Trip from finish area to out hostel took way too much time. I think even 10 minute trip would’ve been long, but for us it took around 1.5 hours with 3 different U- and S-bahn trains and too much of walking. There I took a shower, rested a bit, had her to do me a massage, rested a bit, ate a bit, rested a bit more and then went to sleep.
Next day

It’s interesting that day wasn´t so bad as I had imagined. I guess this I can accredit to my training that I could restore relatively quickly. I don´t say I´m restored, but I thought that few days after marathon I won´t even be able to walk, but presto, I did walk, and even quite a lot.

One running book said that last 12km of marathon will provide a lot of soul searching, because of the tremendous effort you have to make to keep on moving. When I read that I believed it, but I didn’t imagine it to be so tough. I’ve ran some hard races that were hard because I was untrained, but marathon was just another level of effort. Unbelievably, mind-bogglingly, staggeringly, incredibly very-very hard.

But, here comes the illogical part, I will do it again!
I’ve been bitten by marathon bug and I’m sure this will not be my last marathon. I did test my limits, right now they’re 42km and 4:15:55, but I’m sure these are not my real limits. Little more training, little more preparing and I’m sure 3:30 is no problem for marathon.

This is scary

Most of you certainly have heard about scientology. And brainwashing. And what strange things religion can do to people. Well, here’s an example that really scares. I’ve no idea what’s the background of the guy who is filming, but he seems to know these 3 fanatics personally.

And no, there’s no hidden meaning behind this. Just look and make your own decisions.

Herring is a race horse!

One question out to all believers. What would it take for you to stop believing in Bible and/or God? I mean what evidence, what reasoning, what proof would be enough to leave religion? Could there be anything at all which can cause this?

This question, and of course many-many more,  is what I’ve been thinking about lately. I try to be as open-minded as I can and for me open-mindedness also means that when I see that I do something wrong, or that something what I believe is wrong, or even when I see that fundamental principles on which I’ve based my life are wrong – I change it, Christians call it repentance. This is also what you do when you ‘come’ to church – you change your lifestyle, if it may be called like that, and start to follow Jesus (whatever version of it church preaches).

Since last week, when the word got out that I have doubts and stopped attending church services, I’ve been asked many-many times from from different people where did those doubts came from, what is it exactly that you doubt about, when did they start etc. When I tell where they came from – mostly reading material from Internet, what atheists ex-Christians and people from other religions think about Christianity, Bible and religion at all – I’ve got many answers that said something in lines of: “Yeah, I know, I’ve been reading such material too, but it was too destructive for my faith and I started to doubt about this myself, so I just stopped reading it. So I don’t have to doubt anymore.”

So I keep away from absolutely anything that even might oppose my faith, that might make me doubt. And even when I find some things to which I don’t know answers, or sound contrary to Bible, I dismiss them right away. Why? Because Bible is right and even when I don’t understand it it must be right, because I believe it is right! Why I believe it is right? Because Bible itself says it is correct, infallible Word of God. Can you detect circular logic here? I believe it is right, because it says it is right and I believe it. There is no way any outside information can come in and change that view.

Anyway, for me where was this ‘gap’, where outside info could come in and right now I’m in this doubting state, which I must deal with. I know to believers this is absolutely incomprehensible that someone, who has been a believer himself for so long (like me), might doubt the existence of God and that Bible is infallible and living Word of God. I know it because I’ve been there, done that and got the T-shirt.

To skip little bit of ahead in time to answers that might say: “There’s absolutely nothing that might change my mind about Bible and its correctness”. I want ask this – isn’t this just a little bit closed minded approach?

Arthur Koestler once pointed out, “Faith is a wondrous thing; it is not only capable of moving mountains, but also of making you believe that a herring is a race horse.”

Soon, very soon

Only 14 more days to go to my first marathon. I think this time will go too fast. And now is already the time when there’s nothing I can add to my training. If last 6 months were not enough, then they are not enough, in 2 weeks I can do more harm than good.

Bad thing is that during last 7 days I couldn’t do any training, because on 2nd of Sept was half-marathon race and I’ve been quite tired after that. So I just tried to rest from that race for the first half of the week, but after that came out of the blue sore throat and headaches. There is no way I’m going to risk getting even more ill by running in such condition. I’d choose not to run for 2 more weeks and just walk the marathon than not to go there at all. Darnit, I’ve been waiting for this event since November of 2005! I think my emotional stress has had at least some part of this last period tiredness and ‘kind-of sickness’, you can read about the reasons what cause the stress from my previous posts about religion.

At least half-marathon race went well, my net time was 1:28:18, which is just what I targeted – to run under 1:30 or thereabouts. If I’d run 10K, I’m sure I’d made new PR, because inside that 21,1K I ran first 10K in record time. It feels so good to be in shape, I recommend it to everybody! Yes, for me to to get in this shape meant to run ~600km in 6 months, usually 3 times per week (which is not much, I want to run more, but unfortunately don’t have time for this), but it’s worth every second spent.

Unanswered questions

Here are some questions about Christianity that I, with my limited mind, just can’t find any answers that make sense.

