The Great Debate - A Personal Outlook

Before reading, please keep in mind that the posts on this Blog are of personal musings and thoughts. I mean not to offend any certain religion, sect, person or ideals! Feel free to comment, if you like, but no arguments or harsh words, please. We're all human, and we all have our ways of living our lives. 

Being a YouTuber, both in creating and viewing, I've watched thousands of videos of differing varieties. Everything from music videos to gaming videos, weird videos to documentaries; pretty much anything and everything that crossed my screen as a suggestion or a search result. One of the videos that grabbed me, recently, was the debate between Bill Nye & Greg Ham. Here's a breakdown of the debate, topics at hand in the video & a video link (I'll continue at the bottom):

Tom Foreman, a broadcast journalist from CNN, was chosen to moderate the debate.^[21] Each man was allowed a five-minute opening statement, followed by a thirty-minute presentation of the evidence for his side; each man was then given five minutes to rebut the other's arguments, and then the floor was opened for questions that the audience had previously submitted on cards.^[21][22] Ham won the coin toss to determine which man delivered his opening statement first.^[21]The debate lasted two and a half hours.^[14] During his opening statement, Ham declared, "I believe science has been hijacked by secularists."^[21] He followed up by pointing to several examples of scientists who profess a belief in YEC, most notably Raymond Vahan Damadian, a pioneer in the field of magnetic resonance imaging.^[23]Ham also drew a distinction between "historical science" and "observational science", a distinction the Christian Science Monitornotes is unique to creation scientists.^[23] "We observe things in the present, and we're assuming that has always happened in the past," said Ham, adding, "You've got a problem, because you weren't there."^[24] During his rebuttal, Nye asked, "Why should we accept your word for it that natural law changed 3,000 years ago and we have no record of it?"^[24]Nye cited radiometric dating, ice core data, and the light from distant stars to argue that the Earth must be much older than young Earth creationists like Ham theorize.^[23] Ham argued that these various dating methods are untrustworthy because they often give varying ages for the same artifacts.^[24]The Genesis flood narrative, which Nye repeatedly referred to as "Ken Ham's great flood", was a major topic of discussion, with Nye arguing that a boat constructed according to the parameters given for Noah's Ark in the Book of Genesis would not float.^[21][23] Nye also calculated that, if there were 7,000 "kinds" of animals on the Ark, on average, 11 new species would have had to come into existence every day for the Earth to contain all presently known species.

  The idea of a young earth is interesting, I'll admit. It would mean that families have only had so many generations of relatives, extinct species of animals died off after only hundreds of years, etc. Everything would have to happen so quick within such a small amount of years, that it's mind-boggling. I'll even admit, in my younger years, that I mulled around the idea of the earth being created within so many years because whom or whatever created it was in a big damn hurry; like a student putting together a science project at the last minute. I toyed with the idea of the Earth being created within 7 days, however, 7 days being equal to a thousand years per day in "Heavenly time". But, like I said, I was young and was exploring thoughts in my own head.

Nowadays, though, I'm coming to the point of simply believing that the world is here and we got here somehow and someway. While this logic may leave my Christian upbringing in utter disappointment, I have not forgotten what I was taught and why I was taught it. Truth be told, throughout the last twenty years of my life, starting at age 10, I started balancing belief in religious teachings, or at least the core ideas, and the proof of Science. It's not an easy thing to do, either; at least, not out loud. Safe to say, there were times when I thought I might be crucified myself if I had ever talked about what I was really thinking during church service. Then again, if that were the truth, would that church be a good place to be? Probably not. Any congregation that would reprimand a person for being curious about life is not worth the air they're freely breathing, in my opinion. But, that's a matter for another entry, entirely.

At this point in my life; I'm 30 years old and married to an awesome lady, with whom I hope to have kids one day. And, what will said kids be taught in my household? Free will and thought. With that, though, we will be teaching to have faith and hope in life. Currently, I can, also, say that the odds of attending a congregation is slim to none; this being due to past experiences of ill-will amongst "good people". It could be argued that coming from a family and background as I have should be reason enough to attend a weekly service with my kids; however, again, in my experiences, it's too risky to introduce a child, at an early age at least, to potential favoritism and mocking and/or shunning of social status. They'll be getting enough of that in middle school and high school! If they choose to want to attend a service later in their life? So be it. With that said, I have attended every so often with family, at their own services or ministries. So, maybe there's still a chance my heart can changed on the matter? Possibly, but it'll happen later, rather than sooner.

