On the Inevitability of Failure:
-Learn from your mistakes, adapt to new data, and carry forward with the business of living. And if you're very lucky, you may have the opportunity to help someone else in avoiding the same mistake.

On the Inevitability of Death:
-Death is the admission price for life. That we are here at all, against all odds, is something to appreciate. Think of the generations before us who were all so thoroughly modern, civilizations that lasted centuries longer than our nation-states now dust.

The last thing that those who loved us but are no longer here would want, is for us to be unhappy. Mourn, as it the natural process of things. Give yourself time to cope, to find your own way to say good bye.

When our time comes, surely we would not want our friends and family to wail into the Ether for the rest of their lives. Squandering their inheritance and sanity on seances and palm readers and charlatans. We would want them to move on while remembering the good times we've shared in life. We would want them to look forward and embrace the possibilities of life and to pass on a bright future to the next generation that they may stand on our shoulders. We would not want them to languish in delusional apathy, longing for a past that can never come again and implicitly forfeiting any future happiness whatever.

Make the most of your time, find happiness by making others so. Help those who cannot help themselves and our civilization is just a little bit more worthy of the name.

On the Exceptional Person:
-If everyone passively accepted the morality of their elders, the American founding fathers would never have crafted their republic in the New World, civil rights would be an academic exercise in all countries except only some, and there will have been zero progress in the world since the Bronze Age. The exceptional person can look beyond the era and country into which they happen to have been born, and contemplate the possibilities of a future mindset (at the individual and societal level) which is unfettered by the dogma of widely accepted convention.

On the Teenage Perspective:
-The teenage years don't necessarily have to constitute the best years of life. In fact, they often don‘t. The price of youth is a distinct restriction placed by society upon various personal freedoms. Whether it concerns educational achievement beyond the mandatory curriculum, a social network that extends beyond peers of a particular age group, or a lack of direction regarding career, it is accepted that before maturity, young people lack the experience and perspective needed to make responsible choices.

Time is required before one can, as a capable and mature adult, put the experiences of youth into proper perspective. When evaluating your options in a social situation, do not adopt the expectations of peers, whether friend, acquaintance, or stranger by fiat. Do the hard work of thinking for yourself, and insist on acting for your own good pleasure.

Depression is not the natural state, particularly in youth. Some stress is needed in life in order to cope effectively. Do not accept the stigmas that persist in some parts of the world regarding mental health. For the sake of ourselves and our loved ones, we must develop the courage to take the tough first step of acknowledging symptoms of mental health issues when they arise rather than ignore them.

Don't accept the authority of any one person regarding the questions of life. Research the many curiosities of existence for yourself, come to your own conclusions for your own reasons. The answers on offer from others will likely be what they’ve found to be most convincing to them, but they are not you dear reader.

As you advance down the path of life, ensure that you not only never stop asking questions, but insist upon demanding answers that satisfy your judgment.

On the Meaning of Life:
-Don't accept someone else's answer to what your life should or should not mean, because by definition you are best qualified to do the work of finding the answers for yourself! In the process of seeking it, read about the great figures of history. Broaden the scope of your knowledge and thus, gain perspective on your own time. With perspective thus gained, you just might find where your passions lie.

On the Desire for Eternal Life:
-I for one do not wish to exist eternally. If we lived forever, there would be no meaning in any of our endeavors. It is because we are only here for so long (and lucky for it) that we should make the most of the time that we do have, in the only world we know anything about. Tell the people in your life how you feel while you have the opportunity. For those who are no longer here, enjoy the good memories created with them, for they are made all the more valuable because we can never make new memories.

The certain expectation of eternity cheapens the idea of life in this world. Because life is finite, we seek to improve it for ourselves and others. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, because they did not sit idly by, secure in the knowledge that absolutely nothing could ever possibly change no matter how many centuries pass.

- On Quantifying Intelligence:
Those who can't be bothered to do the hard the work of thinking for themselves will be more easily distracted as they sleep-walk their way through what can only be a passive existence. Blinded to any possibilities beyond the arbitrary conventions of thought, dress, and custom that are accepted in the society, so many seem content to wallow in an self-induced miasma of apathy. One is considered intelligent in proportion with the extent to which one lives the examined life, refusing to be satisfied with these conventions.

For 'g' (general intellectual functioning) like any number of phenotypic effects, there is room for variety in the expression of genes among a given population. You will have the majority of people being of average intellectual capacity (the top of the bell curve in a normal distribution). You will also have both extremes of genius and simplicity at either far end of the same scale where a much smaller proportion of the general population is represented. This of course assumes a statistically significant sample size.

That said, intelligence, as neurophysiology, is poorly understood. Consider the standard educational curriculum. A randomly selected student may have a learning style not suited to a traditional classroom setting. He or she may learn better visually or by reading, they may prosper in a group setting or by studying individually, ect.

On Purpose:

-Atheism does not imply nihilism. Looking at life as a singular chance to leave the world in a better place than I found it, for friends and family if not for the world, is meaningful in itself. This purpose, undertaken with conscious consideration, is tangible through every subsequent action taken for it's own sake. Life is thus undertaken for the general betterment without expectation of any divine reward or punishment whatever.