• If God really loves all people as His children, His creation, is it really loving thing to send them to eternal damnation, because we supposedly don’t do His will? Honestly, I can’t imagine this thing happening in human family.
• Why kill your own son so you can forgive other people their mistakes? (or, why go yourself and let yourself be killed so that you could forgive others?)
• Why aren’t there any extrabiblical records about miracles that are described in Bible? (3 hour darkness during day described in Matthew, in OT when day was made longer, feeding of 5000+ people etc). It can’t be just that maybe they didn’t notice or just didn’t write it down. There are many occasions in history when same events are recorded around the world (meteorites, for example, and this isn’t even very miraculous event).

John 14:13-14 says: “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (NIV).

James 1:5-6a “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt“.

In one other place it says that whatever I ask according to Gods will, it will be done. I believe it is God’s will that I understand Bible and believe it. But what if I don’t get any answer? What if I get the answer that I don’t expect? I expect Bible and God to be true. But right now, for some unknown reason, I have ‘mind-block’.

P.S. Did you know that ‘kill-count’ in Bible comparing God vs. Satan is 2000000+ versus 10? Interesting, isn’t it?

Losing my religion

DANGER! Following text might cause you to think, read it at your own responsibility.

Little background. I’ve been a christian for about 5 years, I was converted in Oct 2001. These have been good years, sometimes challenging, sometimes frustrating, but still very good. Before I became christian I read all kinds of religious and metaphysical stuff that I could get my hands on and whatever stroke my fancy at the time, including yoga, eastern philosophy, astral projection and such stuff. When I became christian it was only for one reason – I believed Bible to be true Word of God, inerrant and absolute guide for living, changing my life, and Jesus to be my personal saviour who forgives my sins, because he died for then on cross. All in all, I trusted that Bible is true and God is good.

I did have some doubts at ’studying’ time, prior my baptism, but they were answered and I didn’t see the need to do more research on that. Mostly my doubts were kind of “I heard that someone said that…” and so on, not something specific.

Now I think I’ve come to some kind of turning point in my faith, I’m on the crossroad and I don’t know the answers anymore, life doesn’t seem that black-and-white like it was pictured to me and the beginning of my christian road.

Christians, including myself, picture God from Bible as all-loving, neverchanging, allknowing Supreme Being. And yes, there are many-many places that support that view. But what about God from Old Testament? From there I just can’t see that love… Why would God want to wipe out entire nations, including women and even infants and livestock? Because maybe these pagans turn israelites away from true God? How is that defined as good? Or how about when few guys look inside arc He kills everyone surrounding (50000 men)? Or when God ordered israelites to kill entire nation, who did something bad to them 450 years ago? Taking this analogy, then our little Estonia should right away nuke Germany, Sweden, Russia and more surrounding countries who have invaded us and killed our people. Not that I want to do that, I just use amplified analogy to get the point across.

Another dilemma. What about people who are not christians? Bible says very simply that whoever doesn’t meet the requirements to be saved goes to hell for eternity, additional to that, Christ says that “many try, but few actually do get saved”. So, according to that maybe 5% of whole population gets saved, where is love in that? To get eternal pain and punishment for non-eternal sins we’ve done here on Earth. Now counter-argument might be, that actually we don’t know who really gets saved, this is Gods decision, but then this is against Bible. Bible doesn’t leave such gray areas to speculate. My way or the highway, no other choice.

How about contradictions in the Bible? There are many places which contradict, which I just can’t logically explain away. If I do admit that there are errors in Bible, then what? How do I know what to trust and what not? If I know there are humanly errors, additions and removals in the Bible, how in the world can I trust it as inerrant Word of God?

Bible tells that I can understand it only when I have faith. It means I must have blind faith in a book that I know contains errors. It seems that faith begins where logic and reason ends…

Like in Old Testament people let God to give them signs to recognize that He was the True God. I’ve done same thing, I’ve requested a ’sign’, I’ll see what comes of it.

Actually there are many more thoughts circling in my mind, maybe I’ll write them down at some later date.

2nd rule of gold

Long time has passed, but here I am again. Vacation is over and lots of work is ahead. It’s interesting – I found out that I think about my financial freedom more when I’m at work; during vacation my motivation to think, dream and plan about my financial future was very-very low. Conclusion from that – vacation is the permanent ’status’ I want to achieve, freedom from worries about future, free from worries that I don’t use my time so effectively as I should (it’s incredible how much stress this can create – at evenings when I’m too tired to do something, I automatically start to think that I’m too lazy, I should be doing something… something… something useful… or something).

Ok, now that this is off my chest – 2nd rule of gold: “Control thy expenditures“.

This is logical follow-up to the first law. How else can I save at least 10% of my income, unless I control my expenses. I think this rule much more easier said than done, especially for me, because I’m quite an impulsive buyer by nature and it takes real self-control not to spend everything I earn. Unfortunately I must admit that I’ve been doing this until the beginning of this year, and not only spending what I earned, but I’ve spent much more than that. That is so easily accomplished by credit cards and loans. Now is the eating time for the soup I’ve cooked together for quite some time.

I believe people are different, but one way for me, and possibly for others too, to control my expenses is to make budget and think at least 3 days before buying something more expensive and non-mandatory. Something like new stereo, computer etc. Fact is, that the more you earn, the more you can spend too. It’s so easy to get a ‘better lifestyle’, when your salary increases, but you really don’t need that. You can just as easily solve your natural problems on 100$ toilet seat as on 1000$ seat. Of course the 1000$ seat is more comfortable, but do you really need it? Same thing goes with everything we use or consume – food, clothes, cars etc.