Life, Itself

Humanity has never fell short of exploring, it's how we dominated the planet. We explored, we conquered and we spread our ideas, beliefs and teachings throughout the last 30,000 to 50,000 years. With that, we're still a relatively young species when compared to the rest of the cosmos of reality. With all our advancements, we're still learning to this day about our planet and where we TRULY come from...

I was raised on Christian beliefs; a mix of baptist and, later in life, non-denominational. My background in religion is nothing short of solid. I'm a preacher's kid of my father, his father, his father, and so on. Most of my family, on both of my parent's sides are either singers, praise leaders, pastors, ministers and/or worshipers of Christ. With these beliefs comes an understanding, at it's core, that there is something greater in the world than one's own self. A power beyond our understanding and comprehension, at least for now. I do believe that sometime in the near or far future we will come to enlightenment of why and how we are here; rather it be because of a deity(ies) or because of a chance mix of the right elements of life.

What I do know for sure, though, is that we are here and we are learning for a reason! A reason that could only be to understand ourselves. As human beings we are life incarnate; we live, we grow, we experience and we die. It's really that simple. Such a simple cycle and it's been working in our favor, and hopefully will continue to do so for eons. The average person looks to the future with hope and promise, and that drives us in our current state of everyday life and society in general. Humanity's past, though, is another state of thinking altogether; it was all about survival!

At a primal level, we're built and breed to survive. Caves, fire, food, scavenging, hunting, gathering, mating, inventing, farming, cultivating, expanding and so on is our way of carrying on. Our ancestors did it for thousands of years before us, and there are even folks in this day and age that continue to do so, rather they're homeless or they want to survive on the land. Theoretically, if we lost everything that we take for granted in our current society, such as electricity; these skills would kick in for us and we return to the simpler things in life. Not to suggest that the simpler way of loving would be without repercussions; millions of people would starve, freeze, lose life-saving equipment, etc, My point is, though, that we carry on; because I believe we are meant to. We're here to learn and explore who we are, and who we are is life, itself.

We strive to discover our true origin and purpose. Humanity is the manifestation of the universe trying to figure itself out. Let's just suppose that humankind is here because of a creator; now, this creator would have to come from somewhere within a reality; somewhere within this life-space. Even if the being that created humanity was from outside our universe or reality, said-being would have to have a beginning of it's own. It would have had to have been given an essence of life. It would be a part of life, able to recreate life; much like a man and woman creating life. Life begets life; and it always will!

(This post is a work in progress...)

Those aliens!

I'm posting some intriguing pics of photos that have been released by NASA. These pictures have some pretty weird things going on and I wanted to speculate and share them. Here we go:

Wal-Mart has gone interplanetary!


This one is interesting, because the object to the left, in the highlighted area, has a VERY distinct form that does look very humanoid. Kind of like a Mermaid sunbathing on a rock. Weird but relevant, since Mermaids can be real, if aliens are!


This one looks like Yoda! Mmmm...Find Yoda, you did! Believe in Aliens, now, you must!


This one more reminds of the villain from the Scream saga. "I wanna see what the insides of your planet look like!"


While there are literally thousands upon thousands of satellite images for different planets; these were the most fun! That's all I have, for now! Thanks for reading.

Nightfall

Aside from the dramatic title I came up with for this entry, what else is to be appreciated about night time? Well, like Batman, I do all my work at night, due to a recent schedule change, so I have experience in living, working and even walking in it.

Darkness tends to scare most people, but why? Because of the unknown, the lack of light, weird noises in the dark areas or does it go deeper? How about a forebode to anxiety? The emotion of anxiety plays a specific role in our behavioral responses to stimuli just as the emotions of love, anger, and sadness do, acting to increase our ability to cope with stress and more fully exploit beneficial opportunities. It's a natural reaction, or so it would seem!