Contrast this perspective with that of a religionist who, desperately looking to another world for the comfort and certitude of eternal life at the cosmic scale, is content to label the ills of the world as sinful and the best that can be expected from mere mortals. This perspective of infinity implies that for justice to have any meaning, it must also exist at the cosmic scale. How else to redress the imbalances of life on this mere spec of a planet, with its unanswered toils and sufferings, than through divine edict.

Justice, for them, must be handed back down from on high by a divine, supernatural, and thoroughly unknown dimension of imagined posturings to be in any sense meaningful. In contrast, those of us who do not assign a supernatural dimension to such matters insist that if justice is to be done, we must seek it through the courts, the legislature, and the executive. If those who came before us thought that life was without purpose, we would not have civilization, art, philosophy, culture, science, or commerce today.

When I was in Fifth grade we all stood to recite the pledge of allegiance and I pondered the words and their meaning. They all made some sort of sense except 'Under God.' It was a question I felt, for whatever reason, should remain unasked. Perhaps due to my desire to remain in good standing with the relevant authority figures.

In elementary school we sang songs to Columbus who 'discovered America'. We should've sang praise to Eratosthenes of Alexandria. He calculated the circumference of a 'round' earth to high precision millenia before Columbus was even born.

In Middle School we learned Greek mythology and I figured 'God' was our culture's equivalent. Ancient stories from which we derive meaning to apply to the questions of today. To give some people a foundation upon which to build their lives. I found myself wondering how many centuries would have to pass before children learned of Jesus the same way I learned about Zeus.

In high school I saw news coverage in the library of some sort of meeting between the President and Arab leaders. Seeing this I figured there must be isolated pockets of people out there who still took religion seriously, or at least chose to take it upon themselves to practice local traditions for their own sake, carrying them lovingly into the future.

All this time I adopted a live and let live philosophy with those who thought differently from myself. Who was I to presume I knew better?

9/11 happened and I realized some people will go to any length to rationalize violence. There are those who would hijack their culture's values, their people's personal moral standing, and distort them for their own selfish political agendas. They would dare to call it morality, and they would find many others willing to embrace the flames of destruction.

I was still in college at this time. Most of my thinking was focused on curriculum to the abandon of most everything else I now realize.

Since graduating with my BA, I found myself scouring the internet for knowledge... looking for others who thought like me. 5 years out of school, finding myself typing all this, I can reflect properly.

Through the magic of the digital age (pod casts and websites), I've come to appreciate my scientific world view for what it is.

I've run the spectrum of academic beliefs: certainty that the universe doesn't owe us comfort or meaning, questioning my perception of reality, judging others a little too quickly. All this when I should've pondered the words I heard so long ago: the wise man knows that he knows nothing.

Given an infinite universe, that which we deem improbable, even impossible, may end up being inevitable. How presumptuous we are.

Given enough time, the space between us and the nearest galaxies may expand enough that our decedents will ''observe' nothing outside the Milky Way. Humanity may revert to earlier notions that there is nothing at all in the great beyond.

Given the above, my objective world view, which I've valued my whole life, is in question.

If those who follow us fail to conceive of a reality beyond that which they can see, or worse mistake our ponderings (should they survive) for delusion just as we look at the religious teachings of the societies in power before us with pity for their ignorance, how can we progress?

I wonder if humanity will survive long enough to migrate to another solar system before the average yellow star we've deemed the Sun dies and takes Earth with it.

I've come to value the people in my life more than anything, and I'm struggling with a way to express it.

I feel its up to us to give our own lives meaning. Starting with the people we choose to walk alongside down the path of life.

Despite the above, part of me cant help wondering if happiness is anything more than a self imposed delusion in itself. Something our brains have evolved to do over time.

I dont know what I want out of life, other than I dont wish to lose anyone else in the process of living it.

I'm happy to have had the chance to discuss the book Atlas Shrugged briefly with Uncle David before his passing. I have a copy that is on my reading list.

I dont know if I should go back to school for an MBA, a major I took out of indecision, or take up a scientific branch, something I may enjoy yet not have the aptitude for.

I guess happiness for me is instilling it in those around me.

I wish I could claim all this came from my own mind. The truth is I've likely heard it all else where. I just put it together in this particular way for reasons I dont understand. I guess everyone looks for a way to express themselves once they find something to say.

I'll take that a step further and borrow from what I've read most recently. I too would like to be able to play the piano. I would love to sit down and play Chopin, give it my own spin.

The Gods (1872), by Robert Ingersoll

The first account we have of the devil is found in that purely scientific book called Genesis, and is as follows:

"Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. * * And the Lord God said Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life: and eat, and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life."

According to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to the very letter, Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become as gods, knowing good and evil.

The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." From every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil." For this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods.

If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.

Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!

...

To me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concerning gods and devils. They are a perfectly natural production. Man has created them all, and under the same circumstances would create them again. Man has not only created all these gods, but he has created them out of the materials by which he has been surrounded. Generally he has modeled them after himself, and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears. and organs of speech. Each nation made its gods and devils speak its language not only, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made by the people. No god was ever in advance of the nation that created him.

The negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. The Mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. The Jews ware not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. Zeus was a perfect Greek, and Jove looked as though a member of the Roman senate. The gods of Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. The gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. The gods of India were often mounted upon elephants; those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the deities of the Arctic zone were passionately fond of whale's blubber.

Nearly all people have carved or painted representations of their gods, and these representations were, by the lower classes, generally treated as the real gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers and offered sacrifice.