Known vs Unknown: A Voting Rationale

Someone opined that they hoped the 2016 GOP Presidential nominee would be elected.

I couldn’t disagree more.

Here’s why:
As we have suffered, never before has there been a more grotesque figure campaigning for the noble office of the President.

The candidate has never served in an office of Public Trust, nor ever served in any Elected Office. There is literally no shred of evidence of governing competency, much less experience, in any Public Office, and though our Constitution states that the minimum eligibility requirements for the office are to be “a citizen of the United States… the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States,” we have never elected an individual as President whom has never served in any capacity of Public Trust, nor Elected Office.

And so, in that regard, the candidate is a significantly Unknown Quantity. That can be, and often is, fraught with enormous peril.

We expect

This is where I’m supposed to cobble together some title that clues you in to what you’re about to read. Just so happens, you’re SOL. ;-)

As a kid, I recollect lying in bed one evening and thinking that nothing was something… that there was absolutely no such thing as “no thing” because “thing” was something, and that a void, or chasm were things which also existed because there was something before and after, and which may have surrounded the same void or chasm. I reasoned further, that the existence of a void, or chasm could only be identified first by the presence of another thing which was opposite. Those thoughts I had long before I’d heard of the names of the world’s great philosophers, or even read any of their thoughts. My questioning led me to suppose that, when I met the Almighty – I still aspire to that Beatific Vision – I would ask Him, “Where did you come from?”

For quite some time, I have also shared that we understand the things we do not now understand by comparing them to the things we do understand. We analogize. It was fascinating – indeed exciting – to recently hear a scientific researcher – an astrophysicist – say almost verbatim the exact same thing.

In much the same way, we use our brains to understand.

Animals as Atheists

Animals presumably lack God-belief. Are they atheists?

To so define atheism as the mere lack of God-belief is absurd.

Would it then therefore, be more reasonable to presume that “agnostic” would be more accurate? Or perhaps, would anti-theist be more accurate?

There are things outside ourselves which we do not know, and cannot now know, and perhaps may never know. Yet, at some time in the future, some things now not known may be known, an example of which is the existence of the atomic particles.

From such an one’s perspective (as from those whom so describe themselves as “atheist”), the existence or nonexistence of God can neither be proven, nor denied.

Science, for example, has failed to prove that God does NOT exist. And while there are individual claimants whom so assert, no scientific body of evidence has arisen to assert – or dissuade through proof – otherwise.

Atheism can be and is defined as “the doctrine or belief that there is no God,” which also claims “a lack of belief in the existence of God.” And it so narrowly defined, that though it is variously worded, the bottom line is that there is a belief.

Belief, however, is accurately defined and understood as an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists, and perhaps secondarily, as trust, faith or confidence in something or someone.

Atheism is defined as the belief that God does not exist; then is it not inherently antithetical to assert that God does NOT exist?

There is no proof that God does NOT exist.

According to select individuals (not necessarily active upon this forum) whom self-identify as “atheist,” and organizational dogma (principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true) a “belief” is what they possess, yet simultaneously argue against their possession of a belief, or existence of the same.

The American Atheist website says that “…atheists certainly do not “deny” that gods exist. Denial is the “refusal to believe.” ” However, they further conclude that “There is no proof or evidence for the existince (sic) of gods.”

Yet the site also states that “We are atheists because in our view…” Other suitable words for “view” are “perspective” and “opinion.” And an “opinion” is synonymous with “belief.” Thus, their site could also accurately state, “We are atheists because we believe…” How inherently contradictory!

Such a remark is antithetical to that which is previously espoused, that “The common thread that ties all atheists together is a lack of belief…”

Yet setting all that aside, even Richard Dawkins remains open-minded about the claim that Intelligent Design is a scientific hypothesis writing in his 2006 tome “The God Delusion,” that “the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other.”

There is logical conclusion to which those such as Dawkins arrive, whom assert in The Great Ape Project that chimpanzees, gorillas or baboons have moral rights, or warn of allegedly dire consequences of the “overpopulation” of Earth. Truly, they must be Enemies of Reason. For if apes have the same rights as you… then they are your peers.

Go ask the residents or visitors to Kyoto’s district of Arashiyama, with Japan’s “Monkey Mountain” if they think those viciously dangerous apes ought to have the same rights as humans.

Yeah… don’t keep that chimp in jail! Imprisoning him just because he flung a turd at you because you wouldn’t give him your banana and peanuts!? So he stole your purse, and infected you with SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) when he scratched open your face with his claws… so what?! Why, he has the same rights as you!

Who would be the judge? What law school would they attend?

Planet of the Apes, anyone? “Get your stinkin’ paws off me, you damned dirty ape!”

Now… what’s that about being a “monkey’s uncle”?