While anxiety is deeply rooted in our psyche, it is not entirely instinctive. We also learn fear and anxiety responses from our parents. If a small child is frightened of an new or unknown object and its mother responds in a calming manner, the kid learns that the item is not a threat. If the parent responds with apprehension herself, however, the child's fears are confirmed and enhanced. This allows for the child to rapidly learn of the dangers around themselves without actually having to be bitten by snakes, mauled by lions, or be electrocuted by a penny in the wall socket while simultaneously figuring out that everything from leaves and small rocks to thunder and scary scenes on TV aren't actual threats.

Crazy, right? It's all about upbringing! Personally, my upbringing was all over the place; moving between divorced parents, different schools, etc. For all the situations that were presented to me, I had to learn to adapt and overcome fairly quickly to any fears; especially crabs! The crustacean, not the other things. (You have a dirty mind!) Anyway, moving around so much was, in a way, a bonus to my childhood, because it allowed me to develop more quickly in the area of recognizing fears, the unknown and the dark. 

One part of my childhood had been spent in one-bedroom lakeside house with a poorly lit living room, where I slept. The house was older, and was more akin to trailer, but it was a roof, nonetheless. At night, I usually moved from the couch down to the floor, I was weird like that; from a soft place with cushions to a shag carpet floor. (It was kept very clean, by the way!) While sleeping on the floor, I would stare up at the ceiling before falling asleep, and would get a view of a statue of an Indian artwork that was placed on a small wall that separated the kitchen from the living room.

This "art" piece was of a face at one end, and what looked like a stream of clouds at the other. Maybe two feet in length and only about a foot high. The "clouds" were bent in the middle so as to look like the face at the front was flying through them, in an upwards motion. It may not sound so bad, at first, but when this statue was lit with the wrong kind of light in the middle of the night, it took on the liking of a creature of doom! It scared the shit out of me, for lack of a better euphemism. So, how did I deal with the Indian of Doom? Well, my father was never one to shy away from what might of scared him, at least not how I knew him. So, drawing from my time with him, I worked up the courage to one night just sit and stare at the art piece.

Wait, sit and stare? Yep! It worked, too. I sat for, at least, two to three hours just watching it and having courage to not look away. I was afraid that the head might turn and look straight at me, or the mouth will move and utter a shriek of unnatural sound. It never did, though, and nor did I! It was a test for me. A test of my being strong and facing my fears; my darkness, if you will. The next day, I asked my father about the statue and the only thing I remember him saying was that is was made of clay. A face statue of clay; "clayface". Yea, you got that right! I face off against one of Batman's greatest nemeses...kinda.

Moving on; my life took a small turn for the better when I "faced" off with my fear that night, and I grew towards the man I would become, today. Sure, there are still somethings that give me the creeps; Mama June, the human-thumb, for example!


Pictured above: The face of evolution failing, horribly! Let's hope her daughter knows better! (Long shot.)

Right, so as I was saying; facing your fear, your darkness, is the key to overcoming it. You can run all you want, but much like good ol' horror film villains, it will enventually catch up with you! Face it head on, and never flinch. Thanks for reading!

(Linkback) Foxarocious' Inner Den: On the road to becoming a warrior...

Check out this guy! He's a fellow YouTuber and is working on himself, as we all do at times in our life! Much love!

Foxarocious' Inner Den: On the road to becoming a warrior...: About two weeks ago, I asked my subconscious for help with my dilemmas as of late.  It responded with a dream with which I have limited reca...

Little writing project...

Story in the works! The last 8 months or so, I've been working on a Batman inspired story of a man discovering his courage and diving head first into Hell! What you are about to read is the beginning, but not the end...

Kevin Mayfield just signed on for a two-week experimental stent at Arkham Asylum. His goal? Hold on to his sanity and hope to survive to write his thesis...
The story itself is a work in progress, as well as the character development. This may change from a short story to a full-blown novel; of which I am not yet sure.

MADNESS by K.D. Mitchell Jr.

Part 1

"Hero", that had been the term a thug had used when the police had caught and interrogated one of the suspects involved in his father's death. Personally, he didn't believe in heros. They were overrated and over-worshipped, and never stuck around to be given their just rewards. Most of the time, they were just lonely individuals with a superiority-complex taking on the world to prove a point, but he never disregarded the fact that there was some good in their acts of heroism, or as the authorities called it "vigilanteism". 

Born Kevin Darence Mayfield, he had moved from Starling City at the age of 19 to start school, and he had never looked back. His father murdered in an alleyway by somebody wanting the change in their pockets. Luckily, his mother had escaped almost unscathed; she had twisted her ankle and broken a finger in the escape. His father, brave as he was, had been foolish in thinking he could take on and defend his mother from some street thugs. Obviously, in scenarios such as his were parents were placed in, it hadn't ended well. His father murdered in cold-blood, in front of his mother's eyes, just because the thugs wanted to "teach some respect to the old codger that thought he was a hero". 

He was 24 years of age and had just signed his sanity & safety to Quincy Sharp, the Warden of Arkham Asylum. Well, maybe the word signed isn't right. He had had the idea of enrolling in the asylum for a thesis, but had disregarded the idea because it was too insane. In the recent months, however, the thought kept popping back into his mind, like a very bad habit. After weeks of meetings, paperwork & agreements the project had been finalized and approved. He had no idea what he was in for...

Part 2

2 weeks; that was the time alotted for his experiment, and Warden Sharp, that's Quincy Sharp, a good man, had agreed to the project, however very reluctantly. He had agreed to the idea, but only so far as the "new inmate" would just stay confined to his room and make no interaction with the other inmates of the asylum.
He had understood the warden's reluctance to his idea, I mean he was letting a non-criminal, sane person into the bowels of hell without any protection or idea of what to be expected. Who wouldn't be uneasy about the idea? Hell, he was even surprised the warden had gone for it; however, he had signed a declaration freeing the city and the asylum of any blame should he happen to become a hostage, killed or even lose some stability in his mental state due to his time in the hellhole asylum of Arkham Island. 

A hostage? How many times has a hostage been taken inside a secure facility such as Arkham, anyway? He had read news reports and heard rumors from colleagues about past situations within the asylum, nothing about hostage situations, a few breakouts maybe, and possibly a riot. But, hostages never showed up within his limited knowledge of the place. What if he was to be taken hostage, though? Held for ransom or, worse, became a meat shield for a potential breakout? How would he react? What would he do?

He had taken some Hostage Negotiation courses for extra credit; those lessons learned may come in handy in a hostage situation, if he were pulled into one. But, the chances were, he would be fine, as long as he stuck to his room and just allowed the guards and nurses to bring his food each day, as per his agreement with Warden Sharp. Plus, if he was honest with himself, he could barely remember the answers to his tests, let alone his negotiating skills, and how minimal they were, at that. 

The factor of Arkham that really stuck in his mind, was it's reputation and it's inmates. There had been hospitals, asylums, carehouses & prisons back in Starling City, but none compared to the shadow of Arkham. A place for not only the criminally insane, if rumors were to be believed, but villains, in their purest form. He had known of a few, but only through hearsay and loose articles, here and there. One that had always stuck in his mind was, of course, The Joker; a very well-known psychotic that had a thing for theatrics and causing untold mayhem. The Joker had, also, accumulated quite a body count in his time on the outside, if news reports were to be believed. It was one villain he hoped to never run into in a dark alley, or even in a crowded place. Mad men like him, were only out for one thing; chaos. Pure and simple.

There were a few others he had, again, very limited knowledge about including a female thief that gave the term "cat burglar" a literal meaning, one he had overheard some strangers in the street talking about called Scarecrow and a fellow residential Psychologist here at Arkham, named Harleen Quinzel, that had fallen for The Joker and had taken on her own twisted persona. He couldn't remember the name she had given herself; however, from what he knew, she had been a very intelligent and highly attractive doctor. The warden had grimmaced slightly when her name had come up in his first meeting with the Warden. This reaction told him one of two things; the whole matter was tongue-in-cheek inside the actual asylum OR the Warden had some kind of personal connection with the doctor. He assumed the latter; as the warden seemed a very lonely man, at least from what he gauged in their meetings up to a few days ago.

Part 3

He had always done his best thinking in those moments before falling asleep. His head on the pillow and ready for the whole world to wash away for a good nights sleep. But, tonight was not one of those nights; in fact it would be a restless one. His first night in the asylum and some anxiousness was to be expected. He could barely lay still, let alone think. His cot was lumpy, and a cross-bar underneath the mattress was jabbing him violently with each turn of his body.
He was on the cusp of shutting his eyes and drifting off when he heard it; a tap-tap-tap coming from the wall that his cot was nestled up to. The asylum walls had been made of a poor stone mixture, and each tap echoed around his room litely. After a few seconds the tapping stopped; he listened for a bit and after a long period of silence, finally started to fade into sleep, again. Then he heard it again, this time a bit louder and more demanding. He sat up and put his ear to the wall. His bed squeaked with his movement, and immediately the tapping ceased. 

With his ear to the wall and a confused look on his face, he sat motionless; not knowing what to expect. He thought it may have been some lone nut that finds amusement in tapping the night away with some object, or some patient that had a bad habit of pacing too loudly. As soon his thought finished, he heard someone speak, lowly but audibly; "Hey! New guy! How's the weather? You meet good ol' Sharpy, yet?". The voice was raspy, but had a tinge of egotistical confidence. It must be a psychotic he had been roomed next to, but which one? His responding to the stranger in the next room went against everything the warden had warned against, but his curiosity had always gotten the best of him. It took him a minute to work up the nerve to answer back with a questioning tone, "Sharpy? You mean the Warden? And, who is this? I'm not looking to make friends."
The stranger replied, "But friends are such a delight in this life! And, my friendship always brings a smile to those who know me! Why just ask Sharpy, himself. He and I are both very close; even if I did twist his best employee to my whim." There was a low, but audible cackle after the comment that made him nervous.

Without a doubt, this had to be the infamous Joker he had read so much about. Of all the patients to be roomed next to; why would Sharp put him next to this guy? To scare him early on, and hope he changed his mind about the whole idea? He didn't know, but he knew there was nothing to be done about it, tonight. Most of the asylum staff had already gone home for the day, only the security guards were working this wing of the building. 

"New guy!? You still there, or did you lose your mind? That happens alot around here, ya know! Losing your mind. It seems to be a fairly common practice.", another slight cackle followed the statement. A long pause sat in the air, with the silence getting louder. "But, seriously, new guy, what are you in for? Insanity, murder...or both? Personally, I play both sides of the field; it's much funner that way! You always win." His laughter burst to a crescendo that made Kevin back away from the wall, step-off his cot and stare horrified at the blocks of the wall. 

He didn't know what to think or how to react. He was talking to a crazed lunatic with a passion for sadistic humor and playing with people's minds. He decided it play it safe, or as safe it could get; "I was pinched a year ago for a series of arsons. Got life due to some stupid bimbo getting stuck in an elevator! The bitch couldn't get out before the flames turned her into an overdone turkey.  I'm not going to be here long. The feds are transfering me up north for a series of psycho evaluations for some experiment. They told me it could get me out of the big house, so, I agreed to their terms."

In the back of his mind, he been a bit afraid of the story and how he had come up with it so quickly. Arson? Kind of an odd way to go with reasoning of being locked away, but involving a girl's death in the lie, had made it all the more tangible. He hoped the crazy clown would go for it, but he wasn't sure. It's true his neighbor in the next cell was insane, but was he a good judge of substance and truth? He was about to find out.

"Arson? Involuntary manslaughter? Hardly grounds for being locked away in a place like this! Then again, you must like to jerk off into the fire while watching it! Hell of a time, I'd say. Kinda sick for my taste, but to each his own." There was a long silence, and the inmate spoke up, again. " You know what I like about manslaughter, though!? You can't have slaughter without that one thing brings a smile to everybody's face; laughter!" A small maniacal giggle escaped the Joker's room, then another long silence.

He had been listening to the Joker, and taking in all that the clown had been saying. This guy was toxic. Lethal, even. Even having a so-called converstaion with this inmate was poisoning his own sanity. He had to cut it short, somehow. "Yea, well...I love to smile and laugh, just like every other common joe in Gotham." A nervous giggle escaped his mouth, and he continued, "But, I also need my beauty sleep for tomorrow. So, if you don't mind, I'll be going silent for the night. Nice to meet you." Nice to meet you? What the hell was that? This isn't some stranger he was chatting with. This was a full-fledged psycho, capable of killing him without even a wink of remorse.

"Sure new guy, sure! Get your rest, but remember; I'm right here. All. Night. Long." The tailend of the last word was followed with another low laugh that made Kevin's skin crawl. He decided to just ignore it, if he coulc, and hit the hay. He crawled back onto his caught, and tried to get as comfortable as possible before finally drifting off.